Freedom And Authority In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Experts in the art have divided the world history into several periods of time; one of which is Romanticism, popular social movement, which emphasized emotion over reason, freedom over authority, and nature over human works. Many artists who lived and created in that time period tended to fall into the mainstream of Romantic thinking, which resulted in very interesting and original works. Mary Shelley was one of the great writers of Romanticism, who wrote such books as The Last Man, Mathilda, or Valperga. Her most popular, however, and critically acclaimed opus was Frankenstein, which is, even today, a book that is soaked with ideas of Romanticism. Shelley portrays Frankenstein as a doctor, who acts because of emotions and not reason, the

Her work makes a reader think wether the society should accept the monster’s actions as a natural consequence of no proper rising or the monster should obey the rules and norms, which he knows, instead of making excuses: "I am malicious because I am miserable.” (157) The fiend says, “I was dependent on none and related to none. The path of my departure was free (138)”. That very sentence brings up a new point to the day light. The monster seems to think that he is beyond the law by any measure. In his perverted assumption his freedom is unlimited and he himself has the very right to judge and punish. The author never actually serves the answer to the reader on a silver platter but leaves it up to a discussion as one never knows wether the monster does burn himself or was that promise another polluted lie.

To epitomize, Mary Shelley leaves a lot of space for the reader to debate on many matters in her book Frankenstein. She leaves it quite clear, however, that she endeavors the ideas of Romanticism. She indeed conceives that superiority of emotions over reason in driving ideas, advantage of nature over human, and the conflict between freedom and authority are values strong enough to base a work on and create an intellectually puzzling piece of