Frankenstein

1
Frankenstein

• Modern Prometheus

2
Setting the Scene (pp. 650-651)

• Creating a Legend
• Mary Shelley wasnt the first to imagine creating
  a living being out of something dead.
• Prometheus a Titan (Greek mythology) who
  created men out of clay.
• Jewish myth a learned rabbi creates a creature
  to protect the Jewish people.
• Various cultures interest in creating robots.

3
PROMETHESUS

• Promethesus was the Titan god of forethought and
  crafty counsel who was entrusted with the task of
  molding mankind out of clay.
• His attempts to better
• the lives of his creation
• brought him into
• direct conflict with Zeus

4
Science Explained

• Mary Shelley was the first to incorporate science
  as the explanation for re-animation / creation
• 18th century was a time of enormous scientific
  discovery
• Isaac Newton father of modern physics laws of
  motion
• Antoine Lavoisier great chemist
• Benjamin Franklin inventor
• The New Science deriving universal meaning
  by which humans understand the natural world
  through the use of scientific method.

5
Part of the Natural World

• Writing and Science were converging and aligning
  Art and Science merged.
• Percy Shelley passionate about science
• John Keats studied as a doctor
• Charles Darwins father, Erasmus, was a doctor,
  botanist, inventor, and poet.
• Romantic Poets (Byron, Shelley, Keats, etc..)
  best displayed this fascination with
  understanding the natural world.

6
Part of the Natural World

• Mary Shelleys novel might suggest that MAN
  should not use science to mess with the natural
  order/world. We should use science to understand
  it.
• She dreams the idea re-animating her child by
  warming it by the fire
• Frankenstein in modern stories (and modern
  issues)
• Blade Runner, RoboCop, Terminator, Edward Scissor
  Hands
• Cloning
• Stem cell research
• Donation of body parts and organs

7
The Romantic Age in British Prose Mary Shelley
(p. 661, 690-691)

• A genre of fiction characterized by mystery and
  supernatural horror, often set in a dark castle
  or other medieval setting
• Gothic Novel
• brave heroes
• threatening bad guys
• vast eerie castles
• Ghosts
• Gloomy, eerie settings
• evokes terror through the depiction of physical
  and, more often, psychological violence
• fascination with mystery and supernatural
• this ties in nicely with the Romantic Age
• Frankenstein is a perfect example.

8
The Gothic Novel - Frankenstein

• Mary writes Frankenstein on a dare / challenge.
• Rainy summer vacation day in Switzerland who
  can write the scariest tale challenge by Lord
  Byron
• Took her a while to think of something, but saw
  the story while laying in bed
• In 1818, after its first publication, it is
  praised by famous novelist, Sir Walter Scott.
• uncommon powers of poetic imagination

9
Literary and Political legacy

• Writing was in Mary Shelleys blood
• Her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (who died
  at Marys birth), wrote one of the first feminist
  books ever published, A Vindication of the Rights
  of Woman (1792).
• Her father, William Godwin, was a leading
  reformer, author, and political philosopher who
  attracted a following of gifted thinkers and
  disciples.
• As a child, Mary Shelley knew some of the most
  famous writers of the day, including the poet
  Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the essayist Charles
  Lamb.

10
Exile From Her Fathers House

• Four years after his wifes death, Godwin married
  a widow, Mary Jane Clairmont, whom his daughter
  grew to resent bitterly.
• Although Mary Shelley adored her father, it was
  agreed that to ease the situation in the tense
  household, the girl, now fourteen, would go to
  live in Dundee, Scotland, in the home of William
  Baxter, her fathers friend.
• After two years in Scotland, she returned to her
  fathers home in London.

11
Love and Loss

• Upon her return, Mary Shelley (then still named
  Godwin) met her future husband, Percy Bysshe
  Shelley (currently married).
• Shelley was a radical young poet who had become
  William Godwins admirer after reading his book
  Political Justice.
• Mary Godwin, only sixteen, fell in love with her
  fathers follower.
• The two ran away together to the continent and
  later married.
• Eventually, the couple settled in Italy, where
  they lived blissfully for an all-too-short time.
  (Their great friend, Lord Byron, also lived in
  Italy at the time.)
• Within a few years, the Shelleys suffered the
  death of two of their children.
• Then, tragedy struck again. In 1822, only eight
  years after Mary Shelley had first met him, Percy
  Shelley drowned, leaving the twenty-four-year-old
  Mary and their two-year old son penniless.

12
A Career of Her Own

• After Percys death, Mary returned to England,
  where she continued writing to support herself
  and her son.
• She produced other novels, including
• Valperga (1823) and
• The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck (1830), which are
  historical works
• The Last Man (1826), a tale of a great plague
  that destroys the human race
• The Last Man is believed by many to be her best
  work, although she is usually remembered for
  Frankenstein.
• the autobiographical Lodore (1835) and
• Falkner (1837), a mystery tale.

13
A Lasting Legacy

• At the age of forty-eight, Mary Shelley became an
  invalid. She died six years later of a brain
  tumor.
• It is ironic that Shelley, author of a work
  warning of the dangers of technology, died in the
  opening year of The Great Exhibition, a fair
  celebrating technological progress.
• In Frankenstein,
• Shelley dramatically
• questioned the cost of
• technology to the human
• soula theme writers
• continue to explore today.

14
Embryonic Stem Cell Research

• Stem cells have the potential to develop into
  many different cell types in the body during
  early life and growth. In addition, in many
  tissues they serve as a sort of internal repair
  system, dividing essentially without limit to
  replenish other cells as long as the person or
  animal is still alive.
• Embryonic stem cells, as their name suggests, are
  derived from embryos. Most embryonic stem cells
  are derived from embryos that develop from eggs
  that have been fertilized in vitroin an in vitro
  fertilization clinicand then donated for
  research purposes with informed consent of the
  donors.
• Potential cures for spinal cord injuries,
  multiple sclerosis, diabetes, Parkinson's
  disease, cancer, Alzheimer's disease, heart
  disease, hundreds of rare immune system and
  genetic disorders and much more
• Destroying a life to safe a life
• Are we pushing it?

15
Human Cloning

• If the vital organs of the human body can be
  cloned, they can serve as backup systems for
  human beings.
• solution to infertility
• reproduce a certain trait in human beings

• hampers the diversity in genes
• weaken our ability of adaptation
• deliberate reproduction of undesirable traits
• Are humans saying they have the ability to
  create?
• Who decides what is a desirable trait?

16
Historical Context of Frankenstein

• Ambiguous Waltons letters dated 17- with no
  reference to anything specific to pinpoint the
  date.
• It is set in the latter part of the 18th century,
  at the end of the Enlightenment and the beginning
  of the Romantic period.
• It critiques the excesses of the Enlightenment
  and introduces the beliefs of the Romantics.
• Reflects a shift in social and political thought
  from humans as creatures who use science and
  reason to shape and control their destiny to
  humans as creatures who rely on their emotions to
  determine what is right.

17
The Age of Enlightenment belief in the power of
human reasoning

• 18th Century
• Science concentration on logic
• Everything was based on logic, reason, and
  rationality
• Didactic constant search for truth, answers.
  Always studying
• Focus on the practicality and utility
• Masculine emphasis on the intellect
• Everything, including human relationships, was
  studied through a scientific approach
• Favored a social hierarchy
• Nature should be controlled by humans

18
Important Revolutions

• American and French Revolution (call for
  individual freedom and an overthrow of rigid
  social hierarchy)
• Industrial Revolution social system challenged
  by change from agricultural society to industrial
  one with a large, impoverished and restless
  working class

19
Romantic Movement a reaction to the Enlightenment
Creative expressions of literature and the arts

• Based on imagination and intuition
• Creativity new form of expression
• Saw nature as unspoiled
• Focus on creativity and self-expression

• Emphasis on emotion, rather than reason and
  intellect
• Feminine emotion, creativity, etc.
• Spontaneity and individuality
• Focus on nature and the supernatural /inner dream
  world that is thought to be more picturesque and
  magical than the current world (industrial age)

20
Characteristics of Romantic Period

• Belief in individual liberty rebellious attitude
  against tyranny
• Fascination with nature perception of nature as
  transformative
• Concerned with common people
• Favored democracy
• Desired radical change
• Nature should be untamed

21
Style Gothic Novel

• Frankenstein is generally categorized as a Gothic
  novel, a genre of fiction that uses gloomy
  settings and supernatural events to create and
  atmosphere of mystery and terror.
• Shelley adds to her development of the plot the
  use of psychological realism, delving into the
  psyches of the characters in and attempt to
  explain why they react as they do and what drives
  them to make their decisions.

22
Structure and Point of View
Frame Story
Epistolary carried by letters
23
Major Characters

• Victor Frankenstein protagonist, product of an
  idealistic Enlightenment education fueled by
  possibilities of science and a desire for
  acclaim becomes obsessed with creating life from
  spare body parts. Rational demeanor dissolves and
  by storys end, consumed by primitive emotions of
  fear and hatred.

24
Major Characters

• The Creature - never named is Victors
  doppelganger (alter ego) Creature rationally
  analyzes the society that rejects him
  sympathetic character, admires people and wants
  to be a part of human society only results in
  violence when he is repeatedly rejected

25
Major Characters

• Henry Clerval Victors childhood friend true
  romantic, wants to leave mark on the world, but
  never loses sight of the moral relations of
  things
• Elizabeth adopted as an infant by Victors
  family marries Victor
• Robert Walton Arctic explorer whos obsessed
  with gaining knowledge and fame rescues Victor
  in the Arctic tells the story

26
Themes

• Consequences of irresponsibility in the pursuit
  of knowledge
• Consequences of pride
• Consequences of societys rejection of someone
  who is unattractive
• Destructive power of revenge
• Parent-child conflicts
• Sympathy

27
Other Literary Elements

• Irony 2 major ironies
• Creature is more sympathetic, more imaginative
  and more responsible to fellow creatures
• Creature has many pleasing qualities but is an
  outcast because hes not physically attractive

28
Symbols

• White/light knowledge
• Water knowledge
• Ice danger
• Lightning natures power
• Nature acceptance, nurturing, calm
• Mountains sublime in nature

29
Antithesis-Contrasts of ideas, characters,
themes, settings or moods

• Victor/creation
• Passion/reason
• Natural/unnatural
• Known/unknown
• Civilized/savage

• Masculine/feminine
• Beautiful/ugly
• Good/bad
• Light/dark
• Heat/cold

30
Allusion

• Paradise Lost by John Milton story of mans
  fall from innocence to painful knowledge Victor
  can be compared to Adam, Satan, and Eve
• The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor
  Coleridge, like narrator, tells story as a
  warning and a confession