He tells Walton he was "surprised that among so many men of genius . . . that I alone should be reserved to discover so astonishing a secret" (37). Here Shelley illuminates the weakness of man with Frankenstein's inability to control himself in this situation. Shelley placed Frankenstein in this environment because he represented "modern scientist is search of the spark to animate lifeless matter" (Wright 14). Like Prometheus, he is penalized for "meddling in the work of the gods" (14). Shelley foreshadows the mood of the novel when she writes, "Frightful it must be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavor to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world" (Shelley xxv). Here Shelley is making a stand against certain aspects of knowledge. While knowledge itself is not bad, the desire for knowledge to do great things for the sake of fame or ambition is. Houghton writes, after Darwin, many "liberal" (Houghton 34) minds were "fired by the vision of a life spent in contributing, no matter how little, to the great revelation of all knowledge" (34). This included more than an intellectual endeavor. It also included the "practical elimination of physical suffering through medicine, and even of moral evil through the new science of sociology" (34). Frankenstein discovers the secret and he discovers the evil. The most incredible thing about the man and the monster is that the monster is more compassionate than the man is. With this comparison, Shelley is proving the frightful effects of a human endeavor to imitate God, or a divine creator. Frankenstein is a fascinating novel but it becomes even more so when we look at it in context. It represents an era tantalized with the notion of knowing more. Shelley allows two fates in the novel: that of Frankenstein and Walton. The men are similar in characteristics but their massages could not be farther apart. In fact, Shelley's message is palpable. Walton had the sense to recognize something fierce and frightening in Frankenstein and when faced with a hopeless situation, he chose to return to the life he knew rather than forge ahead into a world unknown. Frankenstein, on the other hand,...
In short, he did everything wrong. While Frankenstein was not wrong with his initial curiosity, he becomes obsessed. The truth of the matter is that he cannot handle the consequences of his actions. Sadly, he is human and demonstrates the frailty of man in that he does not always make the right decision despite his intentions. Shelley was taking part in conversations about the origins of life; she was taking part in speculation about the mysteries of life. Her hero fails on many fronts but he succeeds at being human. He could be any man obsessed with a dream in any century. He states he deprives himself of "rest and health, I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream had vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart" (42). This statement encapsulates Frankenstein's life. He was like a comet; burning bright for a short while only to fall to the earth, cold and dead. He could not face the truth of what happened. The truth was ugly and this was something Frankenstein had not considered. He was human because he did not consider the unintended consequences of his actions. He was selfish because once he was faced with those consequences, he ran from them because they did not fit into his ideal image. This is the moral lesson Shelley conveys in the novel. While mankind thrives and, sometimes, depends upon on discovery and knowledge, some things are better off left unknown or left in the hands of a divine creator. Walton was wise enough to realize the truth behinds Frankenstein's words. He saw what Frankenstein refused to see: a future without the fame he believed in. he surrendered it to the ice that may have been keeping him from a similar fate. Shelley allows us to see the ramifications of our actions with Frankenstein but she also allows us to see that we are not fated to ruin our lives if we listen to logic.
The major benefits to using a SaaS platform for integrating social networking, CRM and marketing systems are the significantly lower costs of operation, the pay-as-you-go approach to leasing only the application areas used, and the flexibility of scaling the computing workload up or down based on the unique requirements of a given company's strategy. SaaS has become the platform of choice for managing social networks, as Facebook, Twitter, Friendfeed,
web-based surveys and their usefulness in reducing the cost of business research. The writer explores several aspects of web-based surveys including performance and comparison to traditional type surveys. There were 10 sources used to complete this paper. There are many reasons that people gather information today. Health professionals gather information to help determine health trends, needs and problems. Marketing professionals gather information so that the consumer can be better served.
He also feels as though authority is contextual in that it is something people learn to respect and wield differently in different environments and social realities (Burger, 2009). This is to say that the Milgram studies were snapshots of a very specific culture and time period, as Blass suggests, and that they may not represent the ultimate knowledge of the concepts of obedience and authority as many researchers and
It is exactly this mitigation for which bio and medical ethics have their prime purpose and directive. Certainly, the genie is out of the bottle. However, the technology can be tamed if the moral issues can be properly defined, discussed and professional enforcement mechanisms can be instituted, enforced and made to last. While the pursuit of science and research can be exciting, the professionals can lose their morality in the
Pedagogic Model for Teaching of Technology to Special Education Students Almost thirty years ago, the American federal government passed an act mandating the availability of a free and appropriate public education for all handicapped children. In 1990, this act was updated and reformed as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which itself was reformed in 1997. At each step, the goal was to make education more equitable and more accessible to
Extra-Credit Questions Questions on Readings There are different kinds of peril that a person can find himself (in this case) in, and Macready and Macon Detornay find themselves embedded in several of them, in large measure because of their own actions, including their own attitudes about the position that they hold in the world in which they spend their lives. Detornay is more clearly culpable for the problems in which he finds
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