I assume that Shelley wrote "Frankenstein" to compare the Industrial Revolution with the monster. It shows how the monster, like the Industrial Revolution, cannot be stopped unless it is totally destroyed.
Abortion is mentioned a couple of times. Victor said, “When I thought of him, I gnashed my teeth, my eyes became inflamed, and I ardently wished to extinguish that life which I had so thoughtlessly made.” Victor also aborted the female monster he was creating by destroying her. The monster said, “I, the miserable and the abandoned, am an abortion, to be spurned at, and kicked, and trampled on.”
Observation is also a big part of the book. The monster learns how to read and write by watching and listening to the peasants around him. He also understands the manner of his creation by observing those around him.
One of the main conflicts in Frankenstein is the concept of dangerous knowledge. In the book Victor attempts to surpass the accepted limits of human knowledge by attempting (and succeeding) to bring his creation to life. Once the monster was brought to life, he began to learn. Once the monster gained knowledge, he realized how different he was from everyone else and he turned against his creator.Both of these quests for knowledge cause the deaths of Victor, his family, and the monster. Also, Walton is attempting to explore the North Pole which had not previously been explored. After hearing Victor's tale, Walton decides to abandon his mission before it can lead to his demise. The book Frankenstein could be read as a warning to those who seek new knowledge.
Throughout the book, nature plays an important role in changing the character's outlooks on their present circumstances. For example, when Victor feels guilty and depressed about the deaths of Justine and William, he goes to the mountains and only after observing the beauty of nature is his guilt eased. Also, during the winter, the monster's feelings of abandonment and hatred are intensified and they only begin to fade when he sees the blooming of spring.
As the book goes on, Victor and his monster seem to grow more and more similar. They both pursue knowledge and find comfort in nature's beauty. The main similarity between them is their obsession with getting revenge. The monster kills Henry Clerval and Elizabeth in order to get revenge on Victor for abandoning his work on creating a companion for the monster. The death of Victor's entire family and friends leads him to seek revenge on the monster. Ultimately, it is this quest for revenge that causes the death of Victor and the monster.
The monster was a product of a mixture of body parts and chemicals, and, once he becomes more powerful, is rejected by society. He is seen as a true "monster" in the novel, but Victor can also be seen as one because he let his ambitions, secrecy, and selfishness separate him from the rest of society. Society saw Victor's creation as a monster because of the way he looked on the outside, however Victor looked normal on the outside but was monstrous on the inside, allowing his monster to murder numerous innocent people without coming forward about it.
Victor kept his obsession with creating life and destroying his creation a secret out of guilt because he realizes how helpless he is to prevent the monster from ruining his life and the lives of others. Walton hears Victor's story after he rescues him and shares the story through his letters to his sister. Through these letters, Victor's story is told and he can finally escape the oppression of his secrets that ruined his life.
The overwhelming theme of Frankenstein is the personal and societal dangers of relentless quests for certain knowledge. While Shelley uses Victor's attempts to understand life and the monster's attempts of gaining general knowledge, she only uses these as symbols. Obviously Victor's obsession with knowledge has fatal results, but Shelley attempts to create an overall warning against obsessions with knowledge and science. She shows how too much dedication to a topic can corrupt the mind and cause one to be oblivious to the problems in his or her life, which, in this case, happen to be the deaths of nearly every person in Victor's life whom he cares for.
Another interesting topic of the novel is Shelley's description and interpretation of monsters. While Frankenstein's creation is obviously a monster in and of itself, it can be used to represent theoretically what a monster is. As a combination of individual body parts meshed together, the monster is relatable to Frankenstein in the sense that he eventually becomes in a sense a monster himself, as he is overpowered by his goals of achieving the ultimate knowledge. Even the book itself, a compilation of letters from both Walton and characters in the book, is similar to the multiple body parts of Victor's creation.
One of the most interesting aspects of the book to me was the way the monster was described by Shelley, both in outside descriptions and in the way the monster itself acted. The monster had human-like emotions, such as fear, compassion, and loneliness, and spoke like a human. Also, while the monster murdered several people, he also committed acts of kindness by saving a girl from drowning and by not stealing food from the family of peasants. I think that Shelley may have created the monster in this way to make the book and its characters more complex, as well as to blur the lines between what is good and what is evil.
I also thought the relationship between Frankenstein and the monster was interesting. After the creature that Frankenstein spent years of unrivaled focus and passion on creating came to life, Frankenstein immediately hated it. Later, both had a calm conversation and came up with a compromise: if Frankenstein created a female companion for the monster, both creations would leave Europe and never bother Frankenstein again. When Frankenstein backed out of the deal, the monster killed the people Frankenstein cared about the most. Later, when Frankenstein died of poor health, the monster was happy because his creator had abandoned and betrayed him. Still, at the same time the monster was saddened by his creator's death because he realized that Frankenstein was the only person he shared a bond with.
1. First, I found the entire book to reflect romanticism. Shelley often went into excruciating detail about a the scenery and the nature in the book. The book emphasized mystical and supernatural occurrences like the creation of a horrific monster that murders the innocent. Also the whole book is stamped with romanticism's seal of introspection, psychology,melancholy, death, and transience. Almost everyone in the book dies: Frankenstein's mother, William, Justine, Henry Clerval, Elizabeth, Frankenstein's father, Frankenstein, and the monster.
2. I was surprised that for the daughter of a feminist, Mary Shelley made no argument for women's equality in the book Frankenstein. In fact, the women in the book are completely subservient and old-fashioned. Frankenstein's mother sacrifices her own life to care for her ill adopted daughter. Also, Elizabeth seems to do nothing but wait for Frankenstein to return and fulfill the promised union between them. She even is helplessly strangled, like a delicate flower, in the end by Frankenstein's monster.
I assume that Shelley wrote "Frankenstein" to compare the Industrial Revolution with the monster. It shows how the monster, like the Industrial Revolution, cannot be stopped unless it is totally destroyed.
ReplyDeleteAbortion is mentioned a couple of times. Victor said, “When I thought of him, I gnashed my teeth, my eyes became inflamed, and I ardently wished to extinguish that life which I had so thoughtlessly made.” Victor also aborted the female monster he was creating by destroying her. The monster said, “I, the miserable and the abandoned, am an abortion, to be spurned at, and kicked, and trampled on.”
Observation is also a big part of the book. The monster learns how to read and write by watching and listening to the peasants around him. He also understands the manner of his creation by observing those around him.
One of the main conflicts in Frankenstein is the concept of dangerous knowledge. In the book Victor attempts to surpass the accepted limits of human knowledge by attempting (and succeeding) to bring his creation to life. Once the monster was brought to life, he began to learn. Once the monster gained knowledge, he realized how different he was from everyone else and he turned against his creator.Both of these quests for knowledge cause the deaths of Victor, his family, and the monster. Also, Walton is attempting to explore the North Pole which had not previously been explored. After hearing Victor's tale, Walton decides to abandon his mission before it can lead to his demise. The book Frankenstein could be read as a warning to those who seek new knowledge.
ReplyDeleteThroughout the book, nature plays an important role in changing the character's outlooks on their present circumstances. For example, when Victor feels guilty and depressed about the deaths of Justine and William, he goes to the mountains and only after observing the beauty of nature is his guilt eased. Also, during the winter, the monster's feelings of abandonment and hatred are intensified and they only begin to fade when he sees the blooming of spring.
As the book goes on, Victor and his monster seem to grow more and more similar. They both pursue knowledge and find comfort in nature's beauty. The main similarity between them is their obsession with getting revenge. The monster kills Henry Clerval and Elizabeth in order to get revenge on Victor for abandoning his work on creating a companion for the monster. The death of Victor's entire family and friends leads him to seek revenge on the monster. Ultimately, it is this quest for revenge that causes the death of Victor and the monster.
The monster was a product of a mixture of body parts and chemicals, and, once he becomes more powerful, is rejected by society. He is seen as a true "monster" in the novel, but Victor can also be seen as one because he let his ambitions, secrecy, and selfishness separate him from the rest of society. Society saw Victor's creation as a monster because of the way he looked on the outside, however Victor looked normal on the outside but was monstrous on the inside, allowing his monster to murder numerous innocent people without coming forward about it.
ReplyDeleteVictor kept his obsession with creating life and destroying his creation a secret out of guilt because he realizes how helpless he is to prevent the monster from ruining his life and the lives of others. Walton hears Victor's story after he rescues him and shares the story through his letters to his sister. Through these letters, Victor's story is told and he can finally escape the oppression of his secrets that ruined his life.
The overwhelming theme of Frankenstein is the personal and societal dangers of relentless quests for certain knowledge. While Shelley uses Victor's attempts to understand life and the monster's attempts of gaining general knowledge, she only uses these as symbols. Obviously Victor's obsession with knowledge has fatal results, but Shelley attempts to create an overall warning against obsessions with knowledge and science. She shows how too much dedication to a topic can corrupt the mind and cause one to be oblivious to the problems in his or her life, which, in this case, happen to be the deaths of nearly every person in Victor's life whom he cares for.
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting topic of the novel is Shelley's description and interpretation of monsters. While Frankenstein's creation is obviously a monster in and of itself, it can be used to represent theoretically what a monster is. As a combination of individual body parts meshed together, the monster is relatable to Frankenstein in the sense that he eventually becomes in a sense a monster himself, as he is overpowered by his goals of achieving the ultimate knowledge. Even the book itself, a compilation of letters from both Walton and characters in the book, is similar to the multiple body parts of Victor's creation.
One of the most interesting aspects of the book to me was the way the monster was described by Shelley, both in outside descriptions and in the way the monster itself acted. The monster had human-like emotions, such as fear, compassion, and loneliness, and spoke like a human. Also, while the monster murdered several people, he also committed acts of kindness by saving a girl from drowning and by not stealing food from the family of peasants. I think that Shelley may have created the monster in this way to make the book and its characters more complex, as well as to blur the lines between what is good and what is evil.
ReplyDeleteI also thought the relationship between Frankenstein and the monster was interesting. After the creature that Frankenstein spent years of unrivaled focus and passion on creating came to life, Frankenstein immediately hated it. Later, both had a calm conversation and came up with a compromise: if Frankenstein created a female companion for the monster, both creations would leave Europe and never bother Frankenstein again. When Frankenstein backed out of the deal, the monster killed the people Frankenstein cared about the most. Later, when Frankenstein died of poor health, the monster was happy because his creator had abandoned and betrayed him. Still, at the same time the monster was saddened by his creator's death because he realized that Frankenstein was the only person he shared a bond with.
1. First, I found the entire book to reflect romanticism. Shelley often went into excruciating detail about a the scenery and the nature in the book. The book emphasized mystical and supernatural occurrences like the creation of a horrific monster that murders the innocent. Also the whole book is stamped with romanticism's seal of introspection, psychology,melancholy, death, and transience. Almost everyone in the book dies: Frankenstein's mother, William, Justine, Henry Clerval, Elizabeth, Frankenstein's father, Frankenstein, and the monster.
ReplyDelete2. I was surprised that for the daughter of a feminist, Mary Shelley made no argument for women's equality in the book Frankenstein. In fact, the women in the book are completely subservient and old-fashioned. Frankenstein's mother sacrifices her own life to care for her ill adopted daughter. Also, Elizabeth seems to do nothing but wait for Frankenstein to return and fulfill the promised union between them. She even is helplessly strangled, like a delicate flower, in the end by Frankenstein's monster.