Frankenstein by Mary Shelley - Research Paper Example

submitted Position paper on “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley “Frankenstein,” by Mary Shelley is her first novel. This novel has established itself since it focuses on modernity, which is the one of the most compelling and ominous myths that are essential to people’s growth and development technologically. Mary Shelley, natural philosophy student who is ambitious and helps people in discovering the constructs of a living thing. It further creates numerous essential issues that may influence people’s lives in many ways. The author skillfully conflates around many traditions and the individual imagination (Alan 2). Frankenstein expressively highlights the spirit of the early 1800s, which was the age of transformation in various ways that tragically divided between scientific progress and religious conservatism. This paper focuses on taking position by posing divided arguments concerning “Fankenstein.” The novel begins on a ship sailing north of the Arctic Circle, where the captain spots a figure traveling across the ice on a dog sled (Shelley 23). This is Victor Frankenstein’s creature, and close behind is Dr. Frankenstein himself. Invited onto the boat, the weak and ill Doctor tells the story of his alchemical studies and eventual construction of a man from inanimate matter (Carina 10). What is considered today as a classic, one of the first science fiction tales, and a story immortalized many times over in film. At the inception, “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley was considered little more than the disturbed and ill-conceived writings of a woman by some, and a noble if misplaced effort by others (Shelley 121). Different people has different views about this novel, Camilla (on 2010.10.29) says that the gaps on how the monster got on to follow Frankenstein, on how he created life and the misunderstanding on what would happen on his wedding night are not as important as the reflex on Mary Shelley creates on the human being (Fred 77). The relationship between creature and creator makes us think about human’s relation to God. The nature of man whether good or evil, she thinks the story in itself is not the most important thing, but the ideas behind the monster’s cottage tale and so many more interesting facts make us think on human life, and how we perceive the world. Penguin Classics affirm that the novel has not only stood the test of time, but has become a modern day myth that is forever evolving in the world of popular culture. Aside from the Hollywood spin-offs, it has been used to describe capitalism, food and human cloning (Lew 255). The recent theatre adaption of the novel by Danny Boyle once more resurrects the myth of Frankenstein and returns the story to its original source and power (Rauch 227). Even now nearly two hundred years since initial publication, the novel Mary Shelley penned as a teenager, still captivates and enthralls its readers, and with each generation cements its reputation as a classic. Botting, Fred on his article in “The Manchester University Press” written in 1991 argues that 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 science and technology in modern society.  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 many people have read for Frankenstein so long since it inspires many people (Mary 227). When Mary Shelley started to write Frankenstein people were starting to be more liberal with passion, rule breaking and nature because for so long people were under strict religious rules they had to follow and whereas the romantic period started people were not under so many restrictions (Bolter 77). This links with today because everyday people are starting to experiment with new things, break rules and not care as much (O’Flinn 29). Romanticism is also about nationalism when people are proud to support their country and today all the British men who are fighting in the war, people are proud to be British. According to Brian (46), modern criticisms, particularly feminist criticisms, view Shelley's sex as an asset to the work, having allowed her unique perspective on the relation between men and women. While some critics will point out the caricatures of women that serve as characters in the novel, others, such as Arthur Paul Patterson1, argue that the female characters counter the men as equally flawed characters each separated by relational holding patterns caused by these flaws that lead to their mutual destruction. This relational viewpoint can easily be attributed to the way Shelley herself saw the society in which she lived, in which women were not empowered in the same way as men and which she did not agree with and this is what is happening in our modern society. Johanna (25) affirms that “The novel shows that science clearly has the potential to overstep the boundaries of morality, and Mary Shelley saw this far before the human genetic code was solved.” In this light, Frankenstein served as a warning signal to any overly rational scientist who pursues professional or personal glory at the expense of compassion. Brian Aldiss has argued that it should be considered the first true science fiction story, because unlike in previous stories with fantastical elements resembling those of later science fiction, the central character "makes a deliberate decision" and "turns to modern experiments in the laboratory" to achieve fantastic results (Davon 243). It has had a considerable influence across literature and popular culture and spawned a complete genre of horror stories, films, and plays. Ian Kerr, holds the Canadian Research Chair in Technology at the University of Ottawa. This article discusses the increasing interest in implanting the human body with a microchip for developing identification technologies referring to Mary Shelley’s novel “Frankenstein” arguing that the notion that a human being could be transformed by a microchip into a barcode is disturbing and uncanny (Scott 206). But the way we think of these uncanny situations would be unimaginable without Mary Shelley’s novel, “Frankenstein.” Many people get inspiration from numerous facts that the novel communicates (Donna 23). This interesting novel is essential for humans being to gain a lot of information that is likely to assist many other people. The text that focuses on exploring the fundamental issues associated with technological advancements leave so much desirable things (Smith 231). This novel is related with Text and technology that makes it classic and modern; Shelley describes text in many forms. She relates texts to knowledge and developing inventions. She also comments that these inventions can become uncontrollable. The invention takes on a life of its own and the same is happening in modern society. The novel can be viewed as classic because its writing can be interpreted in various ways, which can create a morphing effect from a possible original meaning (William 45). The transformation meanings in texts, responding to them in various ways create new monsters out of them. Frankenstein is the unnatural monster that comes to seem more natural than the other does, more conventional humans do. Perhaps Shelley was pointing towards a better future form of life for humans, when they transgressed the boundaries of the human condition. With this gesture of pointing ahead, she ties into our contemporary fears towards the apparently unstoppable momentum of scientific technology with the specters of computers replacing humans, death-rays, brain transplants, and cloning (Heffernan 133). Frankenstein provoked a trend of social fascination that has extended to our present time and into different cultures. The pertinence of her warning is still relevant today in our quests for knowledge and desire to discover new inventions through science (Denise 578). That warning includes the suggestion that humans can be driven by intense passion for knowledge and power. In conclusion, the novel has a text that pushes the boundaries of print from her time to ours, at many levels. Her concepts, original and morphed into various forms, are coming towards us from horizons we are still moving towards the future. I must admit that this novel is an inspirational piece that has changed and will continue changing many people’s lives. Work cited Alan, Alda. Documentary on MIT Research On Creating Human Body Parts: Scientific American Frontiers. Connecticut Public Television (May 28, 2002). Web. Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft. Frankenstein, or the modern Prometheus. The 1818 Text. Ed. James Rieger. Chicago; London: The University of Chicago Press. 2006. Print. Brannstrom, Carina. The Analysis of the Theme of Alienation in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Lulea University of Technolgy, 2006. Shelley, Mary.  “From Frankenstein.”  The Example of Science.  Ed. Robert E. Lynch, Thomas, Swanzey, and John, Coakley.  Third Edition.  Boston:  Pearson Custom Publishing, 2003, Print. Botting, Fred. Making Monstrous. Frankenstein, Criticism and Theory. Manchester University Press, 1991. Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus. Edited with an Introduction and notes by Maurice Hindle. Longman York Press, 1998. Bolter, David. Writing Space: Computers, Hypertext and the Remediation of Print. London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2001. Print. Haraway, Donna. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. London: Free Association. 1991. Print. Bantam, Benton and Di Yanni Robert, Art and Culture: An Introduction to the Humanities, Second Edition, Upper Saddle River. 2005. Print. Gigante, Denise. “Facing the Ugly: The Case of Frankenstein”. ELH 67.2 (2000): 565–87. Heffernan, James A. W. “Looking at the Monster: Frankenstein and Film”. Critical Inquiry 24.1 (1997): 133–58. Hodges, Devon. “Frankenstein and the Feminine Subversion of the Novel”. Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature 2.2 (1983): 155–64. Veeder, William. Mary Shelley & Frankenstein: The Fate of Androgyny. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986. Print. Smith, Johanna M., ed. Frankenstein. Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1992. Print. Scott, Grant F. “Victor’s Secret: Queer Gothic in Lynd Ward’s Illustrations to Frankenstein (1934).” Word & Image 28 (April–June 2012): 206-232. Web. Stableford, Brian. “Frankenstein and the Origins of Science Fiction”. Anticipations: Essays on Early Science Fiction and Its Precursors. Ed. David Seed. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1995. Print. O’Flinn, Paul. “Production and Reproduction: The Case of Frankenstein”. Literature and History 9.2 (1983): 194–213. Poovey, Mary. The Proper Lady and the Woman Writer: Ideology as Style in the Works of Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley, and Jane Austen. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984. Print. Rauch, Alan. “The Monstrous Body of Knowledge in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein”. Studies in Romanticism 34.2 (1995): 227–53. Lew, Joseph W. “The Deceptive Other: Mary Shelley’s Critique of Orientalism in Frankenstein”. Studies in Romanticism 30.2 (1991): 255–83. Read More