Essay on Frankenstein Versus Frankenscience

While attempting to uncover the meaning of life and death, and though he believed his experiments would further the paths of science, Victor fails to see the potential consequences of “bestowing animation upon lifeless matter” (Shelley 37). This, in turn, creates a monster. After his “great” experiment, Victor spends his life in grief. Despite this, he manages to belittle his creation, and act superior to him, claiming that “I [Victor] will not hear you. There can be no community between you [the creature] and me; we are enemies” (Shelley 84). Even later on, when assured by the creature himself that Victor would be left alone if he creates a female counterpart, Victor cannot see past the shreds of pride he has left and refuses, causing the death of his family and loved ones. It’s Victor’s pride and his fear of the creature that clouds his judgement and in the end leads to his

He seems to be forgetting who they are: “the same feelings caused me to forget [my family] whom I had not seen for so long a time” (Shelley 49). Victor lets his task of recreating life, take over his own life. He does not even stop to acknowledge, or respond to the letters sent to him by his family, and the last time he sees his family is six years ago. This causes the decline of his relationship with his family, as they rarely talk to, or see Victor. Finally, Victor understands that his constant desire for knowledge needs to end, so to alleviate some stress caused by the invidious monster, he decides to visit his family: “I passed through scenes familiar to my youth, but which I had not seen for nearly six years!” (Shelley 71). Victor just assumes that when he visits his family again, everything will be the same as it was when he left 6 years ago. But, it is quite the opposite. This leads to Victor realizing the extent of his decayed relationship with his family. Many things have changed, such as his new younger brother being born, and his mother’s death. His family welcomes him, but since he has been gone for so long, they do not appreciate his visit as much.

From beginning to end Frankenstein’s Monster is shown as a wicked creature from the people; however, he possesses many human characteristics. The monster was originally an idea of Frankenstein that will soon come to life. Created from many different parts, the monster was never given a chance to be seen as anything other than a science project. From the outside looking in,

As the novel goes on everyone Victor once cared for are decimated in the path of his creation. "I was possessed by a maddening rage when I thought of him and desired and ardently prayed that I might have him within my grasp to wreak a great and signal revenge on his cursed head" (Shelley 103). Now, due to his unwavering lust for knowledge, all that was once good and innocent has been stripped from him. This has left him as a former shell of himself, to be compared with his own creation, solely driven by vengeance.

The enormous difference in the way Victor views the creature before and after its completion shows that he has an altered state of mind while he works on it. As a result of Victor’s secrecy about his creation, he sacrifices his health and happiness to make a creature that disgusts him.

What differentiates Mary Shelly’s novel, Frankenstein from the majority of horror novels are the very real and timeless themes it explores.  The overriding theme of the novel - scientific investigation without consideration of morality and responsibility is still an important topic in today’s world.  “Perhaps the reality of cloning and genetic engineering makes this theme more relevant today than when Frankenstein was first published”(Patterson). This theme, along with the more subtle themes of revenge, the inability to accept those who are different, and the inability to control one's destiny are all themes which separate Frankenstein from other novels in the genre.

Victor’s entire life is a search for perfection; much like all the perfect objects that were gifted to him as a child. Victor’s inability

The power of knowledge has also affected Victor in a negative way. Ever since Victor was a child, he had always been interested in science. As he got older, he got even more interested in specific topics within natural philosophy, particularly the human body. After his talk with his professor, he believed he could create an animate object from an inanimate object, in which this case the object turned into a monster. “My labours would soon end, and I believed that exercise and amusement would then drive away incipient disease; and I promised myself both of these when my creation should be complete” (57). Victor has put a lot of effort into learning the anatomy of a human body and pursues the creation of one, yet he doesn’t realize how small the margin of error would be. Later on in the book, the monster demands Victor to create a

It is Victor's story that truly exposes the true theme of the story, with him speaking of his days as a child and his first friendship with the girl his parents adopted. He lives a fine life, full of joy and happiness with friend plentiful. When he goes to college he is without friends, but soon befriends one of the professors and engaged in lengthy conversations with him. This isn't the same friendship as before, lacking the real love and companionship of his family, and he soon begins work on his creation. He so overwhelmed by the idea of creating a perfect person he is blinded from the deformity of the creature. When the creature is finished he examines his work and is mortified by it, running and hiding he escapes the creature that soon wanders away. Soon after Victor becomes sick and deathly, he shuns society and people and is almost dead when his friend Clerval arrives at the college. Clerval nurses Victor back to health, but Victor isn't physically sick, he has just

Victor uses his knowledge not for the benefit of society, but for his own purpose of experimentation which ends up turning out the opposite way that he imagines. Knowing his own vanity, Victor says "lean from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow" (Shelley 38). After creating the monster and all the hardships Victor had to go through, he realizes that a person should be happy with the world around him/her and not try to change it. He admits that trying to become a man greater than who he could be drove him mad and his knowledge went in tow with it. From

Shelley explains how Victor has a great mental turmoil after he indirectly caused the death of people who were close to him by the actions he took to create the monster. Shelley’s description of Victor’s feelings show the deprivation of hope and fear in his soul and the emphasises the pain in which he was indirectly the cause of. Victor not only caused his own mental illness, but he also caused his own physical illness. Victor makes himself physically sick by his actions during the creation of his monster. Victor’s work unintentionally causes himself to decline in health and become vulnerable to illnesses. “When Victor is working on his experiment, he cannot love: he ignores his family, even his fiance Elizabeth, and takes no pleasure in the beauties of nature. Moreover, he becomes physically… ill, subject to nervous fevers”(Weiner 83). Victor is shown to focus directly on his work, causing him to forget most of the outside world and not be influenced by forces that usually comfort and heal him. His work makes Victor subject to nervous fevers, causing himself to become sick more often and need help from family and friends more often. Although the process of creating the monster was physically taxing on Victor, the end product caused him even more pain. The creation of the creature impaired

This need of power led Victor to create what he believed would be a beautiful human being. But he failed to see that combining the most beautiful human features does not necessarily create a beautiful human being. He was inspired by scientists who ...acquired new and almost limitless powers... (Shelley, Frankenstein, P. 47). Victor sought this unlimited power to the extent of taking the role of God. He not only penetrated nature, but also he assumed power of reproduction in a maniacal desire to harness these modes of reproduction in order to become acknowledged, respected, and obeyed as a father. While bringing his creation into the world he was himself alienated from society, and isolated himself from the community. Isolation and parental neglect cause viciousness within man. Because of his upbringing, Victor had no sense of empathy, and therefore could not realize the potential harm he was creating towards himself and his creation. The sole purpose of his project was an attempt to gain power, but instead of power Victor realized that a morally irresponsible scientific development could release a monster that can destroy human civilization.

In the beginning of the book Victor becomes so excited and he in a way gets something like tunnel vision and doesn't really see clearly what he is doing and creating. Victor gets body parts and puts them together but doesn't realize that the Creation is actually really disgusting and ugly. When Victor finally gets everything he needs to make the Creation he has gained a god complex and i think the reason for creating this Creation is because of all the philosophers he has read about and he wants to be just like them. Victor gives the Creation life and he finally realizes that he made a mistake when the Creation is alive. Victor was horrified and disgusted by what he saw that he had created. He was so disgusted that he ran away and locked himself in his room. This would make anyone feel sad and terrible about themselves so the Creation had to of felt abandoned by his creator when Victor ran away and didn't come back to see him.

Dictionary of Narratology). Because if we identify the character of Victor start from his happy childhood, university environment, but since he created the human-like, the complexity of his life getting worse and worse. He tried to struggle and beated down the monster to reconcile his mistake, and went back to his hometown to safe his family but ironically he couldn’t.

There is nothing more profound about the topic of science and technology than its ability to be a partner in helping to save lives. It is so influencial in coming up with the latest drugs to combat harmful and even deadly diseases and viruses such as AIDS, and some cancers. We are where we are today because of the remarkable innovations in science and technology. The idea that lives can be saved from such innovations as a new flu vaccine, or a new type of antibiotic that can battle chicken pox, and many other diseases. Its all about the advancements that we get from science and technology that let us live the way we do. Now, we dont have to worry about dying from the chicken pox or