What was I? Whence did I come? What was my destination? These questions continually recurred but I was unable to solve them.” Readers may also find it easy to sympathise with The Monster as Shelley is very critical of Frankenstein. For example, in Chapter 15 when the Monster is talking about Frankenstein’s journal that documented his creation, the Monster says ““Everything is related in them which bares reference to my accursed origin; the whole detail of that series of disgusting circumstances which produced it is set in view; the minutest description of my odious and loathsome person is given, in language which painted your own horrors and rendered mine indelible.
Mary Shelley uses different narrators to manipulate our views back and forth. For example if Frankenstein was narrating the story he would be against the ‘creation’. Frankenstein clearly hated how ‘delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains’ he had created. His emotions strongly influence our response to the ‘creation.’ Whereas if the story was being narrated by the ‘creation’ we would feel empathy and sympathy for the creation. ‘My heart sank with bitter sickness, as I
Frankenstein depicts the ambition to use science to usurp God, influenced by the eighteenth century Enlightenment movement (encouraging reasoning to understand the universe), advancements in science in the nineteenth century and the concept of restoration of life through electricity, known as 'galvanism'. Shelley's social context was focused on knowledge and self glory - concepts Shelley opposed. Frankenstein is a didactic warning against growing dependence on science. It highlights consequences of over-reliance on technology, suggesting attempts to usurp God will result in outcomes beyond human control. The Gothic genre allows the purpose to reach the audience.
Frankenstein wanted to recreate his mother, but instead he made a creature comprised of the socially repressed elements of Frankenstein (the monster) and his wish for his mother. Frankenstein's creature comprises all of the unacceptable traits of humans, those we usually suppress. These traits may actually be a representation of those traits that Frankenstein wishes he had. Mary Shelley tries to humanize the position of the impossible monster to imagine what it would be like for a monster to sustain personhood when everybody around him treats him as an utterly outcast to society. Shelley is trying to show that the creature is not inherently monstrous, but
In addition, Frankenstein himself believes that he has created 'a thing such as even Dante could not have conceived'. Therefore, the reader's impression of the creature is biased at this point. Even before the creature is introduced to the reader, the choice of diction in the chapter prepares its entrance. Firstly, the fact that the corpse was brought to life on a 'dreary night of November' underlines its importance in Frankenstein's life. It also implies that Frankenstein was only
It is Frankenstein’s responsibility to teach the monster and see it as a friend. It’s because Frankenstein rejects his creature that causes it to become evil. “Oh No mortal could support the horror of that countenance. A mummy again endued with animation could not be so hideous as that wretch. I had gazed on him while unfinished; he was ugly then, but when those muscles and joints were rendered capable of motion, it became a thing suck as even Dante could not have conceived.”(pg.49) Each time the monster killed it was a consequence of Victor’s actions.
The idea of repressed sexuality is not something initially associated with the story of Frankenstein. However, the more one analyses the novel, the more evidence there is of illicit sexual feelings and personal uncertainty. Eventually, these feelings manifest themselves in violence – directed towards the Monster – and self-destruction, both of which are key themes in gothic literature. As the story progresses and Frankenstein develops an obsession with creating life – culminating in the creation of the Monster – one can most definitely see evidence of his inner torments and frustrations, explicitly evident in the process by which Frankenstein goes about making the Monster. Tellingly, Victor bypasses the act of sex to create life, instead synthesising it independently of any maternal figure or sexual intercourse.
When one thinks of the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, the concepts of knowledge and science are deeply inscribed in the mind. In her work, Mary Shelley tells the story of how one man attempted to emulate the knowledge of his day. Burning with a passion to invent the science of life, Victor Frankenstein soon realizes that such a desire to go beyond current knowledge will backfire and torment the remainder of his life. In the Gothic novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley conveys her attitudes towards science by portraying it as having the capability to exceed the bounds of human restraint. The overwhelming theme of science that is expressed in Frankenstein is that knowledge has the potential to go beyond the boundaries of human control.
One of the key features Mary Shelley explores in her novel 'Frankenstein' is the dark side if the human psyche. This can be demonstrated through the characters of Frankenstein, Elizabeth and the monster via the desire for forbidden knowledge of science. Shelley also explores the sexual repression of Victor Frankenstein which could ultimately lead him to a 'dark side' of his human psyche. Therefore it can be said that Mary Shelley does explore the latter to a large extent. One of the ways Shelley explores the dark side of the human psyche is the suppressed and forbidden knowledge which Victor Frankenstein is hungry for.
Frankenstein was not a good creator, he was actually trying desperately to kill his monster he made. Frankenstein said, “I devote myself, either in my life or death, to his destruction” (Shelley 191). In a movie version of this story, the monster asks, “Did you ever consider the consequences of your actions? You made me, and you left me to die” (Frankenstein). Here the creature shows his feelings about his creator.