...Frankenstein Science AO2 Unrestrained scientific desire: ‘they penetrate into the recesses of nature and show how she works in her hiding places’ • ‘they ascend into the heavens’ ‘new and almost unlimited powers’ ‘penetrate’ ‘command’ ‘mimic’ • ‘with fervour’ • ‘performed miracles’ • ‘unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation’ • ‘secret’ ‘hidden laws’ • How dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge’ Power: ‘as if my soul were grappling with a powerful enemy’ • ‘like a hurricane’ ‘pour a torrent of light’ • ‘pursued’ ‘unremitting ardour’ ‘clung’ ‘dedicated myself’ ‘secret toil’ ‘tremble’ ‘tortured’ • ‘one pursuit’ • ‘tread a land never before imprinted by the foot of man’ • ‘I preferred glory’ • ‘until from the midst of this darkness a sudden light broke in upon me- a light so brilliant and wondrous’ Lack of Morality: Transgression against God he mocks the power of the creator ‘torrents of light’ ‘a new species would bless me as its creator and source’ ‘many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me’ • ‘eyes insensible to the charms of nature’ • ‘Labours’ scientist in being able to mimic and usurp traditional creation methods; existence of an immortal soul? • Responsibility for creation image reinforced ‘inarticulate sounds’ Pursuit: ‘deeply smitten with the thirst for knowledge’ • ‘Pursuit for discovery and wonder’ attracted to the tree of knowledge ‘eternal light’ back to biblical times, tree of knowledge...
Words: 2241 - Pages: 9
...Mary Shelley’s horror story, Frankenstein, is about the entanglement between a young and talented scientist, Victor Frankenstein and his creature. Victor Frankenstein rebuilds a human body and uses thunder to activate it. He is worried because of the creature’s ugly face that he abandons him. As soon as the creature realizes he is rejected by the society, he starts to revenge. Mary Shelly used Victor Frankenstein and his creation to reveal the monstrous spirit of human, including sexism, incest and abandonment. The creature tolerates all unfair treatments at first. He chooses to surrender until his fury reforms his personality. He says, “All men hate the wretched; how, then, must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things” (Mary...
Words: 650 - Pages: 3
...In this novel Victor Frankenstein created a monster that he had grown to become afraid of. After the monster was created Victor left him, but when Frankenstein returned to his house the monster was gone. Victor Frankenstein becomes ill and his best friend Henry Clarval takes care of him. When Frankenstein becomes well again he goes home, but when he gets there he receives a letter that said that Elizabeth had got Scarlet Fever and Caroline Beafort took care of her, but as Elizabeth was getting better Caroline Beafort caught it and she died. After two years Frankenstein runs into the monster. The monster tells him everything that has happened in his life, but the monster wonted a female companion. Frankenstein said he was not going to do it. The monster tells him that if he didn’t do it he was going to kill others in his family. So Victor started to create the female, but he could not go thought with it. So he runs, but the monster eventually finds him and tell him that he was going to see him on his wedding night. Frankenstein is afraid to marry Elizabeth because the monster might kill her and he does. Frankenstein is so angry at this point that he wants to kill the monster, but the monster is so fast and so strong that he just plays with Frankenstein’s mind. The monster played with him so much that he lead Frankenstein all the way to the Artic where he eventually dies because he wasn’t eating right. In the Artic the monster also kills himself because he has no one to tease are...
Words: 797 - Pages: 4
...Frankenstein as a Gothic Novel Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein is considered as a Gothic novel but it can be seen as a compilation of both Gothic and Romantic because of the significance of the sublime. Certain events and settings in the novel present the gothic themes. Shelley uses the different themes in her novel to evoke feelings of horror and terror in the reader. Frankenstein engages in a quest in pushing the realms of science to their limits which leads him to playing god and creating an unnatural being using science. One of the themes Shelley uses in the novel to create the gothic presence is the theme of Forbidden Knowledge. Mary Shelley introduces the ideas that science is capable of being very dangerous and has consequences through the character of Victor Frankenstein. Shelley’s time was described as the age of unprecedented scientific discoveries, which influenced her in writing of Frankenstein. The process of the creation of his creation was influenced by the Italian physician Luigi Galvani who discovered “animal electricity” which manifests with the twitching of nerves and muscles when an electric current is applied. Frankenstein seeks to find “the secrets of heaven and earth” to fulfil his quest. He calls them secrets; he is aware they are not to be known and should not be found. Frankenstein knows that acquiring such knowledge would not be easy as he states “how dangerous the acquirement of knowledge”. Frankenstein is aware of the uneasy task of seeking...
Words: 1561 - Pages: 7
...Novels: How did Women Writers Refashion the Grand Self and Embrace Feminism? The romantic atmosphere is ideal for recognizing women as deserving equals. In this period, the feminist writings was brought and create a debate on the merits of women’ rights. A surge of women began writing and expressing themselves through novels and other literary works, such as Mary Shelley, Jane Austen. The feminist novels have tested the central “I” of women and also have shaken up gender roles of men. The female writers focused on the moral and ideological issues arising out of daily life and basic human relationships, and they advocate for female equality during romantic period fought to obtain better rights for women. The images of women across genres can be varied as the authors themselves. Mary Wollstonecraft is the radical feminist who contributed to those debates and typically revolted against the social condition of women. In her work of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, she believed in a push for growth in women and was disturbed by the lack of education. For most romantic feminists, their literary works focused on both the source of women’s inequality and its potential solution. The feminist novels in romantic era raised concerns about the ability of women to reject silence and express themselves. A feminist view from William Blake pointed out that female liberation some kind can make men free from the relationships based on power. Mary Shelley in her novel Frankenstein questioned prescribed...
Words: 1528 - Pages: 7
...Gender Roles Back in the 1800s women were submissive to all men. Men were educated for knowledge and women were educated only to please their husbands and entertain guest. Mary Shelly went against the typical women of her time, she was educated and even wrote books. Mary Shelly was raised by her father which helps us to understand her dominate personality. Mary Shelley wrote a lot of her books with significant gender roles such as her novel, Frankenstein. This extreme gender differences is also shown in “The Wife of Bath's Tale” which is among one of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. In ‘the wife of baths tale’ Chaucer’s make the main character a stereotypical jock, arrogant and conceded. Then the female characters, the queen and the old...
Words: 828 - Pages: 4
...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 .........................................................
Words: 30015 - Pages: 121
...gender politics for this essay. Jane Austen and Mary Shelley, writing at the beginning of the nineteenth-century, joined their female contemporaries in a growing generation of authoresses who forged careers in discipline of male authority. In this respect, they are inescapably engaging with gender politics. Margaret Kirkham comments that ‘this burgeoning of the female talent...was bound to have a profound effect upon any young woman beginning to write once it had occurred’, suggesting that, regardless of whether the female intended to represent female concerns within their work; a female, in becoming ‘an author, was, in itself, a feminist act’ (Kirkham 33). With the status of the authoress in mind whilst analysing Northanger Abbey and Frankenstein, this essay will focus how Austen and Shelley engage with gender politics through characterization and narrative form, and the female concerns they address, both implicitly and explicitly, throughout their texts. Austen predominately engages with gender politics through her protagonist Catherine. Catherine is presented as the unlikely heroine; ‘no one...would have supposed her born to be a heroine’ (Austen 3). Austen subverts the expectation of an heroine as Catherine possesses ‘feelings rather natural than heroic’, provoking a reading of Catherine as a satire of the passive, unnatural, gothic heroine. When Catherine embarks...
Words: 2406 - Pages: 10
...Rights for women have developed quite seriously over time, especially over the course of the last 300 years. Women have always been a marginalized group, so when they wrote novels up until the 20th century, it was a solid piece of literature always influenced by the world around them. This is especially true for Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein, who was a growing young adult during the victorian era in which “Separate Spheres” developed, but Shelley was born to two significant political figures: William Godwin, a known anarchist, and Mary Wollstonecraft, a large advocator for women’s rights. Shelley was never meant to follow societal expectations, and the female characters in her novel represent the belief that women can easily fit into both spheres. The women in Frankenstein are a combination of both tradition and non-traditional female roles which allow them to have superiority above other characters in the novel, but their tendency to lean towards motherhood prevails. Characters such as Safie, Justine, and Elizabeth all made lasting marks upon the two male characters in the novel, shaping Frankenstein and his creations’s actions by leading them...
Words: 617 - Pages: 3
...The novel “Frankenstein,” written by Mary Shelly, is a horror story that depicts what happens when one man's desire for scientific discovery and immortality goes horribly wrong, and ultimately what happens to society's outcasts. The novel is essentially responsible for the genre of science fiction, has seared a collective cultural imagination, and is now considered a legendary classic. While evaluating the novel, the reader will notice that the idea of gender is an underlying theme throughout the story. There is a broad structural duplication in the novel that correlates to this idea of gender which reaffirms this strong theme and how it affects the story’s outcomes. For example, according to Shelly, the time it took to complete the novel consisted of nine months, Walton’s journey lasts nine months, and Victor takes nine months (winter, spring, summer) to create the Creature. This, all of course equal to the time it takes to create human life; the length a woman is pregnant with a child. Although it may not appear to be important to the novel, Shelly makes sure that reproduction by implication becomes a central motif of the text, as we will discuss later. As the narrative is written from the perspective of three men, the women follow more of a romanticized, idealized figure as compared to the male characters present throughout the story. Shelly characterizes each woman as passive, disposable and serving a utilitarian function, while the men are portrayed at the ultimate being...
Words: 1715 - Pages: 7
...‘Women are chewed up by the plot disassembled in….the way Victor the scientist dismembers the she-monster…They are martyrs and victims.’ How helpful do you find this view of Shelley’s presentation of women. The quote is suggesting that Mary Shelley is to blame for the women’s deaths in the novel and is comparing her to Victor Frankenstein when he too, destroys a female. However, I find that Mary Shelley is demonizing male patriarchy, as in the novel; it is they who are the destroyers of women. Shelley uses the fate of Justine to expose the unjust institution, in which is the unjust treatment by a male dominated institution. When in trial, Justine says that her “passionate and indignant appeals were lost upon them….and I received their harsh, unfeeling reasoning of those men”, it shows how cold hearted the men were towards her and didn’t take her feelings into consideration as women didn’t have a say in the justice system. The judges problematically base their judgments on facts and lack compassion as they have problematic interpretations – their male way of thinking blocks compassion. Mary Shelley describes Justine as a “saintly sufferer”; similarly, the quote refers to women as ‘martyrs’, this idealizes women as they are too pure, and have done no wrong in the novel. She attempts to empower women which shows how incredibly passionate she is, however, the males such as Frankenstein feel threatened by this and allows her to die In the courts of justice. Shelley...
Words: 336 - Pages: 2
...In her 1818 preface to Frankenstein, Mary Shelley wrote that Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron sojourned into Nature leaving her behind at Villa Diodati near lake Geneva. After weeks of rain, the weather suddenly clears and she writes “my two friends left me on a journey among the Alps, lost, in the magnificent scenes…” (8) This would be the first of many excursions from which she would be left out. Though exceptionally educated and progressive, Shelley was a woman trapped by the mores of the nineteenth century. She was no stranger to the social constraints placed upon her sex. Her experiences as a woman of her time are mirrored in her portrayal of men and women and their relationship to nature in the novel. While creation, pregnancy and birth, were intrinsically the provenance of women, the quest for a rational, scientific method for understanding and conquering Nature was the objective of men. This...
Words: 3576 - Pages: 15
...Life or Death 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. There are many factors to be evaluated before initiating the process of creating life. Most individuals know whether they are ready to create life. The choice is a big decision that effects the rest of their life. The book Frankenstein starts by presenting Victor Frankenstein as an individual with a craving to create life. However, he does not choose to persuade this creation the normal way (having a child), instead he chooses to create a life from the parts of deceased individuals. Victor had many years to think about creating the monster, but never thought of the consequences of his action. Also, later in the...
Words: 962 - Pages: 4
...Practise #1 You have studied two texts composed at different times. When you compared these texts and their contexts, how was your understanding of each text developed and reshaped? (HSC 2003) Understanding of these two texts may be developed and reshaped with the further analysis into what context and values they both have in common, whether they are contain similarities or differences. Such texts which can be compared is Blade Runner is a film created by Wrigley Scott which was released in 1982, more than a century after the world renowned novel of Frankenstein written by Mary Shelley in 1818. With such concerning issues as technology advances and their impacts on the environment, class structures and the language styles and techniques used to convey these messages. Developing and reshaping a clearer and more concise understanding enhances the ideas and meanings within each text. As the creature from within the novel, Frankenstein, is created from the, what was seen as, advanced technology in a new way of writing and thinking was created for the audience of the 19th century. The ability to create life in a way which was deemed impossible, unrealistic and yet completely compelling to those which were exposed to this style of gothic horror fiction. This reflects on the time period of Mary Shelley although was not a typical way writers were expected to write and to appease their particular audiences. This developed my understanding of the technology and writing styles which became...
Words: 1620 - Pages: 7
...Frankenstein Essay Assignment For this essay, you will choose a focus in the novel, Frankenstein, and create an original argument based on it. Your writing may be strictly literary analysis or it may take the form of a compare/contrast essay that works to connect an aspect of the novel to concepts or events outside the book. You are free to choose whatever focus you like in the novel. A good starting point is to consider what aspects of Frankenstein interest you most as you read it; for example you might be particularly drawn to the monster’s development, the relationship between Victor and Walton, Victor and the monster, the role of women, the nature vs. nurture debate, the importance of companionship, or the role of nature in the book. Here are some topic ideas that you may choose if you would like to connect the novel to outside sources: 1) Psychology/Identity formation- research child development, nature vs. nurture, and connect what you find to the monster’s development in the novel. What does Shelley’s novel seem to suggest about how identity is formed? Compare and contrast Shelley’s views with your research. 2) Philosophy- Shelley was heavily influenced by Locke and Rousseau, two major philosophical thinkers. Read excerpts of their works, and apply concepts from their writings to the novel. 3) Shelley’s biography- If you are interested in learning more about the writer behind the story, this is a good option for you. It won’t take you long to see...
Words: 654 - Pages: 3
