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Championing the individual in Frankenstein
Society and the individual in Frankenstein
Society and the individual in Frankenstein
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As a response to the Enlightenment movement in 18th century Europe, Romanticism gradually began to undermine the way people thought about human consciousness and nature itself. Appreciation of the natural beauty of the world and pure, human emotion bloomed in Europe as Romanticism’s influence grew ("Topic Page: Romanticism”). Romantics valued Individualism and thought that being close to nature would make them closer to God (Morner and Rausch). People also searched for solace in nature to overcome the adversities and cynicisms that followed the French Revolution ("French Revolution."). Romanticism and Romantic ideals influenced Mary Shelley, and that influence can be seen throughout her novel Frankenstein. The two main characters, Victor Frankenstein
At first, Victor believes himself superior to nature, and he builds a creature to prove his dominance. After gathering the information and materials needed to create life, Victor begins to fantasize about what he is about to do. He sees “life and death [as] ideal bounds, which [he] should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into [their] dark world. A new species would bless [him] as its creator and source, many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to [him]” (Shelley 55). Life and death are natural things, but Victor thinks that he can “break through” them and create life. He alone would be the person to “pour a torrent of light into their dark world,” as if he was God, ruling over all of the world. This shows Victor’s lack of respect towards life and how he intends to overcome the boundaries set by nature. Unlike the Romantic who revered and honored nature, Victor wants to use it for his own gain. He expects “happy” and “excellent natures” to obey him, and he doesn’t dwell upon the consequences of his actions. His outlook changes after the Creature comes to life. As Victor stares into the watery, lifeless eyes of his creature, he finally realizes his mistake in trying to disrupt the natural order of the world. Scared by the outcome of his actions, Victor attempts to run away and find comfort in nature. He travels to the Arve Ravine, where “the
By attempting to create life and messing with the natural order of the world, Victor loses his connection to the earth and eventually ends up as a shell of what he once was. No matter how hard he tried to redeem himself, he could no longer be one with nature. The creature that Victor creates by using the malicious techniques of science actually starts out to nature than Victor himself. The Creature recognizes the wonders of nature and finds temporary happiness in his closeness to the world. He turns away the peace given to him by nature just to satisfy his desire for revenge, and becomes a broken being. Mary Shelley demonstrates in Frankenstein what happens if someone strays too far from nature. Shelley purposely shows the destructive nature of science in her novel to highlight the strife that her society was going through. Her society, disillusioned by war and the devastation that new technologies caused, wanted to go back to their roots in nature, and her novel pushes at that idea. Shelley’s example of Victor’s and the Creature’s downfall warns us of the dangers and temptations of science. Even now, people are constantly enraptured by the possibilities that science and technology offer, while neglecting their duties towards nature and the
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.
Critic Northrop Frye says, “Tragic heroes tower as the highest points in their human landscape that they seem the inevitable conductors of the power about them, the great trees more likely to be struck by lightning than a clump of grass. Conductors may of course be instruments as well as victims of the divine lightning”. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein greatly exhibits the theme of the consequence of knowledge and irresponsibility among others through its tragic hero, Victor Frankenstein. Northrop Frye’s quote is certainly true when looking at Frankenstein’s situation. Victor is a victim of his divine lightning, and ultimately causes much trouble for himself; however, Victor also serves as the tragic hero in the lives of the monster, his family, and his friends.
Victor’s obsession with the genesis of life prevents him from thinking clearly. Initially, Victor has a strong interest in science. However, during his time at Ingolstadt, when he becomes interested in the cause of the generation of life, he decides to create and animate a human being. He completely neglects his family and friends because his sole focus is on his creation. Victor prioritizes the creation of his creature over his own health and happiness. Since he works in complete secrecy, there is nobody to help him stop his obsession. In addition, there is nobody who can monitor the aesthetic quality of his creation. He is so fixed on completing his project that he fails to notice how ugly it is. As soon as the creature comes to life, Victor is so horrified and disgusted with it that he runs away. He feels like “the beauty of [his] dream [va...
To begin our analysis, I will look to how Mary Shelley positions Victor Frankenstein's motivations to create life against natural laws within the ideas of individualism, as Victor can correlate directly to the educated human at the center of Enlightenment, Industrialism, and Romanticism values. With the burgeoning interest in scientific discovery during the Industrial Revolution "transform[ing] British culture" and "changing the world"(Lipking 2065), many concepts of society were also changed, which Shelley looked to explore through Victor's actions. Rooted in the scientifically curious spirit of Industrial England, Victor's attempt to create life can show many examples of how an importance of the individual acquisition of knowledge and accomplishment can disrupt society. Victor's...
Victor uses his knowledge and attachment to science and becomes “thus engaged, heart and soul, in one pursuit” (Shelley 68) and that pursuit is to succeed. He puts his whole heart and dedicates his every hour to the creation, which makes him “neglect the scenes around [him] causing [him] also to forget those friends who were so many miles absent, and whom [he] had not seen for so long a time” (Shelley 68). After putting so much time and effort into the creation, Victor expects the product to be perfect, yet it is the complete opposite, unattractive and frightful. Victor barely gives the monster a chance to speak before he runs off, leaving the monster to fend for
The Enlightenment age encouraged everyone to use reason and science in order to rid the world of barbarism and superstition. In fact, Kant argued that the "public use of one's reason must always be free, and it alone can bring about enlightenment among men" (Kant 3). Enlightenment thinking not only influenced philosophy and the sciences, but also literature (especially in Pope's Essay on Man). In reaction to Enlightenment's strict empiricism, Romanticism was born. In Frankenstein, Shelley argues (1) that Victor Frankenstein's role as an Enlightenment hero, not only pulled him out of nature, but made him a slave to his creation; (2) that Frankenstein's role as a revolting romantic failed, because he didn't take responsibility for his creation; and (3) mankind must find a balance between the Enlightenment and Romantic ideologies.
Upon first discovering how to make life, Victor is overwhelmed with excitement and pride, feeling as though he has unlocked the greatest power on earth. His imagination is “too much exalted” by this newfound ability, and thus determines there is no “animal as complex and wonderful as man” for him to attempt as his first creation (Shelley 43). Frankenstein does not contemplate how he will react to or interact with the human he gives life to, or that he has created an extremely twisted parent-child relationship by creating a human from dead bodies. His general lack of concern regarding the consequences of his remarkable yet dangerous power is the root of the rest of the conflict between him and his monster throughout the rest of the novel, and it exemplifies Shelley’s underlying theme that science should not be pushed past morally and psychologically safe boundaries.
His ambitions are what isolate him and bring to life a creature whose suffering was unfairly conveyed into his life. The creature is isolated from everyone, including his creator. He had no choice, unlike Victor. Finally, as the story starts to change, the creature begins to take control of the situation. It is now Victor being isolated by the creature as a form of revenge.
After Frankenstein discovered the source of human life, he became wholly absorbed in his experimental creation of a human being. Victor's unlimited ambition, his desire to succeed in his efforts to create life, led him to find devastation and misery. "...now that I have finished, the beauty of the dream had vanished..." (Shelley 51). Victor's ambition blinded him to see the real dangers of his project. This is because ambition is like a madness, which blinds one self to see the dangers of his actions. The monster after realizing what a horror he was demanded that victor create him a partner. "I now also began to collect the materials necessary for my new creation, and this was like torture..." (Shelley 169). Victor's raw ambition, his search for glory, has left him. His eyes have been opened to see his horrible actions, and what have and could become of his creations. As a result, Victor has realized that he is creating a monster, which could lead to the downfall of mankind. His choice is simple, save his own life or save man.
In the novel Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, the main theme revolves around the internal and external consequences of being isolated from others. Being isolated from the world could result in a character losing his/her mental state and eventually causing harm to themselves or others. Because both Victor Frankenstein and the creature are isolated from family and society, they experienced depression, prejudice, and revenge.
Mary Shelley, with her brilliant tale of mankind's obsession with two opposing forces: creation and science, continues to draw readers with Frankenstein's many meanings and effect on society. Frankenstein has had a major influence across literature and pop culture and was one of the major contributors to a completely new genre of horror. Frankenstein is most famous for being arguably considered the first fully-realized science fiction novel. In Frankenstein, some of the main concepts behind the literary movement of Romanticism can be found. Mary Shelley was a colleague of many Romantic poets such as her husband Percy Shelley, and their friends William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge, even though the themes within Frankenstein are darker than their brighter subjects and poems. Still, she was very influenced by Romantics and the Romantic Period, and readers can find many examples of Romanticism in this book. Some people actually argue that Frankenstein “initiates a rethinking of romantic rhetoric”1, or is a more cultured novel than the writings of other Romantics. Shelley questions and interacts with the classic Romantic tropes, causing this rethink of a novel that goes deeper into societal history than it appears. For example, the introduction of Gothic ideas to Frankenstein challenges the typical stereotyped assumptions of Romanticism, giving new meaning and context to the novel. Mary Shelley challenges Romanticism by highlighting certain aspects of the movement while questioning and interacting with the Romantic movement through her writing.
In Frankenstein, Shelley creates two very complex characters. They embody the moral dilemmas that arise from the corruption and disturbance of the natural order of the world. When Victor Frankenstein is attending school, he becomes infatuated with creating a living being and starts stealing body parts from morgues around the university. After many months of hard work, he finishes one stormy night bringing his creation to life. However, “now that [Victor] had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled [his] heart” (Chambers). Right after Victor realizes what he has done, he falls into deep depression and must be nursed back to health by his friend. Victor spends the rest of the story facing consequences and moral problems from creating unnatural life. When he realizes that the ‘monster’ has killed his brother, even though no one believes him, he feels responsible for his brother’s murder because he was responsible for the existence of the ‘monster’. Also feeling responsible, Victor...
... may result in the imbalance of that which sustains us and our subsequent destruction. While Victor can control nature and bend it to his will in unnatural ways, once confronted with the natural elements, none of his science and ingenuity can save him. Throughout the novel Victor goes to nature for solace, expecting nothing but return, and expects the same throughout the novel, right to his own demise. This lesson is not only applicable to when Frankenstein was written, at an explosively progressive period during the Industrial Revolution, but also to all generations and their relationship with human progression and nature preservation.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is a gothic science fiction novel written in the romantic era that focuses on the elements of life. The romantic era was sparked by the changing social environment, including the industrial revolution. It was a form of revolt against the scientific revolutions of the era by developing a form of literature that romanticize nature and giving nature godliness. This element of romanticized nature is a recurrent element in Frankenstein and is used to reflect emotions, as a place for relaxation and as foreshadowing. Frankenstein also includes various other elements of romanticism including strong emotions and interest in the common people.
Frankenstein in a Historical Sense Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was published in 1818 during the Romantic era. Romanticism describes the period of time from the late 18th century to the mid 19th century. This period was seen as a response to the Enlightenment; overall there was an increase in the desire to understand the world in an objective matter (lecture). Though Romanticism is commonly viewed as a literary and artistic movement, Mary Shelley gives evidence on the development of Europe in a historical sense through her novel, Frankenstein. Through the motifs and personal experiences of her characters, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein gives insight on scientific development, emerging roles of women, and how the individual is viewed as the lower class during the early 19th century.