Life, Death, Struggle Against Nature

“Frankenstein”

Frankenstein is a goth-style horror novel about a man called Victor Frankenstein who invented the secret of making living creatures. He made use of his understanding and knowledge to create a gruesome monster that became the reason for all trouble and finally Victor’s demise. The novel is represented as an exchange of letters which is following the accounts of Captain Walton, Victor Frankenstein, and the monster himself. Frankenstein was written by the famous English author Mary Shelley whose penmanship narrates about a monster who is formed by Victor Frankenstein, a scientist, thereby exploring the diverse themes and nuances of life, death and man’s struggle against nature. The novel ends tragically where Captain Walton found the monster crying over Victor’s dead body.

Importance and impact of the novel in literature

Shelley’s writing teaches that there could be moral values devoid of religious notions and human beings would yet develop ethical values. The importance of this message is that people could speak to the collective human essence only if they seek to. This story provides a guiding compass which points people to their morale and ethics. One of the messages delivered through this writing is that the danger lies in considering the negative impacts of science and technology after what one has done with it, instead of thinking about the consequences before. From a general point of view, when people overlook to consider the potential negative impacts of their actions, it is a kind of willful indifference. Its primary statements are that no one is born a monster, but a monster is only created in the course of socialization and the course of socialization begins at the very point when one comes in contact with his creator. In this story, it was evident that Frankenstein failed to take responsibility for the creature he created and failing to take responsibility for his ‘child’ made him the monster that he was not born as. What makes Frankenstein stand out is that it is not only the first fiction to make use of scientific experimentation as its base story but it also offers a skeletal narrative for examining the morality and ethics of the characters and the overall societal condition at that time.

Background Information

Author’s biography (Mary Shelley)

Mary Shelley was a famous English novelist whose work of fiction has travelled to the farthest corners of the globe. Writer of Frankenstein in 1816 and The Modern Prometheus in 1818, Shelley was the first child of the radical political thinker and philosopher William Godwin, who called Mary someone who is “singularly bold, somewhat imperious and an active of mind”. Mary’s mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, had died a few days after birthing her, was a well-known feminist and women’s rights activist. Mary was raised with five of her semi-related siblings under her father, Sir William Godwin’s unconventional, unorthodox and intellectually enriched parenting. Mary taught herself throughout her childhood with the help of her father’s extensive library, where she spent most of her time along with mingling with her father’s intellectual friends which comprised of William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, to name a few. She got married to Percy Bysshe Shelley after his first wife died in 1816 and was married until P.B. Shelley died by drowning in 1822. The last few years of Mary Shelley’s life were baffled by various illnesses, which mostly resulted from a brain tumour that eventually killed her at the age of 53.

Historical and social context of the novel

The novel picturizes the struggle between the 18th-century Enlightenment and 19th-century Romanticism. Mary Shelley highlighted the need for reason and mechanical forces by pointing out the idea that man was a controllable machine, which is predictable and rational if he channels his thoughts in that way. The time at which Frankenstein was written was significant in bringing social change at that point in society. Thematically, it has strived to bring a change from thinking in the light of Enlightenment to the Romantic perspective which was in vogue in Europe then.

The story of Frankenstein is true to its time—the early 19th century— a world of political, social, economic and scientific enlightenment but in a more romanticized form. On one side, it emphasized the significance of the intellect in looking out for the secrets and magic of the universe, which is pointed out as rationalism. On the other side, it also accepts and highlights individual needs, emotions and importance, named as romanticism. Apart from its historical importance and liking amongst the readers, often the question arises as to why does Frankenstein is still so popular and what does it convey in today’s time? To answer the question, it is the heart of the novel that allures its readers, especially about science fiction, technology and its relationship with humans and humanity.

Significance of the novel as a Gothic and science fiction work

Mary Shelley makes use of many gothic factors in her science-fiction magnum opus, Frankenstein. She highlights an event of family destruction via revenge and then sews a dark plot that blurs the lines of life and death, mortality and immorality. Shelley also indulges in secrets threatening that revealed elements of horror, for example:

reanimation, corpses and scientific experiments that are dark and illegal then. What makes Frankenstein stand out is that it is not only the first fiction to make use of scientific experimentation as its base story but it also offers a skeletal narrative for examining the morality and ethics of the characters and the overall societal condition at that time.

Plot Summary

Introduction to the main characters: Victor Frankenstein and the Creature

The story of Frankenstein revolves around Victor, the main character’s life. Victor is a young Swiss boy, who grows up in Geneva. He reads the works of ancient alchemists, which could be marked as the background that offers him ill-treatment when he goes to study at the University of Ingolstadt. In the university, he learns about modern science and technology and thereby mastering all that his professors had to teach him within a few years. He develops a fascination towards the “secret of life,” discovers the secret and creates a gruesome monster, giving it life. The monster eventually kills Victor’s youngest brother, wife and then his best friend along with indirectly killing two other innocent lives, which include Victor’s father. Baffled by regret, remorse, guilt and shame, Victor hides from everyone that he had created a monster, especially when he sees that the monster and its actions were going out of control.

It is Victor Frankenstein who creates the Monster by assembling old dead body parts with the help of certain strange chemicals that resulted in an animated and mysterious spark. The monster takes the form of an eight feet tall and inexplicably strong body which however has the mind of a newly born infant. The monster instantaneously feels that he has been abandoned by his creator, which leaves him sad and confused, thereby trying to assimilate himself with the people and culture around him and introduce himself into society in vain, as he was immediately shunned by everyone, everywhere. Looking at the mirror, the monster gets to understand his grotesque physical appearance is what makes everyone around him hate him, thereby understanding an aspect of the society that runs on a pseudo façade of a person while being blind to one’s gentle and kind nature that the monster showed everyone in the beginning. This is what incited the feeling of seeking revenge against his creator which pushed him to kill Victor’s younger brother, and then start his subsequent killing spree, turning into a real monster by nature.

Overview of the storyline and major events

Captain Robert Walton writes a letter to his sister while he was on an Arctic expedition. It was about a person who he rescued from the ice, whose name was Victor Frankenstein.
Victor Frankenstein narrates his story to Walton – about having a happy childhood, having an obsession over alchemy and his love for his cousin Elizabeth who he marries eventually.
Victor takes admitted to the University of Ingolstadt where he studied alchemy and discovered the secret to creating life and death, thereby going ahead with creating a creature from a dead body and chemicals.
Victor however runs away when the creature comes to life, since it looked like a monster.
The monster instantaneously feels that he has been abandoned by his creator, which leaves him sad and confused, thereby trying to assimilate himself with the people and culture around him and introduce himself into society in vain.
To seek revenge against his creator, the monster kills Victor’s brother
Upon returning to Geneva, Victor found that one of his beloved servants was hanged for allegedly killing his brother, which was certainly unfair.
Victor starts suspecting that these murders were committed by the monster that he had created, thereby going out to hunt him down in vain since it was nowhere to be found until he meets it on an Alpine Glacier.
Upon meeting its maker, the monster requested Victor to make a mate for him since he was lonely, along with sharing his experiences – how he learned to read and speak.
Victor does create a female creature, however, destroys it and is disgusted by his creation. Upon seeing this, the monster threatens Victor that it will be present on his wedding night.
Soon after this event, the monster kills Henry Clerval, Victor’s friend and doctor.
Victor comes back to Geneva and marries Elizabeth, who is also killed by the monster on her wedding night.
Victor pledges vengeance on Elizabeth’s grave and from there his chase to kill the monster begins which extended up till he was rescued by Walton in the Arctic.
After finishing his life story, Victor dies and then the monster appears before Walton, repents and says that it will kill him and then departs into the wilderness.

Analysis of key themes and motifs

The most significant motif of Shelley’s Frankenstein that most people resonate with is “Don’t play God,” or something similar to that theme. Most film and television versions of the story follow this theme. Frankenstein tells the story of a monster created by Victor Frankenstein, an alchemist and a scientist that revolves around the substantial theme and motif of life, death and man’s action against nature.

To point out the key themes and motifs of Shelley’s Frankenstein:

Family and Society
The pain of Isolation
Ambition and Fallibility
Nature and Romanticism
Scientific explorations
Gothic
Revenge
Adventure and Expedition
Prejudices
Lost Innocence
Societal approach towards ugly appearance despite a gentle heart

Character Analysis

Victor Frankenstein: Exploration of his character, motivations, and moral dilemmas

The story of Frankenstein revolves around Victor, the main character’s life. Victor is a young Swiss boy, who grows up in Geneva. He reads the works of old alchemists, which could be marked as the background that offers him ill-treatment when he goes to study at the University of Ingolstadt. In the university, he learns about modern science and technology and thereby mastering all that his professors had to teach him within a few years. He develops a fascination towards the “secret of life,” discovers the secret and creates a gruesome monster, giving it life. The monster eventually kills Victor’s youngest brother, wife and then his best friend along with indirectly killing two other innocent lives, which include Victor’s father. Baffled by regret, remorse, guilt and shame, Victor hides from everyone that he had created a monster, especially when he sees that the monster and its actions were going out of control.

The Creature: Examination of its development, emotions, and search for identity

The Monster was created by Victor Frankenstein, by assembling old dead body parts with the help of certain strange chemicals that resulted in an animated and mysterious spark. The monster takes the form of an eight feet tall and inexplicably strong body which however has the mind of a newly born infant. The monster instantaneously feels that he has been abandoned by his creator, which leaves him sad and confused, thereby trying to assimilate himself with the people and culture around him and introduce himself into society in vain, as he was immediately shunned by everyone, everywhere. Looking at the mirror, the monster gets to understand his grotesque physical appearance is what makes everyone around him hate him, thereby understanding an aspect of the society that runs on a pseudo façade of a person while being blind to one’s gentle and kind nature that the monster showed everyone in the beginning. This is what incited the feeling of seeking revenge against his creator which pushed him to kill Victor’s younger brother, and then start his subsequent killing spree, turning into a real monster by nature.

Other significant characters and their contributions to the story

The main characters in the story of Frankenstein are Victor Frankenstein, the Creature, Robert Walton, Elizabeth Lavenza and Henry Clerval. Other characters like the DeLaceys, William Frankenstein, Justine Moriitz, Alphonse Frankenstein, and M. Krempe and M. Waldman pose a significant role but are not the main focus of the story.

Themes and Messages

Ambition and Scientific Progress: The Consequences of unchecked ambition and scientific experimentation

Victor Frankenstein reflects through his actions that he wished for God’s glory by doing what God does, that is creating new life. Frankenstein’s dark desire to be like God led him to chase an ambition of creating life but when his actions fail to meet his expectations, he abandons his creation which eventually forces Victor to let go of his loved ones and humanity in the end. In this story, the main character’s desire to chase scientific exploration and discovery finally leads to despair, chaos and tragedy, not just for him but most other characters of the novel. Since so many characters are put through misery as a result of Victor’s scientific work, many critics of the book cited it as a response to the Scientific Revolution that has taken place ever since. Since Christian theology portrays the creation of life as an act of God; therefore, tampering with this process, as done by Victor Frankenstein by creating the monster, was a portrayal of positioning himself on the same pedestal as God. Although Shelley’s novel is not entirely opposing scientific discovery, exploration or progress, it certainly focuses on the adverse consequence of what happens when man goes against nature and opposes moral responsibility. While Victor Frankenstein is glued to the glory of ambition because his creation will be a new species which will be dependent on him.

Nature vs. Nurture: The debate over the influence of genetics and environment on human behaviour

The idea of nature is that it looks at the effect of approaches such as neurotransmitters and genome sequencing concerning child development, while nurture is based on the aspects like familial upbringing, social influences and peer pressure. It is argued by sociologists and psychologists around the world that a person becomes what he sees and how he is brought up and not depending on who his biological parents were. A person is likely to grow up as a good and responsible human if he is brought up well with good moral values, even though his biological parents were criminals.

Victor Frankenstein is held responsible for the aspect of nature because of his alchemic work, while the creature’s fall is in the nurture aspect. Victor is sole to be blamed for failing to guide his creation (compared to a newborn infant) and teach him the norms of society, thereby pushing him to choose the path of deviance.

Alienation and Loneliness: The isolation experienced by Victor and the Creature

In the story Frankenstein, the monster experiences isolation as a victim. He is cut off from society and humanity because people did not feel safe associating with him because of his horrific looks, which pushed him to choose violence in the end, thereby reflecting that isolation can be brutal and fatal for all. At first, the monster experiences rejection at the hands of its creator and then subsequently by the people of the small village. In the story, the main protagonist, Victor Frankenstein too experiences self-inflicted isolation which makes him suffer from depression which further induces him to seclude himself from society, while the creature suffers from exogenous isolation that ended in grievance, furiousness and eventually repentance.

Responsibility and Accountability: Examining the ethical implications of Creating and abandoning life

When Victor Frankenstein abandoned the monster, it led to a disastrous result since the monster was left alone and had no idea what to do. Not only creating life is a sin in Christian theology, but it is also a bigger sin to abandon one’s creation, essentially a baby that does not know how to survive the harsh world. Therefore, this action Victor portrays him as a sinner who has committed an unethical deed of creating a life and then abandoning it. Frankenstein’s dark desire to be like God led him to chase an ambition of creating life but when his actions fail to meet his expectations, he abandons his creation which eventually forces Victor to let go of his loved ones and humanity in the end. In this story, the main character’s desire to chase scientific exploration and discovery finally leads to despair, chaos and tragedy, not just for him but most other characters of the novel.

Literary Techniques and Style

Epistolary structure and narrative devices

The novel is narrated in an epistolary form that is, written through a series of letters. This style of writing effectively binds the reader to the story by making them feel as if they are the ones to be receiving the letters and reading them personally, thereby having an account of the events of the novel. In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley used a different form of first-person narration with the help of epistolary narration, which is the medium of letters to narrate a story. This is to be done only by using a first-person narrative.

Use of frame narrative and multiple perspectives

The story of Frankenstein makes use of a frame narrative to offer details and context. Frankenstein is written in the first-person (by using pronouns like “I”, “my” et cetera) by different characters in the novel and at different points in time. The shifts from one narrator to another and the changing and varying perspectives of such narrators are pivotal to the novel’s theme of looking at past experiences, which reflect on what might be embedded underneath. In Shelley’s Frankenstein, this structure in literature reflects the nature of each character and their position and contribution to the novel, which are echoing to seek for something meaning, thereby pushing the storyline further.

Gothic elements and atmosphere in the storytelling

Historical and Cultural Significance

Influence of “Frankenstein” on Literature and subsequent works

Frankenstein not only reached out into the literary world but also induced pop culture, thereby making readers and consumer form questions about the power of science at the then time. Frankenstein has been a ubiquitous book that has come up whenever there has been a discussion on science fiction since such a conversation would be impossible without referring back to Frankenstein.

Reflection of Romanticism and the Exploration of human emotions

Discussion of scientific advancements during the time and their influence on the novel

In this story, the main character’s desire to chase scientific exploration and discovery finally leads to despair, chaos and tragedy, not just for him but most other characters of the novel. Since so many characters are put through misery as a result of Victor’s scientific work, many critics of the book cited it as a response to the Scientific Revolution that has taken place ever since. Since Christian theology portrays the creation of life as an act of God; therefore, tampering with this process, as done by Victor Frankenstein by creating the monster, was a portrayal of positioning himself on the same pedestal as God.

Critical Reception and Legacy

Contemporary reception and initial reactions

What makes Frankenstein stand out is that it is not only the first fiction to make use of scientific experimentation as its base story but it also offers a skeletal narrative for examining the morality and ethics of the characters and the overall societal condition at that time. Shelley manipulates the audience’s pity by portraying the Monster as an outcast of society. The author uses her narrative to manipulate her reader’s feelings of sympathy, thereby juxtaposing the characters of Frankenstein with the Monster as the main character of the story.

Continued popularity and adaptations of the novel

Many television shows have characters inspired by the monster created by Victor such as The Addams Family and The Munsters, along with inspiring episodes with elements of Shelley’s story, which includes The Simpsons and Dr. Who. Frankenstein stands out even today since it is not only the first fiction to make use of scientific experimentation as its base story but it also offers a skeletal narrative for examining morality and ethics of the characters and the overall societal condition at that time.

Exploration of its themes in popular culture and media

Comparison to Other Works

Exploration of other works with similar themes or Gothic elements

Contrasting “Frankenstein” with other notable novels of the time

The Last Man by Mary Shelley (1826)
Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe (1592) or Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust (1790/1831)
R.U.R. by Karel Capek (1921)
“Moxon’s Master” by Ambrose Bierce (1899)
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968)
He, She and It by Marge Piercy (1991)

Conclusion

Recap of the key points discussed in the outline

Shelley’s writing teaches that there could be moral values devoid of religious notions and human beings would yet develop ethical values. The importance of this message is that people could speak to the collective human essence only if they seek to. This story provides a guiding compass which points people to their morale and ethics. One of the messages delivered through this writing is that the danger lies in considering the negative impacts of science and technology after what one has done with it, instead of thinking about the consequences before. From a general point of view, when people overlook to consider the potential negative impacts of their actions, it is a kind of willful indifference. Its primary statements are that no one is born a monster, but a monster is only created in the course of socialization and the course of socialization begins at the very point when one comes in contact with his creator. What makes Frankenstein stand out is that it is not only the first fiction to make use of scientific experimentation as its base story but it also offers a skeletal narrative for examining the morality and ethics of the characters and the overall societal condition at that time.

Reflection on the enduring relevance and significance of “Frankenstein”

The most vital significance of the story is that it remains extremely relevant to the contemporary readership across the world, amongst a diverse age group of readers, as a result of its exploration of scientific development and human intelligence that could give birth to a new life. What makes Frankenstein stand out is that it is not only the first fiction to make use of scientific experimentation as its base story but it also offers a skeletal narrative for examining the morality and ethics of the characters and the overall societal condition at that time. One of the messages delivered through this writing is that the danger lies in considering the negative impacts of science and technology after what one has done with it, instead of thinking about the consequences before. From a general point of view, when people overlook to consider the potential negative impacts of their actions, it is a kind of willful indifference. Its primary statements are that no one is born a monster, but a monster is only created in the course of socialization and the course of socialization begins at the very point when one comes in contact with his creator.

Personal thoughts and recommendations for further reading or exploration

Frankenstein is a classic, not only for its pioneering theme of reincarnating a dead but also for the interactions between its two main characters: the young scientist Victor Frankenstein and the monster that he created, who however remains without a name throughout the novel. This is why anyone would certainly recommend Frankenstein to an avid reader, especially one who loves science fiction.