Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

Invention or innovative creation can sometimes cause pain, suffering, and havoc. Humans have been on a quest to invent and create something new and different throughout history. In the process, the majority of them have come to disregard the potential consequences of their creative actions, both for themselves and for others. It’s because they’re so focused on achieving glory that they’re oblivious to what’s happening or will happen after they’re created. Inventors like Victor Frankenstein are an example of this type of person. His most divisive creation was a supposedly monstrous human being. The monster was a scientist’s attempt to comprehend and create life. He managed to do so but what he created ended up becoming his own invented misery. In the book Frankenstein, Mary Shelley tries to depict the life of Frankenstein. The paper will look at Shelly’s portraying of how scientist handled his creation with the aim of understanding why Frankenstein shunned his own creation; it will be achieved through the insight of Sherry Ginn’s critic of the novel.

Background

Just like other inventors or innovators, Victor Frankenstein was determined and focused on completing his quest. He had loved science ever since he was a young boy and was always guided by curiosity. His desires received a boost because of the pain he felt after losing his mother. He developed a conviction to understand disease and death with the aim of establishing a way of safeguarding mankind. In her analysis, Shelley describes Victor’s thoughts about death. According to her findings, Victor showed a lot of empathy and compassion to those who had lost their loved ones to death and had been left in desperation. To him, understanding life and death became a way of dealing with his loss. He was always motivated by the thought of one day overcoming death. The conviction became the one thing that Victor cared about (Shelley 2-9). It is where the issue of how blind an investor’s passion can be. Victor was only focused on bringing his dreams to reality without taking into account the possible repercussions of his actions.

Before completing his studies, Victors had made a discovery that fully changed his journey towards understanding life and death. He learned how to create an ultimate man. To begin his creation, he collects body parts to assemble a human being. Victor states, “Who shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil as I dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the grave” (Shelley 55). Victor did not enjoy collecting the body parts from the graveyards. He was uneasy with the collection and hence decided to create his human in secrecy and darkness. After completing his work, Victor realized that he had developed a nostalgic feeling towards his own creature. He found the creature hideous and understood that he had created a monster that was hard to admire, a beast that was created out of the things that were dead. Victor did not take into consideration the responsibility that will accompany his hideous creation.

Analysis

In her article Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: Science, Science Fiction, or Autobiography, Sherry Ginn vividly describes how Victor’s creature came to life and how it began to taunt him until he was rejecting it. She depicts how scientist was horrified by the sight of his creation. Victor shuns and abandons the creature leaving him to fend for himself. The monster ends up falling in love with a poor peasant’s family but they reject him. After the refusal, Victor’s creature decides that he wants explanations from his creator why he is different and who forced him to create him a mate. The monster had faced numerous occasions of neglect and abandonment. Much of the creature’s plight is because Victor was irresponsible. His creation was thrown into despair and rage as he did not know why he is facing the segregation from the public, unfortunately, the confusion resulted in several murders.

Sherry’s observation is also upheld by Laura P. Claridge in her article, Parent Child Tensions in Frankenstein: the Search for Communion. According to Laura, Frankenstein’s story is a typical example of the nature of human beings who have been known to demonstrate failure in regards to being responsible for their offspring. She also believes that given that Victor made his creation as a way of dealing with the loss of his mother; his irresponsibility could be caused by the isolation he felt. Author suggests that Victor’s eventual isolation from his own creator was a repeat of his experience with his own creators – parents (Claridge14-26).

Conclusion

From an observer’s perspective, Sherry and Laura come to a quite accurate analysis and conclusion on Mary Shelly’s story on Frankenstein. As mentioned above, Frankenstein exhibited typical human characteristics of panic and ignorance after realizing that he had created an abomination. His past feelings and experiences then played a pivotal role in the eventual behavior. Had Victor been raised by responsible parents, maybe he would have turned out a better creator.

Works Cited

Claridge, Laura P. “Parent-Child Tensions in” Frankenstein: The Search for Communion”. Studies in the Novel 17.1 (1985): 14-26.

Ginn, Sherry. “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: Science, science fiction, or autobiography”. Conference paper of a proceeding of the 2003, 20th International Literature and Psychology Conference. Nov, 2004, https://www.clas.ufl.edu/ipsa/2003/ginn.html.

Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft. Frankenstein: 1818. Intervisual Books, 2010.