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Frankenstein
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“”None but those who have experienced them can conceive of the enticements of science. In other studies you go as far as others have gone before you, and there is nothing more to know; but in a scientific pursuit there is continual food for discovery and wonder.
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| —Mary Shelley, Frankenstein[1]:37 |
Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus is an 1818 Gothic horror and science fiction novel by Mary Shelley (a.k.a. Mary Wollstonecraft) (1797–1851). A key work of literary Romanticism, it features one of the first and best known mad scientists in literature, and is often alluded to as a frequent source of anti-science and "who should play God?" tropes.
The book is widely considered to be the first book in the science fiction genre, and has been widely influential in the genre. It's allegory of creator-created conflict can be seen in the Terminator film franchise and Philip K. Dick's book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? with its film adaptation Blade Runner.[2]:341-342
Synopsis[edit]
A young scientist named Victor Frankenstein wants to harness unknown forces and methods to create a living human being. His ambitious starting plan involves building an eight-foot[note 2] tall human being out of dead body parts (Again, in the movies and popular imagination – in the novel, it's never stated how he makes the creature, but it's implied that he grew it).
In the popular imagination, influenced by Alessandro Volta,
Luigi Galvani, and Benjamin Franklin, he wants to use electricity from lightning. However, in the original novel, the method is never stated or described; Victor says quite specifically that he will not do so, as he now realizes that he should have never created his creature in the first place. In her introduction to the 1831 edition of the book, Shelley did in fact refer to Galvani:[1]:x[3]
“”Perhaps a corpse would be re-animated; galvanism had given token of such things: perhaps the component parts of a creature might be manufactured, brought together, and endued with vital warmth.
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The creature is not only eight feet tall, but has yellow eyes and translucent skin.[note 3] Its appearance disgusts Victor from the moment it comes to life; hurt by the rejection from his creator, the monster flees.
Victor's brother is murdered; despite evidence that a domestic servant was guilty, Victor is convinced his monster did it, and is powerless to prevent the servant's hanging. This upsets him; he runs away again to the mountains, where the monster catches up to him. During Victor's absence, the monster had taught himself to speak and read, discovered his appearance was so horrific that even he could not stand it, and befriended a blind man who turned against him when he was told of the monster's vile looks. Blaming Victor for dooming him to a lifetime of isolation and rejection, he killed Victor's brother and framed the servant for it.
The monster demands that Victor build him a bride so he might not have to suffer alone, insisting on his right to happiness and promising that they will vanish into the Amazon afterwards; should Victor refuse, the monster will see to it that he will ruin the scientist's happiness just as Victor had ruined his. Victor initially complies, but fearing that he might be creating a race of monsters, destroys the bride, not knowing that the monster has seen him doing it. The monster confronts Victor over his betrayal, and when Victor refuses to restart his work the monster threatens that he "will be with him on his wedding night".
The monster murders one of Victor's friends, and Victor is accused of it. Cleared of the charge, Victor returns home to marry, only to have the monster murder his bride just as he had previously threatened. Victor pursues the monster toward the North Pole, and is found by an Arctic expedition, half-frozen and on the brink of death. He tells his story to the expedition's captain, seeing in him the same desire for glory that led Victor to lose everything that he held dear and expressing the hope that his fate will serve as a warning of the price of ambition. He dies soon afterwards from exposure.
Not long after this, the captain discovers the monster grieving over Victor's body. The captain confronts the monster to denounce his crimes, only for him to tell him that he knows full well what he has done and deeply regrets all of it. The monster had hoped that achieving his revenge against Victor would bring him peace, but he now realizes that what he had done would ensure that the acceptance he sought from humanity would be forever lost to him. Overwhelmed with guilt and having nothing left to live for, the monster informs the captain that he shall kill himself by immolation, lest somebody find his body and be inspired to create another being that would be just as condemned to a lifetime of torment and ostracism as he was. The novel ends as the monster sails away on an ice raft, never to be seen again.
Luddites[edit]
“”The words induced me to turn towards myself. I learned that the possessions most esteemed by your fellow-creatures were, high and unsullied descent united with riches. A man might be respected with only one of these advantages; but, without either, he was considered, except in very rare instances, as a vagabond and a slave, doomed to waste his powers for the profits of the chosen few!
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| —Frankenstein's monster[1]:103 |
Shelley's novel is clearly an allegorical work, making it adaptable to other situations. The most likely allegory that she had in mind was that of the Luddite movement, whose peak activity (1811-1817) immediately preceded the publication of the novel. Though Shelley was not particularly outspoken about the Luddites, she did associate with other literary figures who were: her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron, who were outspoken in their support for the Luddites.[2]:338-339 The mad doctor parallels the entrepreneurs of the Industrial Revolution, and the monster parallels the Luddites who were put out of work by the entrepreneurs.[2]:339[4] Russell Smith observed:[4][1]:36[5]
“”Frankenstein’s monster shares many characteristics of the Luddite movement: his demands are articulate, well-reasoned, and founded in natural justice; as he himself says: "I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous" (Shelley
1994, 78). So too, he only turns to violence when his legitimate pleas are ignored, and his violence is not indiscriminate, but very specifically targeted. For nineteenth-century readers, as Chris Baldick (1987) has shown, Frankenstein was self-evidently a political allegory, the monster an ambiguous figure, both articulate and horrifying, for oppressed populations – whether workers, slaves, or colonised peoples — whose claims for justice, if unheeded, could lead to vengeful violence.
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Anti-science trope[edit]
The enduring popularity of this story has led it to become a frequently referenced trope in tales about the alleged hubris or dangerous recklessness of science, or that genetically modifying organisms is somehow an affront to nature, even though Frankenstein's hubris isn't in "playing God" by creating life so much as refusing to take responsibility for the life that he brought into being.
Isaac Asimov labelled the irrational fear that science is mucking around with nature, and that the process may be on the brink of going terribly wrong, as "The Frankenstein Complex."[6] Activists refer to genetically modified foodstuffs as "Frankenfood". The tale is used to justify vague beliefs that tampering with genetics, subatomic physics, and other fields of physical science will go unpredictably out of control or lead to the loss of our shared humanity.
Name of the monster[edit]
Victor Frankenstein, repulsed by his creation, abandons it without giving the monster a name, referred to in the book either as 'the creature' or as a monster. In fact, no name for the monster appears in the novel, part of whose point is that the monster is an initially sympathetic character, sensitive and literate, shut out from human companionship by his hideous appearance and driven to bitterness and hate by the world's rejection of him. In the novel, the monster is twice compared to the Biblical Adam.[1]:84,112
Purists therefore take offense when the name "Frankenstein" is applied to the monster. But it makes sense for the monster to bear his father's name, as the monster himself reasons. In any case, the name is too universal to change at this point. The monster's name is Frankenstein.[7] The Oxford English Dictionary traces the first use of the "Frankenstein" as alluding to the monster to 1838.[8]
Watch![edit]
Like many films adapted from novels, most of the many adaptations for Frankenstein take great liberties with the novel. Though not the first Frankenstein film, the 1931 adaptation, directed by James Whale and starring Boris Karloff,[9] set the standard for film adaptations.[10] Most notable was the Mel Brooks' 1974 parody film Young Frankenstein, which was able to use the original props from the 1931 film as noted in the film credits.[11] The 1994 adaptation, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (also called Frankenstein), is considered the most faithful to the book.[9][12]
See also[edit]
Want to read this in another language?[edit]
Notes[edit]
- ↑ This is the frontispiece engraving from the 1831 edition of the book, intended to accompany the text on page 43:[1]:frontispiece,43
“”by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.… I rushed out of the room
- ↑ 2.4 meters
- ↑ Translucent skin was, at the time that the novel was written, considered a desirable trait. It was his "shrivelled complexion and straight black lips" that were considered hideous.
References[edit]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Frankenstein, or, The modern Prometheus by Mary W. Shelley (1831) H. Colburn an R. Bentley.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech by Brian Merchant (2023) Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 0316487740.
- ↑ The Science of Life and Death in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein by Sharon Ruston (November 25, 2015) Public Domain Review.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Frankenstein in the automatic factory by Russell Smith (2019) Nineteenth-Century Contexts: An Interdisciplinary Journal 41(3):303-319. doi:10.1080/08905495.2019.1600796.
- ↑ Frankenstein’s Shadow: Myth, Monstrosity, and Nineteenth-Century Writing by Chris Baldick (1987) Clarendon Press. ISBN 0198122497.
- ↑ The Frankenstein Complex and Asimov’s Three Laws by Lee McCauley (2007) Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence.
- ↑ "Frankenstein", in The Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage
- ↑ Frankenstein, noun. Oxford English Dictionary.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Frankenstein IMDb.
- ↑ Frankenstein Throughout the Years by Paige Walker (February 2023) Arts at Emerson College.
- ↑ Young Frankenstein IMDb.
- ↑ Frankenstein 'IMDb.