Being overly confident has its consequences. When being overly confident, the sense of humanity seems to fade away over time. It causes people to not be able to recognize their failure, take risks without understanding the consequences, and harm their mental health. This is a theme that is consistently shown in the Gothic novel Frankenstein, written by Mary Shelley. In Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein’s overconfidence in creating life leads to harmful results. He creates a creature without thinking of the consequences and abandons it, causing even more harm generally to himself and society. This theme is also explored in the scientific article “Do Synthetic Biologists Play God?” written by Arthur Caplan. Scientists are raising concerns about …show more content…
Scientists having the idea of creating life and becoming creators can lead to negative consequences. Scientists gaining an inflated self-image can lead to the thought that they can supersede God. This is supported in Frankenstein, where Victor Frankenstein believes that he can surpass natural boundaries that are set by God when he is on his journey to create life. “Life and death appeared to me as ideal bounds, which I should first break through and pour a torrent of light into our dark world. A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me(Shelley 55). In this quote, Victor explains how much he gains if he creates life and how the creature will bless him as its creator and source. Victor believes that he can break the natural boundaries that God has created and create life. Victor believes this shows his hubris, thinking nothing could go wrong when someone plays God but only makes the world better. This theme is also supported in the scientific article “Do Synthetic Biologists Play God?” where Caplan states the reason why scientists want to surpass natural boundaries. “Those involved in the creation of synthetic new life forms do so …show more content…
This ultimately harms the creation by letting it face the world on its own. The abandonment leads to negative consequences that the creature faces alone. This is also supported by the scientific article when Caplan states the cultural concerns of one creating life. “And others fear that the techniques for life creation in the wrong hands would spell horrific trouble for humanity" (Caplan). Caplan states that society fears that creating life in the wrong hands would ultimately trouble humanity, which the scientists do not believe. The scientist’s hubris in thinking society is wrong harms society itself by making it feel unsafe in the world. This hubris blinds the scientists, making society's concerns something they do not need to elaborate on. A third way this theme is supported is in Frankenstein, when the creature and Victor meet together for the first time since the abandonment. Begone!. I will not hear from you. There can be no community between you and me; we are enemies. Begin, or let us try our strength in a fight in which one must fall (Shelley 103). In this quote, the creature meets Victor, hoping Victor can understand how the creature feels about the abandonment. Victor quickly refuses to empathize with the creature and refuses to take responsibility for its feelings. This harms the creation by Victor abandoning the creature and its
In Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, cruelty is a frequent theme and different acts of cruelty are committed almost every chapter. Victor Frankenstein abandoned his creation because of its grotesque face and destroyed any chance if the monster getting a mate, and the monster kills everyone Frankenstein loves out of spite. In Frankenstein, the different acts of cruelty that are imposed onto Frankenstein and his creation help reveal their true character
Mary Shelley’s idea of friendship is very important throughout the novel because it is the goal of Walton throughout the beginning, as well as the monster Frankenstein created throughout his narration period. In chapters fourteen through sixteen the creature learns that he is the only man of his kind, the only monster created on this Earth and he himself is much like Satan and Adam. He stumbled across three novels in which he reads and interprets differently. Paradise Lost having the most impact on the creature made him realize that he is utterly alone, and wretched. Adam was created from God, and was protected, whereas the creature who was created by Victor, was the complete opposite. He was dragged into this earth. The creature states, “But
Taking responsibility is “the state or fact of being responsible, answerable, or accountable for something within one's power, control, or management” (dictionary.com). When you decide to take the responsibility of something or someone then do it to your greatest ability and do not leave any stones unturned. In the novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley determines the role of responsibility for the welfare, acts, the deaths and the lives of others. Taking responsibility means being accountable for your actions, accepting the mistakes and taking the ownership of the mistakes that come along with one’s actions. Taking responsibility does not mean that all the actions will go as planned but accepting the consequences even if they do not go
In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley tests the motives and ethical uncertainties of the science in her time period. This is a consideration that has become more and more pertinent to our time, when we see modern scientists are venturing into what were previously unimaginable territories of science and nature, through the use of things like human cloning and genetic engineering. Through careful assessment, we can see how the novel illustrates both the potential dangers of these scientific advancements and the conflict between that and creationism.
When self-conscious life is created it must be treated as such. The novel Frankenstein or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelly and the film Ex Machina by Alex Garland are two stories that
Throughout Frankenstein, nature is considered to be a healing remedy in the process of Victor Frankenstein’s recovery.
If you create something should you be able to kill it? The notion of playing god like Victor did with the creatures in Frankenstein is comparative to the same issue the courts have with abortion laws. Various angles of abortion can be quite overwhelming as well as who makes the final decision. Many governments have struggled to strike what they believe to be a balance between the rights of pregnant women and the rights of fetuses. Before life is started, generally, an individual has thought about whether or not they want to create life. All life is created whether it is the creatures in Frankenstein or development of a fetus. Once life has been created choosing to end that life can cause many issues. The struggle of choosing between life and death could be avoided by an individual evaluating the results of creating a life before starting the process.
The thirst for power and knowledge is what drives the characters in this novel. Victor Frankenstein comes off as a sincere person but only because of the state in which we find him but, overall he is driven by his work and his appetite for power and knowledge. Dr. Frankenstein is a man crazed with his own ambition that recklessly desires the god-like powers of creation. In the beginning of the novel, the audience does not have a lot of information on Victor. The reader’s first impression on Victor is that he is vulnerable, weak, and favorable but something about him was just not right. The audience’s opinion differed from Walton’s, for example in this quote: “My affection for my guest increases every day. He excites at once my admiration and
Although humans have the tendency to set idealistic goals to better future generations, often the results can prove disastrous, even deadly. The tale of Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, focuses on the outcome of one man's idealistic motives and desires of dabbling with nature, which result in the creation of horrific creature. Victor Frankenstein was not doomed to failure from his initial desire to overstep the natural bounds of human knowledge. Rather, it was his poor parenting of his progeny that lead to his creation's thirst for the vindication of his unjust life. In his idealism, Victor is blinded, and so the creation accuses him for delivering him into a world where he could not ever be entirely received by the people who inhabit it. Not only failing to foresee his faulty idealism, nearing the end of the tale, he embarks upon a final journey, consciously choosing to pursue his creation in vengeance, while admitting he himself that it may result in his own doom. The creation of an unloved being and the quest for the elixir of life holds Victor Frankenstein more accountable for his own death than the creation himself.
In the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelly, is dr. Frankenstein a god? God is the all being who creates everything, but also looks after what He has created. If dr. Frankenstein is Mary Shelly’s “god” figure, then dr. Frankenstein is a very irresponsible and carefree “god.” He is very irresponsible because he does not look after his creation. God looks over everything, dr. Frankenstein can not even look over one creation. Victor runs from his creation throughout out the whole novel and he is also trying to run away from the fact that he made his “mistake.” When the creature and his “god” meet up, and by meet up it is really implied that the “mistake” tracked him down, the creation tells his creator how bad of a “god” he has been and tries to make him realize how he has abandoned his duties. The creatures lectures him by saying, “remember that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam, but i am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drives from joy for no misdeed”(Shelly). This quote is showing that the “mistake” has more
In today’s world of genetically engineered hearts and genetically altered glowing rats, the story of Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, seems as if it could be seen in the newspapers in our near future. The discoveries seen in modern science, as well as in the novel, often have controversy and negative consequences that follow them, the biggest of which being the responsibility the creator of life has to what has been created. Victor Frankenstein suffers from a variety of internal and external conflicts stemming from the creation of his monster, which in return also experiences similar problems. Shelley uses these tumultuous issues to portray the discrepancies between right and wrong, particularly through romanticism and the knowledge of science.
In the book Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, one main character, Victor Frankenstein creates a monster. Both characters, Frankenstein and the monster become isolated as a result of this event. Isolation can have outcomes or an impact for the future events in the story. Frankenstein's monster is alienated from the "human" society because of his appearance, and that his creator doesn't want him, which leads the monster to go on a killing spree.
Over two centuries ago, Mary Shelley created a gruesome tale of the horrific ramifications that result when man over steps his bounds and manipulates nature. In her classic tale, Frankenstein, Shelley weaves together the terrifying implications of a young scientist playing God and creating life, only to be haunted for the duration of his life by the monster of his own sordid creation. Reading Shelley in the context of present technologically advanced times, her tale of monstrous creation provides a very gruesome caution. For today, it is not merely a human being the sciences are lusting blindly to bring to life, as was the deranged quest of Victor Frankenstein, but rather to generate something potentially even more dangerous and horrifying with implications that could endanger the entire world and human population.
Ever since the earliest scientists, including the likes of Aristotle and Plato, the question of the morality of man's meddling in nature has been a prevalent issue. While science can provide boundless amounts of invaluable contributions to mankind, ultimately some scientific endeavors should never have been pursued. In Frankenstein, Mary Shelly explores the ethics involved in this query through the creation of a wonder of science, and its inevitable consequences.
The wise Uncle Ben once told Peter Parker, “remember, with great power. Comes great responsibility.” There is no greater power than that acquired by the infamous Victor Frankenstein in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein when he discovers the secret to creating life. Shelley’s Frankenstein is a tale of creation that depicts acts of human conception and discovery. The Oxford English Dictionary defines creation as “the action or process of bringing something into existence from nothing by divine or natural agency; the fact of being so created.” It defies the natural order of things and creates a world of its own. The multiple acts of creation and discovery bring upon a certain set of responsibilities and implications as depicted by David Collings who analyzes the responsibilities that come as a result of these acts in his essay “The Monster and the Maternal Thing: Mary Shelley’s Critique of Ideology”. The main act of creation is evident through Victor Frankenstein’s creation of the Being which is depicted most prominently in the novel. However, there are multiple other acts of creation and discovery that may not be apparent at first sight. One of the most important being, Victor’s discovery of the knowledge required to create life. Apart from initially creating the Being, Victor also plays a critical role in the Being’s evolution into a raging and vengeful creature. Perhaps above all other acts of creation and discovery is Victor’s personal creation of himself into a monster. As stated by Collings most of these acts of creation on Victor’s part are subconsciously brought upon because of their lack of a maternal figure but also in part because of his desire for fame and glory. However, he is blinded by his motives and forgets that with his...