Frankenstein

Introduction

Mary Shelley Wollstonecraft was a British Romantic novelist, poet, travel writer, and biographer whose most popular novel Frankenstein (1818) is credited with having pioneered the science fiction genre. In addition, the novel, as well as Shelley's oeuvre as a whole, is often read as a nightmare of procreation, contemplated as it is by fears of childbirth and death of family members, especially children.

"Mary Shelley's Frankenstein" is about a scientist who has the goal to create life, examining the limits of ethics. The film shows what happen when a person is controlled by science and other technologies. The message of Mary Shelley in the movie "Frankenstein" is that life and morals are more important than scientific progress. Victor Frankenstein and the captain are controlled by the search for knowledge beyond the boundaries of morality. Therefore, they are the real monsters; they are acting unethical and inhuman for the society.

Background

The idea for Frankenstein developed when Lord Byron, Shelley, Mary and Polidori came together in the summer of 1816 in Switzerland. On a fateful day, the rain confined them indoors. Byron came up with the idea that each of them should write a ghost story to pass the time (Abbey 2007, 12).

Byron's tale included in a fragment at the end of his poem "Of Mateppa." Shelley based his story on the early experiences of his life, while Polidori's story was flimsy. Mary Shelley just succeeded in creating a story that could "awaken thrilling horror (Abbey 2007, 12)."

Prometheus was the Titan who, according to Greek mythology, gave life to men from clay and gave them for their livelihood who stole fire from Zeus. This challenge is unwise to limit what Shelley evoked in the figure of Victor Frankenstein, the insatiable search relegates his ethical duties, and he rebels against the laws of nature in the use of scientific practices, finally unable to cope with the burden it brings. We could run the allegorical character of Frankenstein, where merely the anecdotal last after a thorough critique of the consequences of the French Revolution. Especially, to scientific and technological advances of the Industrial Revolution, this could mean countless possibilities and unimagined horrors: thus, the rise of the creature against his creator can be read as a warning to the sudden consequences of orderly development.

This negative reaction to the excessive desire for knowledge and naive optimism in scientific progress is typical of Romanticism in England occurring between numbers of other characteristic features of the movement. The main ones are the orphans, the importance of family affection, the sublime of nature, the innocence of childhood from a perspective focused Rousseau and the figure of the double, which travels throughout the relationship of child bearers, monster man and master-slave (Drabble 2009, 2).

Another romantic feature in Frankenstein is the littleness of man before the naturalization and inspirational expression of a spirit that evokes admiration, delight or melancholy. There is a parallel correspondence between climate states and the mood of the characters expressed in the storms that erupt in the mood of ...