The Consequences Of Science In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

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

Shelley addresses romantic conventions in Victor to convey his loss of identity. Victor is impatient and restless when constructing the creation, so much, that he does not think about it’s future repercussions. One of the great paradoxes that Shelley’s novel depicts is giving the monster more human attributes than to it’s creator [p. 6 - Interpretations]. This is true as the monster seeks an emotional bond, but Victor is terrified of it’s existence. The monster later reveals, “I, the miserable and the abandoned, am an abortion, to be spurred at and kicked and trampled on [Shelley, p. 224].” Victor’s lack of compassion is rooted from the inability to cope with his reality. He distances himself from others and is induced with fainting spells [Shelley, p. 59]. From this, the nameless creature exemplifies Victor’s attempt to abandon his creation to escape his responsibilities. His creation is described as, ‘wretched devil’ and ‘abhorred monster,’ eliciting that the unobtainable, pitied identity [Shelley, p. 102]. The act of not naming the creature reveals Victor as hateful, and unnaturally disconnected to his own created victim.

Over two centuries ago, Mary Shelley created a gruesome tale of the horrific ramifications that result when man over steps his bounds and manipulates nature. In her classic tale, Frankenstein, Shelley weaves together the terrifying implications of a young scientist playing God and creating life, only to be haunted for the duration of his life by the monster of his own sordid creation. Reading Shelley in the context of present technologically advanced times, her tale of monstrous creation provides a very gruesome caution. For today, it is not merely a human being the sciences are lusting blindly to bring to life, as was the deranged quest of Victor Frankenstein, but rather to

Ever since his youth, Victor has been fascinated by the sciences and nature. This curiosity is what drives him to attend a University in Ingolstadt, away from his family and loved ones. His best friend, Henry Clerval, attends school alongside Victor but is promptly neglected by Victor in favor of his studies. After his mother’s untimely death, Victor begins to shift his focuses towards reanimating a human corpse, which at first glance seems both impossible and unethical. Both of his professors explain to Victor that his idea is impossible and he’s wasting his time, but this only fuels the fire burning inside him. He becomes completely enveloped in his project and his health greatly suffers because of it. While he is working, he admits the toll this process has taken on him: “I [Victor] shunned my fellow-creatures as if I had been guilty of a crime. Sometimes I grew alarmed at the wreck I perceived that I had become”

Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein cannot merely be read as a literary work of the early 19th century. It represents the workings of young Shelley's mind. Further, it represents the vast scientific discoveries of the time, combined with Mary Shelley's intuitive perception of science. She views science as a powerful entity, but also recognizes the dangers if uncontrolled. Shelley demonstrates this fear in the book as science drives Victor Frankenstein to create his monster. In the end, it is also his use of science that inevitably becomes his demise.

The book of Genesis was created by God to express his image of companionship, but also bring awareness to the idea of sin. Shelley forms Frankenstein around Genesis, however, she separates the two by stating, “Frankenstein’s monster is created as a test of Frankenstein’s power” (Shelley 34), implying that the monster is simply created to challenge the power of his creator just as God’s power was challenged by Adam and Eve. Following the creation of the monster, Victor wants absolutely nothing to do with it. The monster is composed of decomposing human bodies and therefore it is not anyone’s ideal image and has no one to look up to in the aspect of, “let us make man in our image, according to our likeness” (Genesis 1:26). Due to the monster being created with the limps and interior of dead bodies, it promotes an extraordinary element of not having an original origin. Victor takes advantage of the fact that the monster is not a

With the growth of science and technology, there exists a growth of concern over whether or not people will attempt to play God with such advancements and what consequences may result. Genetic engineering, cloning, body modifications, and other fields in biological technology are all examples of fields that are achieving amazing advancements in an extremely rapid manner. Progress in science causes people to question their own humanity and what it means to be human, as well as whether the right to act as a God is a right a human has. The main character of the Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein is inspired to advance the field of science by attempting to resurrect the dead. It is argued that by doing this, Victor was in fact, playing God.

Likewise, Victor Frankenstein allows his emotional senses to give way to a hatred of the Creature without even giving the Creature a chance. After seeing the hideous creation made by his own hands, Victor refrains from taking responsibility of the actions of the Creature, even when his conscious tells him it is his duty to. On the night of the creation, Victor recalls that the creature, who he emotionally describes as a monster, “held up the curtain of the bed … one hand stretched out, seemingly to detain [Victor], but [he] escaped … catching and fearing each sound as if it were to announce the approach of

Victor Frankenstein's life was destroyed because of an obsession with the power to create life that no one had tried before.  The monster he created could be seen as an image of all the mistakes in science.  We can use Frankenstein to compare life in modern society, and show that there is a danger in the distant relationship that science creates between the scientist and his work. This is why I think Frankenstein has been read for so long.

Questions of morality did not enter Victor's mind a single time before the creation of his "human being."  He did not ponder the effects of his creation.  Victor had a goal - to create life.  By doing so we would be "godlike" for just one instant.  He successfully

Sure, we see Victor Frankenstein first attempting to learn the secrets of nature by consulting classic works of the occult in Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's Frankenstein. The truth is, he is curious about a real-world science by observing his professors. Which annex the idea of how magic can be considered as a science since every element can affect a human by our 5 senses. To support the thesis, on pages 34 and 35 “If, instead of this remark, my father had taken the pains to explain to me that the principles of Agrippa had been entirely exploded and that a modern system of science had been introduced which possessed much greater powers than the ancient, because the powers of the latter were chimerical, while those of the former were real and practical, under such circumstances I should certainly have thrown Agrippa aside and have contented my imagination, warmed as it was, by returning with greater ardour to my former studies.This is the moment where science becomes more empirical”(Shelley 34,35). This is the main cause of what made Victor Frankenstein fulfill his curiosity of modern science because the modern science has taken some ideas from medieval science and feels creative of doing this action.

Frankenstein was written two hundred years ago by Mary Shelly when she was eighteen years old. A science fiction novel but often read as a gothic horror story and ominous warning about the ramifications exceeding boundaries of science. The main character, Victor Frankenstein, at a young age has been fascinated by life and death and classical experiments of the alchemists, thus creating his first subject the Monster. Frankenstein epitomized the climatic change in the study of science during the eighteenth century. The time is characterized by important experimentations and rise of scholars such Faraday, Dalton, and Benjamin Franklin. There were signs in the novel that it was influenced by scientific discovery of our modern understanding of electricity. Shelly attempted to uncover the limits to which science can surpass morals. Frankenstein who attempted to attain powers through science by his display of creation of life and death, has forbidden limitations and unforgiving ramifications.

In her novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley is trying to convey the message that science and technology can be dangerous in the wrong hands. She affirms this idea through the character of Victor, a cautionary tale, but dispels the idea that all pursuit of knowledge is bad through more traditionally romantic characters such as Henry Clerval. Shelley is complicit in her understanding that curiosity and experimentation are unbreakably tied to the human condition, and tries to warn the world of the evil that can come from this. However, the effects of the interpretation of this book can vary: it is an exemplary cautionary tale, and a much needed reminder of ethics in an increasingly technology-dependent world, but one could easily take these warnings too far and use her novel as a means to quell innovation or incite censorship. In a world of technology that would be unbelievable to Shelley, her work still remains relevant, notably in the field of genetic engineering. Frankenstein raises important questions about ethics, responsibility and censorship, and is applicable to modern technological issues such as genetic engineering.

When does science cross the boundary and what are the consequences that come with it? In her book, Frankenstein, Mary Shelley talks about taking science too far and its consequences. The setting is around her time which is in the 18th century so we will have to see how much is applicable to the 21st century.