The idea of duality permeates the literary world. Certain contradictory commonplace themes exist throughout great works, creation versus destruction, light versus dark, love versus lust, to name a few, and this trend continues in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. The pivotal pair in this text however, is monotony versus individuality. The opposing entities of this pairing greatly contrast against each other in Frankenstein, but individuality proves more dominant of the two in this book. According to Harriet Hustis in her essay “Responsible Creativity and the ‘Modernity’ of Mary Shelley’s Prometheus,” many themes circulate throughout the text, including responsible creativity, parental guidance, and compassion, but all are centered on individuality, especially in reference to inter-character relationships. The creature, upon which much controversy is based, is continuously searching for guidance and societal acceptance, thus implying that the heart of human consciousness and the human identity is compassion (Asquith). The candor of this statement however, is heavily reliant on the world views and values of the characters in question. Subsequently, these values and world views shape and define the individual’s identity, ultimately granting them a niche in society. The novel’s protagonist, Victor Frankenstein, emphasizes the importance of having an identity by exemplifying the dissatisfaction that accompanies contorted character-to-character relations. What makes his relationships particularly perverse however, is Victor himself as a person and family member. Often, male “participants in a moral conflict,” such as Victor, “may invoke ‘justice’ and insist on theoretical objectivity” to avoid taking responsibility for their actions, c... ... middle of paper ... ...900. 43.4 (2003): 845 t. Literature Resource Center. Web. 13 Nov. 2011. Kestner, Joseph. "Narcissism as Symptom and Structure: The Case of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein." Frankenstein. Ed. Fred Botting. London: Macmillan, 1995. 68-80. Rpt. in Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism. Ed. Jessica Bomarito and Russel Whitaker. Vol. 170. Detroit: Gale, 2006. Literature Resource Center. Web. 9 Dec. 2011. Knoepflmacher, U.C. “Thoughts on the Aggression of Daughters.” The Endurance of Frankenstein. Eds. George Levine and U.C. Knoepflmacher. London, England: University of California Press, 1979. 88-119. Print. Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Barnes & Noble, 2003. Print. Stevick, Philip. "Frankenstein and Comedy." The Endurance of Frankenstein. Eds. George Levine and U.C. Knoepflmacher. London, England: University of California Press, 1979. 221-239. Print.
In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley highlights on the experiences her characters undergo through the internal war of passion and responsibility. Victor Frankenstein lets his eagerness of knowledge and creating life get so out of hand that he fails to realize what the outcome of such a creature would affect humankind. Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, highlights on how Frankenstein’s passion of knowledge is what ultimately causes the decline of his health and the death of him and his loved ones.
Previously portrayed through Frankenstein’s letters as the sole cause of both his and society’s despair, the monster’s use of the word “abortion” instead demonstrates Victor’s individual contribution towards his creature’s destructive path. Since the definition of abortion serves as the premediated act of terminating life, Frankenstein’s deliberate decision to desert his artificial creature exhibits society’s lack of sympathy for those with uncontrollable differences such as the monster’s physical deformities. Nevertheless, the textual irony of the monster’s frustrations eventually becomes apparent when the creature exclaims “Was there no injustice to this?”. Setting off a chain reaction of several more questions, Shelly’s text further mirrors the monster’s bafflement with the careless actions of Victor Frankenstein. That is, although Frankenstein gave his creation the “gift” of life, the monster has been perpetually denied every chance to live happily because of mankind’s relentless and inescapable hatred. More so, explained as the abandonment or failure of a process, Frankenstein’s ultimate refusal to love his own creation typifies how the creator’s ironic choices remain accountable for failing both the monster and
in Frankenstein: Contexts, nineteenth century responses, criticism. By Mary Shelley. Ed. J. Paul Hunter. Norton Critical Edition.
The idea for the novel of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein came to her one night when she was staying in the company of what has been called ‘her male coterie’, including Lord Byron and her husband, Percy Shelley. Mary Shelley’s whole life seems to have been heavily influenced by men. She idolised her father, William Godwyn, and appears to have spent a good part of her life trying very hard to impress both him and her husband. There seems to have been a distinct lack of female influence, her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, having died weeks after her birth, being replaced by a neglectful step-mother. These aspects of her life are perhaps evident in her novel. The characters and plot of Frankenstein were perhaps influenced by Shelley’s conflicting feelings about the predominately masculine circle which surrounded her, and perhaps the many masculine traits that we see in novel were based upon those of the male figures in Shelley’s own life. In this essay I will attempt to show some of these traits.
Works Cited for: Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein: A Norton Critical Edition. ed. a. a. a. a. a J. Paul Hunter. New York: W. W. Norton, 1996.
The human race’s complexity is so muddled with various desires, styles, and actions that even a substantial response could only explain a fragment of human nature, but, even with the intricacy of humanity, there is a barrier an ethical conscience held by the human race as a whole that separates actions human and inhuman. In Mary Shelly’s novel Frankenstein, the characters Dr. Frankenstein and the creature he reanimates walk along the separation line between human and inhuman. Shelly uses the idealisms like Promethean desire and existential questions to exemplify the natural yearnings that humans strive for as they search for their purpose and aspire for something greater. Frankenstein’s creature and Frankenstein illustrate both human and inhuman qualities as they exemplify natural human desires, but also simultaneously act in eerie and coldhearted ways that separate them from natural human society.
A predominant theme in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is that of child-rearing and/or parenting techniques. Specifically, the novel presents a theory concerning the negative impact on children from the absence of nurturing and motherly love. To demonstrate this theory, Shelly focuses on Victor Frankenstein’s experimenting with nature, which results in the life of his creature, or “child”. Because Frankenstein is displeased with the appearance of his offspring, he abandons him and disclaims all of his “parental” responsibility. Frankenstein’s poor “mothering” and abandonment of his “child” leads to the creation’s inevitable evilness. Victor was not predestined to failure, nor was his creation innately depraved. Rather, it was Victor’s poor “parenting” of his progeny that lead to his creation’s thirst for vindication of his unjust life, in turn leading to the ruin of Victor’s life.
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a nineteenth century literary work that delves into the world of science and the plausible outcomes of morally insensitive technological research. Although the novel brings to the forefront several issues about knowledge and sublime nature, the novel mostly explores the psychological and physical journey of two complex characters. While each character exhibits several interesting traits that range from passive and contemplative to rash and impulsive, their most attractive quality is their monstrosity. Their monstrosities, however, differ in the way each of the character’s act and respond to their environment. Throughout Frankenstein, one assumes that Frankenstein’s creation is the true monster. While the creation’s actions are indeed monstrous, one must also realize that his creator, Victor Frankenstein is also a villain. His inconsiderate and selfish acts as well as his passion for science result in the death of his friend and family members and ultimately in his own demise.
Although “Frankenstein” is the story of Victor and his monster, Walton is the most reliable narrator throughout the novel. However, like most narrator’s, even his retelling of Victor’s story is skewed by prejudice and favoritism of the scientist’s point of view. Yet this could be attributed to the only view points he ever gets to truly hear are from Victor himself and not the monster that he only gets to meet after he comes to mourn his fallen master.
As Victor Frankenstein recounts his informative tale to a seafaring Robert Walton, he makes it known that he was a child of nobility; however it is sadly transparent that, combined with insufficient parenting, Victor’s rare perspective on life pushes him towards a lifestyle of conditional love. Children are considered symbolic of innocence, but as a child Victor’s arrogance was fueled by his parents. With his family being “one of the most distinguished of the republic,”(Shelley 17), Victor’s parents saw him as their “plaything and their idol, and something better-their child, the innocent and helpless Creature bestowed on them by Heaven, whom to bring up to good, and whose future lot was in their hands to direct to happiness or misery, according as they fulfilled their duties towards me,”(19). “The Social Order vs. the Wretch: Mary Shelley's Contradictory-Mindedness in Frankenstein Sylvia Bowerbank.” Bowerbank, "The Social Order vs. the Wretch", knarf.english.upenn.edu/Articles/bower.html.
“Allure, Authority, and Psychoanalysis” discusses the unconscious wishes, effects, conflicts, anxieties, and fantasies within “Frankenstein.” The absence of strong female characters in “Frankenstein” suggests the idea of Victor’s desire to create life without the female. This desire possibly stems from Victor’s attempt to compensate for the lack of a penis or, similarly, from the fear of female sexuality. Victor’s strong desire for maternal love is transferred to Elizabeth, the orphan taken into the Frankenstein family. This idea is then reincarnated in the form of a monster which leads to the conclusion that Mary Shelley felt like an abandoned child who is reflected in the rage of the monster.
Victor Frankenstein, the monster’s creator, is the victim of his own pride. An ego unchecked is a dangerous thing. But in truth, it really just shows Victor’s humanity. He is privileged, educated, talented, loved, adored, but he is not perfect. His flaw is his own ego and pride. Without doubt, this is the result of a childhood where he was overindulged. Overindulged to the extent he was given a little girl “Elizabeth” as a “present”, whom he considered from childhood “mine only” (Shelley 21). Little wonder the twenty year old Victor would think he could create, control and command life. But Victor as with any indulged child did not take the time to learn much from his parents about parenting and fath...
In Frankenstein, Shelley creates two very complex characters. They embody the moral dilemmas that arise from the corruption and disturbance of the natural order of the world. When Victor Frankenstein is attending school, he becomes infatuated with creating a living being and starts stealing body parts from morgues around the university. After many months of hard work, he finishes one stormy night bringing his creation to life. However, “now that [Victor] had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled [his] heart” (Chambers). Right after Victor realizes what he has done, he falls into deep depression and must be nursed back to health by his friend. Victor spends the rest of the story facing consequences and moral problems from creating unnatural life. When he realizes that the ‘monster’ has killed his brother, even though no one believes him, he feels responsible for his brother’s murder because he was responsible for the existence of the ‘monster’. Also feeling responsible, Victor...
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein or; The Modern Prometheus, published in 1818, is a product of its time. Written in a world of social, political, scientific and economic upheaval it highlights human desire to uncover the scientific secrets of our universe, yet also confirms the importance of emotions and individual relationships that define us as human, in contrast to the monstrous. Here we question what is meant by the terms ‘human’ and ‘monstrous’ as defined by the novel. Yet to fully understand how Frankenstein defines these terms we must look to the etymology of them. The novel however, defines the terms through its main characters, through the themes of language, nature versus nurture, forbidden knowledge, and the doppelganger motif. Shelley also shows us, in Frankenstein, that although juxtaposing terms, the monstrous being everything human is not, they are also intertwined, in that you can not have one without the other. There is also an overwhelming desire to know the monstrous, if only temporarily and this calls into question the influence the monstrous has on the human definition.
Walter Scott’s critique in the 1818, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine Review of Frankenstein, is that Frankenstein is a novel of romantic fiction depicting a peculiar nature that narrates the real laws of nature and family values. This review explains that Mary Shelley manages the style of composition, and gives her characters an indirect importance to the reader as the laws of nature takes course in the novel. In addition, Walter Scott appreciates the numerous theme...