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Technology In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

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New technological progress may be the reason for the greatness of modern day society, but it is imperative to know that new technologies are also going to be responsible for the destruction of today’s innovative and advanced world. In Mary Shelley's important novel Frankenstein, she displays man's hunger for new technology, and shows how that curiosity can lead to disaster. Shelley's views expressed are still relevant, and society should react accordingly to her warning. Technology becomes dangerous once it falls into the wrong hands and is abused for selfish or immoral reasons. By relating this ideology to modern times, it is evident that performance enhancing drugs were created to help athletes, but have done more harm than help on America's …show more content…

Barry Bonds exploited the monstrosity that performance enhancing drugs can cause, but almost no blame can be placed on the creator of steroids, or the creator of any other performance enhancing drug for that matter. On the other hand, Victor Frankenstein should be held solely responsible for the monster his creation turned into. All performance enhancing drugs were created for medical purposes, with the men who discovered them having no idea that they could be used in such a harmful way. In Dermot McEvoy’s piece, Bonds Stirs the Drink, he talks about Nathan Jendrick’s views on steroids. While Jendrick recognizes steroids are not a bad drug, he gives off the belief that it is just a drug that has fallen into the wrong hands too many times by stating, “It is steroid abuse that has and is destroying American athletics," (McEvoy). This declaration that steroids are a good drug just used improperly by the wrong people proves that the mastery of a new invention cannot solely stop it from becoming monstrous. The center of one of Shelley’s main arguments proposes that Frankenstein’s failure to master his creation caused it to turn monstrous. While her argument contains truth, Shelley insinuates that the mastery of a new technology can prevent disaster, and that contradicts what has been shown by performance enhancing drugs. That part of Shelley’s argument may not apply to the history of performance enhancing drugs, but her claim that technology becomes monstrous once fallen into the wrong hands proves the relevance of her argument towards performance enhancing drugs. The distinct personality traits of Victor Frankenstein are eerily similar to the characteristics of Barry Bonds and other performance enhancers. Shelley describes Frankenstein as an

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