Comparing Frankenstein, Aylmer, and Dr. Phillips

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Comparing Frankenstein, Aylmer, and Dr. Phillips

Authors Mary Shelly, Nathaniel Hawthorne and John Steinbeck have all created scientists in at least one piece of their work. Mary Shelly's character Frankenstein, from her novel Frankenstein, is a man who is trying to create life from death. Aylmer, the main character in Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story "The Birthmark," is a scientist who is trying to rid his wife of a birthmark on her almost perfect complexion. In John Steinbeck's "The Snake" the main character Dr. Phillips is attempting to mate starfish until a woman interrupts his work to buy a snake. While written in different times by very different authors who have varying knowledge in science, the three characters Frankenstein, Aylmer, and Dr. Phillips have many similarities and differences.

Frankenstein and Aylmer seem to follow the same mentality but differ in approach and action. Both scientists exhibit qualities that show they are perfectionists; yet at the same time show evidence that they are anything but. Frankenstein, who is trying to create life from death, carelessly places dissimilar and decayed body parts together to create one horrid being which is anything but perfect. Aylmer, who is extremely careful in attempting to remove a birthmark from his wife's cheek, has no clue what he is doing exactly. Aylmer and Frankenstein were both obsessed with their experiments and both lost their experiments in the end. Frankenstein destroyed his experiment spiritually and then it left him and was never seen again. Aylmer's wife died while he tried to rid her from her birthmark thus destroying his experiment physically and she too was gone forever. When Frankenstein realized his experiment had failed, he ...

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...hem have any background knowledge in science. By the way Steinbeck describes the procedure Dr. Phillips must endure to complete his experiment, it is clear that Steinbeck has a great deal of knowledge about science and scientists.

Although their backgrounds in science vary greatly Mary Shelly, Nathaniel Hawthorne and John Steinbeck have all created scientists in at least one piece of their work. Shelly's character Frankenstein, Hawthorne's character Aylmer, and Steinbeck's character Dr. Phillips are all scientists carrying out an experiment dealing with life and all three of their experiments fail. Even though the stories are very different, the theme is the same, science does not always work out. Created in different times by different authors with varying knowledge in science, the three scientists share many qualities as well as exemplify many differences.

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