Frankenstein
Geneticists are the modern-day versions of Victor Frankenstein, maverick scientists who, in pursuing their personal dreams and ambitions cross over ethical lines. Mary Shelley was deeply concerned about the potential of science to blur humanitarian issues. In her classic novel Frankenstein, Shelley depicts a driven scientist who, for the love of knowledge and power, creates life. The ramifications of what is commonly called "playing God" include an inhumane mistreatment of the creation. In fact, one of the main concerns over cloning today is the real possibility that cloned human beings would certainly be treated as inferior to naturally born humans. Worse, clones human beings who can think, feel, and cry could be used simply for harvesting organs. Therefore, 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. Like many scientists, Victor Frankenstein is not a malicious man. But like all scientists, he is obsessed with the acquisition of knowledge and the pursuit of truth. Seeking to understand and master the laws of nature, Victor Frankenstein learned how to re-animate dead flesh. However, Dr. Frankenstein did not adequately contemplate the consequences of his work for the creature, let alone for the general public. Shelley shows that not only does the creature have genuine human emotions, but that his emotions were deeper and more profound than those of his creator. Mary Shelley's Victor Frankenstein, while admirable in his ambition and accomplishment, embodies the modern concern about the scientist whose work lacks sufficient concern with human values.
Victor Frankenstein cultivates a fascination with the natural world and the mysteries of life, but ultimately neglects to place his scientific pursuits within an ethical context. In early...
Frankenstein's creation of the monster is rendered as a kind of horrific pregnancy; for example, where a pregnant woman expands with the child she is bearing and usually eats more, Frankenstein wastes away during his work, depriving himself "of rest and health" (Shelley 43). Rather than expressing any kind of paternal (or maternal) love for his creation, Frankenstein recoils, as "breathless horror and disgust filled [his] heart" (Shelley 43).
If you reanimate dead flesh then how do you kill it? Victor, on his death bed, intones to his new friend the Captain of the discovery vessel that ambition in science should be kept in check, even if that means death in anonymity. He first intones that he regrets that he is dying while the beast still lives and then warns the captain to keep his ambition in check. That he
What Victor is saying is that in order to create a living being from the dead, he must haunt the graveyards like a human ghoul and experiment on live animals to "animate" "lifeless clay," being the deceased remains of human beings. From this admission, it is abundantly obvious that Victor, like Prometheus, sees "clay" as the foundation for creation, a substance which is part of the earth itself and
My attention was fixed upon every object the most insupportable to the delicacy of the human feelings. (Shelley, 1961, p. 44) Frankenstein challenges the values of man that are based on fear and thus goes forward to create a beast that even Dante could not have conceived of. (Shelley, 1961, p. 50) He then chases the beast to his own death. The Beast on the other hand exemplifies a helpless child
It is through Shelley's doubling between Frankenstein and the Monster, and herself and Frankenstein and the Monster, that Freud's uncanny and psychological concepts of the id, ego, and superego can be analyzed. Shelley demonstrates how an individual's outward appearance is not necessarily representative of their character and at the same time is able to come to terms with the psychological traumas that plagued her -- from losing her own mother
Good and Evil in Frankenstein Mary Shelley's Frankenstein tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, who bored with his mundane life, decides to attempt to create a new life out of deceased human remains. Dr. Frankenstein's ignorance of the responsibility necessary to take care of the life that he has brought into this world leads him to abandon his creation; this abandonment leads to the Frankenstein's Monster to react violently as he
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