The Matrix And Frankenstein Comparison Essay

When reading or watching works of science fiction, it’s easy to cheer for the humans. In many cases, it’s us as a race against the alien creatures or some sort of technology that’s turned evil. Just think of “Alien,” “The Matrix,” and “Ender’s Game.” Work like this gives us as humans hope in ourselves, and makes us imagine that the people in our world can band together to conquer anything if we put our minds to it. But what happens when the humans aren’t the ones being attacked? Both Ursula K. Le Guin’s “The Word for World is Forest” and Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” have heavy themes hinting that humans aren’t as perfect as we sometimes like to think. In fact, both works point out that humans themselves are sometimes the monsters. Le Guin’s story seems to relay this theme more upfront than Shelley’s “Frankenstein.” In her book, she describes an Eden-like planet called Athshe. There, most of the world is either forest or water, and is run by a human-like race called the Athsheans. The small, furry green people are extremely peaceful. Although there are different tribes on the species and different language, they never fight or kill one another. Instead, they think the humans are uncivilized because they battle their

The book begins with Victor Frankenstein’s creation described just as any other scary-story creation would be. “His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips” (Shelley 35). The creature was larger and stronger than the average man, and was so frightening that Victor runs away from the room as soon as his creation comes