...“IT’S ALLIIIIIVE!!!” Everyone knows the famous line from pop culture’s Frankenstein where, surrounded by fantastical science equipment, Dr. Frankenstein, aided by his hunched assistant, Igor, zaps life into a grotesque monster within medieval castle under the cover of a dark and stormy night. At the epicenter, a creature awakens while the mad scientist cackles maniacally. It would be equally shocking for most, however, to find that Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the original, poses a quite different, almost anti-climatic, scene–void of any shouting, Igors, and with no clear depiction of the creature’s endowment of life-giving forces. In fact, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein contrasts heavily to the pop culture Frankenstein in many aspects, namely,...
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...1818, by an “anonymous” author, Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus has inspired numerous adaptations, remakes and parodies across different literary genres. Reprinted again in 1831, this time with an introduction written by Mary Shelley acknowledging her authorship, Frankenstein through its discrediting of science and the omnipotence of nature, confirms ands challenges our own habitual understandings of the world around us. The habitual understanding I will be focusing on is western hegemonic rationalism and the dominance of science as the ruler and explainer of my universe in comparison to the earlier more romantic ideology of Shelley’s time. Frankenstein also carries a warning about ambition. In a society that believes ambition to be a good thing, Shelley attempts to revel catastrophic consequences for humans over come with the quest for glory and science’s obsessive and overly ambitious nature. Western hegemonic ideal is the cultural identity that has conditioned me, becoming habitual, normal and routine. However, Shelley was privileged as she was writing at the beginning of the scientific enlightenment era, and could therefore identify what would be lost if science and technology were to usurp the position of God, nature and fate. Art, emotions, passion, suffering, humility etc were to be restricted into liminal spaces, creating a world not unlike Aldous Huxley’s A Brave New World. Romantic philosophies have been endorsed in Frankenstein through the downfall of Victor...
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...Romanticism Unshackled: a Study of the Modern Prometheus The most remarkable aspect about Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is the ability to label the novel in so many different ways amongst many genres, ranging from science fiction, to fantasy, to horror, and have all of them be correct. At such a young age, Mary Shelley constructed a narrative so revolutionary, intricate, and involved that it is still pertinent to be written about in college essays almost 200 years after it was written. As the author, Shelley is often attributed with vast creative intellect, and rightly so, as is evidenced while reading through her novel. It is imperative to recognize, however, just how much influence her colleagues—the Romantic poets—had on the ideas that became manifested in her writing. Frankenstein should bear the title of Romantic literature because the novel embodies trademark Romantic ideas, situations, and characteristics throughout the text. In an attempt to categorize any novel as Romantic, however, one must first attempt to identify what, exactly, makes a work Romantic. A group of poets, including the likes of William Blake, Samuel Coleridge, William Wordsworth, John Keats, Lord Byron and—Mary’s husband—Percy Shelley, who are commonly credited as being the ground-breaking authors of the Romantic movement (Ferguson). A prime example of this method of poetry was introduced in the 1798 collection, Lyrical Ballads. This work, written by Wordsworth and Coleridge, is a compilation...
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...Reading Between the Lines: An analysis of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, or, the Modern Prometheus, using Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto as an example of male discourse about women Louise Othello Knudsen English Almen, 10th semester Master’s Thesis 31-07-2012 Tabel of Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................................ 3 Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 5 Historical Context .............................................................................................................................. 10 The View on Women and Their Expected Roles in the late 18th and 19th Century ....................... 11 - Mary Shelley disowns herself .................................................................................................. 11 - Mary Shelley’s Background .................................................................................................... 12 Women’s Role in Frankenstein ..................................................................................................... 13 Men’s Role in Frankenstein ........................................................................................................... 13 - Women in Society and Women as Writers .........................................................
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...Gregorio Frankenstein Essay 412 Summer Intensive Professor Monaghan July 16th, 2015 Victor attributes his tragic fate to his relentless search for knowledge. Do you think that this is the true cause of his suffering? In what ways does the novel present knowledge as dangerous and destructive? Trace the similarities between Victor and the monster. Consider their respective relationships with nature, desires for family, and any other important parallels you find. Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein is a story about a brilliant but unorthodox scientist, Victor Frankenstein that rejects the artificial man that he has created, the Creature escapes and later swears revenge. Throughout the novel readers experience and learn about Victors boundless passion for knowledge and discover the positive and negative effects that come with his relentless search for it. Victor’s relentless search for knowledge ultimately leads to the death of his loved ones and friends as well as his own death. The suffering that Victor encounters can also be caused by other things in his life such as lack of family and companionship or lack of a love life. The knowledge that the monster obtains throughout the novel also comes with an emotional suffering that tarnishes the relationship with his regretful creator. As seen in the novel this emotional suffering obtained through knowledge caused danger and destruction that affected many people around Victor. One can surely say that Dr. Frankenstein and his creation...
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...Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or Modern Prometheus, is a daring tale of the creation of life gone wrong, inspired by the many alchemists and scientists of the time. From a young age, Shelley was exposed to the concept of social engineering and social and moral issues. When she married Percy Shelley, he brought about the ideas of man playing God. A man with a deep interest in chemical experiments, he exposed Mary the whelm of chemical experimentation and natural philosophy. Many will agree that Shelley’s novel was influenced heavily by four prominent European scientists: Luigi Galvani, Giovanni Aldini, and Johann Konrad Dippel. Electricity at this time was a new concept, only explored previously by Albert Einstein. Electricity had compelled the minds of many scientists,...
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...In Mary Shelly’s novel Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus, Shelley alludes to many other pieces of work such as Rime of the Ancient Mariner and biblical stories such as Paradise Lost constantly throughout the book. All of these allusions carry a compelling meaning between Frankenstein and the other literary work. Shelley’s reasoning for using various pieces of literature in her novel was to compare the characters in her novel to the other characters in the other works. The main characters in Shelley’s novel all portray other characters form the literary works in a way due to their actions and thinking. Frankenstein alludes to the literary works of Prometheus, Paradise Lost, and Rime of the Ancient Mariner to emphasize the certain actions that occur in the novel and how they are similar to the alluded works. All of these allusions provide insight to the actions of the characters and the characters in general. Many of the literary pieces alluded to in the novel are referenced by the protagonists in the story. In fact, the monster is taught how to speak by reading Paradise Lost, after stealing it and through this; he learns the concept of good and evil. The characters are aware of these works and realize that their actions are similar to those of the characters in the other literary works. All of the literary works deal with great tragedy but the protagonists in Frankenstein don’t seem to realize that even though they are acting a lot like the other characters in the literary...
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...of 1984 and Frankenstein, the protagonist from each work shares similarities with one another. Within George Orwell’s novel, 1984, the protagonist is Winston Smith. Within Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, the protagonist is Victor Frankenstein. Winston Smith and Victor Frankenstein each experience similar life lessons as well as similar feelings; however, differences can be uncovered as well. The act of rebellion is an act that both Victor and Winston encounter. Victor was a man of rebellion, beginning to end. Victor Frankenstein would turn his back on society and the rules in which they abide. He had created a creature. He had created a creature far from the ordinary human. Creating a human, even attempting to create...
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...In the Beginning There Was Frankenstein Many have said that love makes the world go around but we are left with the question of who creates love? What would life be like if we had not experienced love and, ultimately, what would each of us be like without experiencing love? The Holy Bible provides numerous examples of a perfect love from the Creator and explains that people have been created to love. Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, creates questions about the responsibility of a creator, and what can happen when some basic responsibilities of a creator are ignored. The novel describes a monster and his actions due to his creator abandoning him. Throughout Mary Shelley’s novel, there is the question of who really is the monster? Victor Frankenstein, the creator of the monster, can easily be compared to the Judeo-Christian God and the story of creation found in the book of Genesis. The God referred to as the creator of all mankind is driven by love for his creation, but Victor Frankenstein is driven to create by his own personal ideas of grandiosity and ego. The Holy Bible is the account of the Judeo-Christian God’s action in the world and his purpose for all creation. The writing of the Holy Bible took place over sixteen centuries, and is the work of over forty human authors. There are sixty-six books that provide various lessons for living and moral conduct, examples of love from a Creator, and a starting point for creation. In Genesis, the...
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...To begin with, both the inventors of CRISPR and Victor Frankenstein have good intentions. Frankenstein wants to understand life and death partly because of his mother’s early departure from his life. “Whence, I often asked myself, did the principle of life proceed? …. To examine the causes of life, we must first have recourse to death.” (Shelley 41) His original purpose of creating a creature is to understand the basic mechanism of life and death so he could bring back the dead one day. Similarly, CRISPR is mainly for prevention, detection and treatment for disorder and improve the overall health of the population. Frankenstein also acknowledges the adverse changes his creation could cause to society. He asks himself, “shall I, in cool blood, set loose upon the earth a demon whose delight is death and wretchedness?” (Shelley 173) Although CRISPR itself doesn’t have the ability to murder with purpose, its side effects to the society could not and should not be ignored. To summarize, both Frankenstein’s creation and CRISPR are double-edged swords. As he recounts “the promise of virtues which [the creature] had displayed on the opening of his existence and the subsequent blight of all kindly feelings by the loathing and scorn which his protectors had manifested towards him” (Shelley 150), Frankenstein realizes that the creature is capable of being virtuous, but it is the environment that causes him to become this heartless, coldblooded...
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...Frankenstein by Mary Shelley Key facts full title · Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus author · Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley type of work · Novel genre · Gothic science fiction language · English time and place written · Switzerland, 1816, and London, 1816–1817 date of first publication · January 1, 1818 publisher · Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones narrator · The primary narrator is Robert Walton, who, in his letters, quotes Victor Frankenstein’s first-person narrative at length; Victor, in turn, quotes the monster’s first-person narrative; in addition, the lesser characters Elizabeth Lavenza and Alphonse Frankenstein narrate parts of the story through their letters to Victor. climax · The murder of Elizabeth Lavenza on the night of her wedding to Victor Frankenstein in Chapter 23 protagonist · Victor Frankenstein antagonist · Frankenstein’s monster setting (time) · Eighteenth century setting (place) · Geneva; the Swiss Alps; Ingolstadt; England and Scotland; the northern ice point of view · The point of view shifts with the narration, from Robert Walton to Victor Frankenstein to Frankenstein’s monster, then back to Walton, with a few digressions in the form of letters from Elizabeth Lavenza and Alphonse Frankenstein. falling action · After the murder of Elizabeth Lavenza, when Victor Frankenstein chases the monster to the northern ice, is rescued by Robert Walton, narrates his story, and dies tense · Past foreshadowing · Ubiquitous—throughout...
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...Frankenstein/Bladerunner In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) and Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982) humanity’s manipulation of nature paradoxically erodes the human spirit and compromises integrity. Although contextually disparate, both texts explore a creator’s need to take responsibility for his creation, cautioning responders of the dangers of unrestrained scientific progress and conveying humanity’s severed relationship with nature. Where Shelley communicates with a certain ambiguity characteristic of the contradictory Age of Reason and sets her tale against a backdrop of a sublime natural world, Scott portrays a society fuelled by ecological destruction and 1980s corporate abuse. This reflects each composer’s anchoring of their visions in the socio-cultural realities of their time; a fundamental transgression of human values over time. Both texts explore the dangers of uninhibited scientific progress. In Frankenstein, Shelley fashions a gothic world where nature is tampered with and a ‘hurricane of enthusiasm’ drives the protagonist towards abandoning his conscience, prompting Shelley’s valuing of moderation. Underpinned by the Industrial Revolution and an era of scientific change, Victor embodies the obsessive passions and Romantic ego-identities of 19th century scientists. The epistolatory narrative framework adds a disquieting sense of truth to Victor’s retrospective dialogue, “how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge,” reflecting his Promethean disobedience...
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...The Moral Immoralities of Victor Frankenstein In the novel Frankenstein, the author Mary Shelley portrays the limitations of man in his pursuit of scientific creativity. She illustrates Victor Frankenstein’s attempts and success at creating a human being in his laboratory as an immoral attempt to play the role of God. Shelley repeatedly shows the monster’s harmful effects on society and often places blame on Victor for the Monster’s detrimental actions. In order to emphasize the immorality and mistakes in Victor’s attempts to play God, Shelley constructs a recognizable parallel to the story of Genesis when God creates man and woman. In order to show her disapproval of such an endeavor, Shelley intentionally causes Victor to fail. This deviation from the parallel in Genesis demonstrates that man cannot exceed his natural limitations, or mimic the role of God. The story begins with Victor’s decision to create the Monster. Victor says that he “[s]ucceeded in discovering the cause of generation and life; nay, more, [he] became capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter” (Shelley 43). Immediately, a parallel is drawn to the creation of man in Genesis. This parallel continues when Victor discloses to the reader that he, “[c]ollected bones from charnel-houses and distrusted, with profane fingers, the tremendous secrets of the human frame” (Shelley 45). Shelley portrays the creation of Victor’s monster in a subtle but similar way that God created man. Her intention is for...
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...choose? Would you choose the option better for you or better for humanity? The subtitle of Mary Shelley's book Frankenstein is "The Modern Prometheus." To be Promethean means to go against a greater power, disobey something that the greater power asks of you for the sake of humanity, and to be punished for your actions. Victor Frankenstein is Promethean. Victor Frankenstein fits my definition of what it means to be the "Modern Prometheus" because he created the creature by going against the forces of nature. An example of this is that Victor has the materials needed to bestow animation and he hopes that his attempts will lay the...
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...4: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley Forbidden knowledge From the beginning of humanity, a thirst for knowledge was born within the human soul. This thirst made it essential for the human mind to seek knowledge constantly and discover new things. We want to know everything. And it has been a great journey for mankind in the field of technology and science; the achievements that humanity has managed to accomplish in the different fields of knowledge are outstanding. Over the past few centuries, the intellectuals of society have made countless advances in science and the development of technology, which, to different degrees, have all benefited mankind. Our thirst for knowledge is what has kept and still keeps us moving forward, and it is what separates us from our ancestors and makes the present life different than the ancient one; without it we wouldn’t have the full-of-technology, modern life we have today. Every scientific discovery is the result of man’s hunger for and dedication to acquiring knowledge, information, and power. However, the innate curiosity and desire for understanding in an individual can grow so immense that his or her moral and ethical boundaries erode, which might result in tragic and disastrous results for all who are involved. Despite that there is a huge number of fields in which humans can seek knowledge, forbidden knowledge have always been attractive for some. The secrets of life and death stand as the most tempting, and in Frankenstein we see...
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