Nature Is Power In Frankenstein

Nature is an important part of both Frankenstein and his creation’s life. Often Nature is used to describe certain points in victor’s life, for example, Marry Shelley uses metaphors in nature to describe Frankenstein’s youth. “I find it arises, like a mountain river, from ignoble and almost forgotten sources; but swelling as it proceeded, it became the torrent which, in its course, has swept away all my hopes and joys.” The use of nature to describe Frankenstein’s feelings is a prominent part of the book. Nature is also used as a calming technique for Frankenstein. After Frankenstein finds that his creation has murdered his brother he retreats to nature to calm himself and regain strength. “By degrees, the calm and heavenly scene restored me". Nature is also used as an escape for Frankenstein. After the execution of Justine, a dear friend to victor, the Frankenstein family takes a trip to Belrive to try to put their minds at peace. While there, victor took a boat and sailed in the water to pass the time and get his mind off recent events. “And I the only unquiet thing that wandered restless in a scene so beautiful and heavenly”. Similarly, the monster also shares a deep appreciation for Nature. After the monster was created Frankenstein fled from his house, leaving the monster to

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein deeply develops the trope of nature vs. nurture. The romantic era is characterized by a desire to revert to natural animalistic living in the world. Shelley’s main characters embody nature and nurture respectively. Victor, raised in a loving home, kills with no concern and disregards his caring family. The Monster, Victor’s creation, on the other hand, is forced to live in nature like an animal with no companion. Victor is Shelley’s direct comment on the Victorian lifestyle characterized by material possession and religious moral structure. Victor embodies one who is grounded in societally constructed niceties and formalities but is corrupted by the lifestyle. The monster is shown to be the morally correct character

Shelley depicts the romantic’s love for nature and the desire to understand and acquire nature’s power. Frankenstein finds comfort when he is at his lowest, but at the same time, he is horrified by his creation and its quest for revenge.

In the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, man tries to tamper with nature. This is an enormous mistake, because his experiences prove that man should respect the omnipotent power of nature so man can be happy. Man should respect nature because if man goes beyond his limits, then nature lets man creates all types of consequences for himself which proves Shelley’s point to respect nature’s powers.When people look at nature, they are automatically healed just by its looks. This is a much more powerful force than anything man is capable of doing, thus nature is all powerful. Nature is constant, unlike man who is constantly changing, which shows that nature is always in control.

In 1818 Frankenstein was written by Mary Shelley. In Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein brings a creature to life. The creature kills William, Henry Clerval, and Elizabeth. Victor had promised to make a female creature for the creature, but he did not fulfill his promise. This makes the creature enraged. The creature runs away and Victor follows him. Victor gets on a boat with Walton. Victor dies and the creature comes and is very sad that his creator has died. The creature says that he must end his suffering and he jumps into the ocean. In the novel Frankenstein, Shelley uses the theme of nature to show how it is like the characters of the story and how it affects the characters.

In the novella Frankenstein, Mary Shelley uses geography to further the plot, reveal the true intentions of characters and convey the novella’s theme of sublime nature. The theme of sublime nature is the idea that nature is comprised of a mixture of terror and beauty. One example of sublime nature supported by geography is the monster, which is truly a terror in appearance and spirit being born in Ingolstadt. Shelly contrasts this “terror” of Ingolstadt to the beauty of Geneva, Frankenstein’s birthplace. Once the fruit of Frankenstein’s labor comes to fruition and the horrific monster is born, even Frankenstein himself is “unable to endure the aspect of the being” and attempts to cast it away and forget it (Shelley 101). The apparent

Robert Walton, the captain of the ship that finds Frankenstein, notes “broken in spirit as he is, no one can feel more deeply than he [Frankenstein] does the beauties of nature. The starry sky, the sea, and every sight afforded by these wonderful regions seem still to have the power of elevating his soul from earth” (Shelley 16). In the presence of the starry sky and the sea the thoughts of death escape him. On Victor’s last and darkest day the element of nature is brought into the scene suggesting the importance nature plays within the novel. Despite the monsters deformities and seclusion from society, nature is able to lift his spirits and bring him hope for a better future. Nature has the same healing effect upon the monster as with Victor, “…spirits were elevated by the enchanting appearance of nature; the past was blotted from my [his] memory, the present was tranquil, and the future gilded by bright rays of hope and anticipations of joy” (Shelley 99). With spring comes hope, as the flowers blossom the monsters feels his spirits being elevated. Just as nature flourishes, the monster is growing as well.

Nature is a major topic in Frankenstein and is frequently mentioned as impacting the story greatly. The Creature has several unpleasant experiences with nature, such as, “Nature decayed around me, and the sun became heatless; rain and snow poured around me; mighty rivers were frozen; the surface of the earth was hard and chill, and bare, and I found no shelter” (Shelley 167). This stems from the couple’s interest in nature and traveling. Just as Mary Shelley and Percy Shelley spent a summer in Geneva, Victor Frankenstein spends much of his life as a child growing up in Geneva. While Mary Shelley and Percy Shelley are in Geneva they have a few deaths in the family.

Though Victor Frankenstein thinks fundamentally in terms of ‘who belongs to whom’, he and the Creature share a strange bond that goes beyond the bounds of mere possession. Frankenstein clearly ignores his mutual obligations and promises, especially towards the Creature, creating a relationship between the two that is composed entirely of power-struggles rather than any form of mutuality. In addition to this, as one who thinks about social organization in terms of sheer power, Frankenstein extends this master-slave relationship to nature itself – in short, he treats nature the same as he treats his unnatural Creation.

Mary Shelley uses nature several ways in this novel: The natural surroundings of this novel are shown to have restorative powers, do not harm nature for your own advantage, and as a method to seclude oneself from the real world. In my opinion, Mary Shelley is trying to tell us that nature should not be altered. Nature in the novel is used as a central theme to connote everything natural. Mary Shelley in the novel Frankenstein has used the theme of the appreciation of nature to show that if one defies nature the consequences are severe however, if one appreciates nature and stays in the natural order everything will be alright.

Frankenstein takes a step back from the lab bench, so to speak. Once he recovers from his illness, he goes home to be with his family. It is not difficult to believe that he might never again have ventured into the realm of science had the creature not shown up on his door and threatened his family. Frankenstein understood the gravity of what he’d done, he bore a creature into the world and it only knew pain. This knowledge, and that power, drove him to never again take up the role of creator.

The environment has a lot to say in Marry Shelly's Frankenstein. It seems to reflect somewhat what is going on emotionally with Victor in the story. Victor finds solace in solitude with nature, and appears to use it as a coping mechanism to escape from the horrors of his life. Nature also ties into how the monster Victor has created feels, but in a much different way than it does for him.

English Extension 1 Writing Portfolio Imagination and the emphasis on appreciation of nature are at the core of the Romantic Movement, originating in the late 18th century. These intrinsically linked aspects of an individual determine their ability to create and develop their connections with the natural world. This idea is prominent in John Keats poem, Ode to Autumn, where nature symbolically represents a shift in creative views and renewed perceptions. Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein also explores similar ideas, where nature becomes a source of solace for Victor Frankenstein, as a result of his transgression of the natural power of imagination. One’s own desire to connecting and embrace the natural world is also seen in Caspar David Friedrich’s

Victor Frankenstein spends almost two years in isolation, working to create a living human. When he is finally successful, however, “the beauty of the dream vanishe[s], and breathless horror and disgust fill[s] [his] heart” (Shelley 35). He no longer appreciates his accomplishment of creating life anymore, and decides to shun the creature. Frankenstein begins his endeavor of creating life with the mindset that after he accomplishes his goal he can return to his family, but because his creature feels like an outcast, he takes revenge on Frankenstein by killing his loved ones. Frankenstein eventually comes to the realization that he cannot even assume that the few friends he still had “were safe from the malignity of the fiend” (Shelley 146).

Given the deep ties to nature that Mary Shelley explores within Frankenstein, the principles and methodology of ecocriticism can be applied in many different ways. The interaction of humanity and nature is a concept explored throughout the novel, relating directly to a core tenet of ecocriticism, "directly relat[ing] who we are as human beings to the environment" (Bressler 231). Being as there is no "single, dominant methodology" (235) within ecocriticism, the extent to which we can use ecocriticism to interact with Frankenstein contains considerable depth. However, I will look to a few main methodologies of ecocriticism to look at Frankenstein in detail to uncover how the novel deals with the changing attitudes of humanity and nature in