The center Conceive of ‘The theme of Revenge’ and ‘science v/s Nature’s in Frankenstein

Topic: The center Conceive of ‘The theme of Revenge’ and ‘science v/s Nature’s n Frankenstein

Name: Patel Kinjal

Paper Name: The Romantic Literature

Paper No: 5

Roll No: 16

STD: M.A. 1 SEM: 2

Submitted to: Department of English, M.K. Bhavnagar University

About Author:

Frankenstein was written in 1818 in the last years of the reign of George III. Mary Shelly was born in 1797. William Godwin the author of   ‘Political Justice’ 1793 was the father and Mary Wollstonecraft, author of A Vindication of the Rights of Women 1792 was her mother. She was mistress and later on wife of the famous Romantic poet P.B.Shelly who was radical.

Birth of the Novel:

  In summer of the year 1816 a young educated girl from England travels to the Swiss Alps with her lover. Unseasonal rain did not allow them to go out from their lodgings so, they decided to entertain themselves by reading ghost story. Lord Byron was one of their friends. He requested that they should compete in writing ghost story. None of them but the young woman Mary could complete the Gothic Classic. The book became a best seller in her time. The book still resonates with readers almost two centuries later.

Synopsis of the novel:

The novel, Frankenstein, begins with Captain Robert Walton hanging out in St. Petersburg, around the end of the 18^th century. He’s to move towards North Pole and waiting for some Russian to join him. But, the boat gets trapped in the ice for hundreds of miles from the land. Boring! It could get months to come out from that place the, the place was boring with nothing to do there. So he writes letters to his sister back in England. He is eager to get a male friend for company.

Soon, after that he sees a man of the ice riding a dog sledge. The man is Victor Frankenstein the protagonist of the novel. His stories start like this. Victor started his life as a small child in Geneva. His parent’s adept a girl Elizabeth, for him to marry when he was older. He chose the study of natural philosophy and chemistry with Alchemy within two years he prepares a body of human corpse pieces. He brings it to life seeing the creation he is horrified and sick for months while his friend Henry Clerval nurses him back to health.

    In Geneva his younger brother William is murdered and the house maid is accused of killing him. Victor learns that his creation is responsible for the death of his brother. At Geneva Victor is not able to tell about his creation as nobody would believe him. He was silent at the execution. To come out of depression Victor goes on a trip to the Swiss Alps. There he meets the monster, who confesses to the crime and tells Victor this story.

    When Monster fled he found himself alone and hideous. No one accepted him except for one old blind man. He hoped that the blind man’s family of collages would give him compassion, but even they drove him away. The Monster tells Victor how he wanted to mix in society and how he killed his brother out of revenge. He tells Victor to create a female companion for him.

   Victor agrees to his suggestion and moves to Scotland where he goes to lonely Island for creation of lady companion. But just before he finishes, he destroys the female Monster he is afraid that the two will bring destruction to humanity rather than love each other harmlessly. The Monster got angry and vows to revenge Victor. When Victor lands on a shore among Irish people, they accuse him of murdering Henry; his best friend has been found dead. He is acquitted, but not before another long illness. Victor is grief stricken again.

 Victor returns to Geneva and prepares to marry Elizabeth, but he is little worried the Monster has sworn to be with him on his wedding night. Victor thinks the monster is threatening him, but the night he and Elizabeth are married, the Monster kills the bride. Due to this Victor’s father passed away from grief.

  Alone and bent on revenge, Victor chases the monster over all imaginable terrain until he is ragged and near death. And now we’re back up the present: he finds Walton’s ship, tells his story, and dies. After Victor’s death the Monster is found crying with grief. He tells the Captain he will end his life. The Monster destroys himself.

Science Fiction:

Mary Shelly made a further and decisive step in this development and from her treatment of the Gothic Novel. Science fiction emerged instead of astonishing her reader with a final explanation.

              

 “The rain was pouring in torrent”

‘Frankenstein’ or ‘The Modern Prometheus’ in is undoubtedly a very interesting novel, original and complete in itself. Mary Shelly the author of this novel confesses that she was prompted to write a novel because she wanted to prove herself as an intellectual person. She also wanted to establish herself in the field of literary world. The urge to experiment with new forms of writing forced her to write this novel. ‘Frankenstein’ is the result of all such feelings in the heart of Mary Shelly.

“I am fearless, therefore powerful.”

Frankenstein is often seen as the classic horror tale a Gothic work and the suspension of reality. The purpose of Gothic novel is to raise fear, to delve into the unknown world, to cross the boundaries between the familiar and unknown world.

  ‘Frankenstein’ leads us to breathlessness with suspense and sympathy. Victor Frankenstein the hero of this novel and a student of science goes off from his home to Geneva to study at the University of Ingolstadt. There he tries to create new specie through the use of Chemistry and electricity and the most advanced scientific research. Mary Shelley’s vision of isolated scientist discovering the secret of life is not merely a fantasy but it is a prediction of what science can accomplish.

“Frankenstein doesn’t want to sort fruit flies; he         wants to find the secret to immortality.”

 ‘Frankenstein’ soon surpasses teacher and concocts Pygmalion’s classic project of creating life. His ambition is twofold he wishes to peruse science passionately for its own sake and his desire by his experimenting to acquire knowledge that will improve the human stock. First he worked on animation after it he started to work, on the human body. Then create his own creation.

 The Monster created by Frankenstein runs from the laboratory and later on Frankenstein receives the news that his younger brother was no more. When he came to know that the murdered was nobody else but the Monster itself. Frankenstein realized his own mistake, but now it was too late. The Monster Frequently visits him and puts his demand of a companion before him. In the beginning Frankenstein thinks that he is the master of his monster but ultimately he realized that he has became the slave of the Monster. The Monster follows him everywhere and forces him to create another monster, the Monster would kill his relatives and friend one by one for fear of losing nearer and dearer people, Frankenstein agrees to create one more female monster for the Monster already erected by him. But as the time passes, he realizes that he is going to commit, another mistake by creating one more monster in the world. Such dangerous creation can be harmful to mankind and he drops the idea of creating another monster very soon he finds that his dear friend is murdered and he was also threatened by the monster that he will kill one by one all the family members of Frankenstein. The Monster appears again and kills Elizabeth and his father dies of gloom and then Frankenstein decided to kill the Monster therefore he chases him to North Pole and in the end. Frankenstein dies in illness but before his death the Monster appears once again and says that he has no enmity with mankind and therefore he will kill himself and thus the monster burned him.

“My father was not scientific, and I was left to struggle, with a child’s blindness, added to a student’s thirst for knowledge.” (2.9)

 In this manner Frankenstein’s story deals with the new invention. Physics, chemistry and scientific research and an innovative idea of creating a new spice of Monster shows that in true sense it is a science fiction.

 This profanation is designed to arouse an ambivalence in the reader science may indeed help man but the pride seeking after knowledge is dangerous.

Victor’s ambition as a creator:

“Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings”

He is a young Swiss boy; he is brought up in Geneva. He used to read the works of the ancient and outdated alchemists. He was interested in these types of work. His father told him not to go into the deep of this type of work but he disobeyed his father, his creator. He can be compared with Satan of Paradise Lost and Adam. Satan was blown to hell where as the disobedience of Eve and Adam brought miseries to mankind. The reading of the outdated alchemist served as a motivating force for Victor in his going to the university at Ingolstadt. There he learns about modern science within very short span of time he excels all his professors.

“I‘ve got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom.”

 He is fascinated with the “secret of life”. He gets busy in research. He neither sees day nor night. He gets very thin. He labored very hard to bring out his idea to a concrete from. His hard work brings life to a creature that looks like monster. He brings a hideous monster to life. He took nature’s law in his hand and thus would get punishment.

A challenge to God’s authority:

“Man is not the first and final creation of God, It is just an accident from an ameba to an ape and ape to man and their might be superman to come.”

It is believed that God is our creator. One should never travel in prohibited areas. As the Renaissance Hero, Dr. Faustus in a play by Christopher Marlowe tries to probe into Gods way, is punished. He was the hero, who challenged Gods authority like Satan in Paradise Lost, had to suffer for his doings, same way Doctor Faustus had to suffer. And so does Victor Frankenstein do. He himself became God, the creator of the monster. Actually his intention was good and gentle but what he did was the work done in haste and a thoughtless step. He created monster, which is devil that kills his kills and also becomes the enemy of mankind.

The theme of revenge:

“Revenge proves its own executioner”

When Satan was discarded from Heaven he decided to revenge God. When man’s ego hurts he takes revenge. When man is exploited he takes revenge. When he is abandoned and partialiged he takes revenge. When Victor creates Monster, as he comes to life he himself is afraid and goes away from the laboratory. Monster is abandoned by everyone wherever he went. He was humiliated by mankind. The Monster was even not christened. (He could not get his name & we call him Monster because of his horrible look). He asks Victor Frankenstein to create female companion, he agreed first and realizing that he was making another mistake he did not create female companion for the Monster. Monster killed his wife as the revenge.

Man v/s science:

Science if used judiciously is a boon to mankind but if misused creates hazards. Man’s pride kills him. Man has created many machines. The same machines take man’s life. Nuclear energy’s hazards we have seen in Japan, Nuclear plants hazards are also seen by us. In Bhopal lots of death occurred due to the gas tragedy. Lots of innocent became victims of the tragic incident. Man discovers or invents things of his comfort or to satisfy his pride. It can be fatal to him when he takes nature’s law in his hands.

Science v/s Nature:

“Nature gives to every time and seasons some beauties of its own”     - Charles Dickens

The creator of mankind is God. If man tries to replace he has to suffer. Scientists when invent or discover usually think of the advantage of science. It is believed that one should not travel in the prohibited areas. In Paradise Lost Adam and Eve disobey God’s law and suffered. Scientific inventions ruined the real charm of mankind. The discoveries pollute man in all the ways. One has to come out of comfort zone or else has to suffer. The destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is the consequence of science. Science destroys the natural Environment. Nature’s beauty and science are opposite to each other. Man’s invention i.e. Monster starts destroying mankind.

Science as a Mystery:

“The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible” 

  - Oscar Wilde

Victor conceives of science as a mystery to be probed; its secrets, once discovered, must be jealously guarded. He considers M.Krempe, the natural philosopher he meets at Ingolstadt, a model scientist: “an uncouth man, but deeply imbued in the secrets of his science.” Victor’s entire obsession with creating life is shrouded in secrecy, and his obsession with destroying the monster remains equally secret until Walton hears his life story.

Whereas Victor continues in his secrecy out of shame and guilt, the monster is forced into seclusion by his grotesque appearance. Walton serves as the final confessor for both, and their tragic relationship becomes immortalized in Walton’s letters. In confessing all just before he dies, Victor escapes the stifling secrecy that has ruined his life; likewise, the monster takes advantage of Walton’s presence to forge a human connection, hoping desperately that at last someone will understand, and empathize with, his miserable existence.

Conclusion:

Whole novel focuses on the revenge by monster science the monster is created. Victor tried to be a creator with great ambitions. The novel was written in the century when there was despair and distress around the writer. She herself suffered a lot. Her children died too.

The whole novel revolves around a child who is born of chemistry and science in an artificial laboratory. The child whose father and mother both are common man called Victor. Monster is an unnatural creation that has disgusting look. If we see, we are told that we should not cross the nature’s boundary. We should obey God’s law or else the consequence would be of Adam and Eve. Victor created a man with the help of science but forgot that science has two sides. It has blessings as well as course. It has bright as well has dark side. Monster instead of being bright side becomes dark side. Monster destroys his creator taking revenge of making him ugly and alone.

Sources: Net and Reference Book, Text

Matthew Arnold as a critic of 18th century

Topic: Matthew Arnold as a critic of 18^th century

Name: Patel Kinjal

Paper Name: The Victorian Literature

Paper No: 6

Roll No: 16

STD: M.A. 1

SEM: 2

Submitted to:  Department of English Maharaja Krishnkumarsinhji Bhavnagar University

About Critic:

Apart from his occupation as a poet and critic, Arnold earned a reputation during his lifetime as one of his age’s most knowledgeable and influential advocates for educational reform in England. Arnold became intimately familiar with the disadvantages and inequalities inherent in the educational system from favored aristocratic upper class to the ignored and impoverished lower class.

Essays in Criticism:

The first place among Arnold’s prose works must be given to the Essays in Criticism, which raised the author to the front rank of living critics. His fundamental ideas of criticism appeals to us strongly. The business of criticism, he says, is neither to find fault nor to display the critic’s own learning or influence; it is to know “the best which has been thought and said in the world,” and by using this knowledge to create current of fresh and free thought. If a choice must be made among these essays, which are all worthy of study, we would suggest “The Study of Poetry”, “Wordsworth,” “Byron,” and “Emerson.” The last-named essay, which is found in the Discourses in America, is hardly a satisfactory estimate of Emerson, but its singular charm of manner and its atmosphere of intellectual culture make it perhaps the most characteristic of Arnold’s prose writings.

About Essay:

Culture and Anarchy is controversial philosophical work written by the celebrated Victorian poet and critic Matthew Arnold. Composed during a time of unprecedented social and political change, the essay argues for a restructuring of England’s social ideology. It reflects Arnold’s passionate conviction that the uneducated English masses could be molded into conscientious individuals who strive for human perfection through the harmonious cultivation of all their skill and talents.

Culture and Anarchy:

Culture and Anarchy (1869) contains most of the terms-culture, sweetness and light, Barbarian, Philistine, Hebraism, and many others- which are now associated with Arnold’s work and influence. The term “Barbarian” refers to the aristocratic classes, whom Arnold thought to be essentially crude in soul, notwithstanding their good clothes and superficial graces. “Philistine” refers to the middle classes, - narrow-minded and self-satisfied people, according to Arnold, whom he satirizes with the idea of opening their minds to new ideas. “Hebraism” is Arnold’s term for moral education. Carlyle had emphasized the Hebraic or moral element in life, and Arnold undertook to preach the Hellenic or intellectual element, which welcomes new ideas, and delights in the arts that reflect the beauty of the world. “The uppermost ideas of Hellenism,” Arnold says, “is to see things as they are; the uppermost ideas with Hebraism is conduct and obedience.” With great clearness, sometimes with great force, and always with a play of humor and raillery aimed at the “Philistines,” Arnold pleads for both these elements in life which together aim at “Culture,” that is, at moral and intellectual perfection.

Plot and Major Characters:

Although Arnold does not create specific fictional characters to express his ideas in Culture and Anarchy, he does infuse his essays with a narrative persona that can best be described as a Socratic figure. This mentor also identifies and classifies three groups of people who comprise contemporary English society. The first group is the Barbarians or the aristocratic segment of society who are so involved with their archaic traditions and gluttony that they have lost touch with the rest of society for which they were once responsible. The second group-for whom Arnold’s persona reserves his most scornful criticism-is the Philistines, or the selfish and materialistic middle class who have been gulled into a torpid state of puritanical self-centeredness by nonconforming religious sects. The third group is the Populace, or the disenfranchised, poverty-stricken lower class who have been let down by the negligent Barbarians and greedy Philistines. According to Stefan Collini, culture is “an ideal of human life, a standard of excellence and fullness for the development of our capacities, aesthetic, intellectual, and moral.”

Culture: as a study in Perfection:

CULTURE, which is the study of perfection, leads us, Arnold in the essay have shown, “to conceive of true human perfection as a harmonious perfection, developing all sides of our humanity; and as a general perfection, developing all parts of our society.

Culture is considered not merely as the Endeavour to see and learn this, but as the Endeavour, also to make it prevail, the moral, social, and beneficent character of culture becomes manifest. Religion says: The Kingdom of God is within you; and culture, in like manner, places human perfection in an internal condition, in the growth and predominance of our humanity proper, as distinguished from our animality.

Arnold mentions that the only purpose of Culture is in keeping the mark of human perfection simply and broadly in view, and not assigning to this perfection, as religion or utilitarianism assign to it, a special and limited character. The notion of perfection as culture brings us to conceive it: a harmonious perfection, a perfection in which the characters of beauty and intelligence are both present, which unites

‘the two noblest of things,’—as Swift, who of one of the two, at any rate, had himself all too little, move it happily cells them in his Battle of the Books,--‘the two noblest of things, sweetness and light.’

‘the two noblest of things,’—as Swift, who of one of the two, at any rate, had himself all too little, move it happily cells them in his Battle of the Books,--‘the two noblest of things, sweetness and light.’

Culture: Sweetness & Light:

For Arnold, Culture is connected with the ideas of Sweetness & Light. In thus making sweetness and light to be characters of perfection, culture is of like spirit with poetry, follows one law with poetry.

Culture, however, shows its single-minded love of perfection, its desire simply to make reason and the will of God prevail, its freedom from fanaticism, by its attitude towards all this machinery, even while it insists that it is machinery.

What is greatness?

Greatness is a spiritual condition worthy to excite love, interest, and admiration; and the outward proof of possessing greatness is that we excite love, interest, and admiration. The people, who believed most that our greatness and welfare are proved by our being very rich, and who most give their lives and thoughts to becoming rich, are just the very people whom we call Philistines.

Bring out the distinction and difference among the Barbarians, the Philistines and the Populace.

Introduction:

Three great classes of England are the aristocrats, the middle class and the working class. Arnolds the virtuous mean and would like to point out the excesses and the defect of all these three classes of English people.

One great defeat Arnold finds among the aristocrats is that very often their spirit lacks enough courage’s for resistance. Helpless inaptitude is the besetting sin of the middle class while the working class lacks ready power of action and genial powers of sympathy.

The Aristocratic:

The Aristocratic class Arnold calls the Barbarians. They are champions of personal liberty and often anarchical in their tendencies; yet they have their own individualism, field sports and manly exercises are a fashion with them. The sense of chivalry of the Barbarians makes the aristocrats practice politeness in action and manners.  Politeness and grace in manners come directly inculcated by the Aristocrats from the Barbarians. Even the culture of the aristocrats is skin-deep, external, lacking in inward virtues.

The Middle Class:

The Philistines are the middle class, according to Arnold. By Philistines, in its original German sense, is meant the uncultured people like most of the shopkeepers. The philistines are worldly-wise men captains of industry busy in trade and commerce. As a nation of shopkeepers, Philistines have brought all economic prosperity and progress in the country. They have built cities, they have made railroads, and lastly they have produced the greatest mercantile navy the world has ever seen. Thus they are the Empire builders in colonies and so long as the working class would join forces with them they would bring to the land all material prosperity.

The Working Class:

The working classes who help the Empire builders are the Populace in Arnold’s parlance. Poverty and squalor have dogged the footsteps of the Populace wherever they are engaged in running the wheels of Industry. They are raw and half-developed. They are being exploited by the Philistines and the Barbarians so long. Now there is a stir and an awakening among the Populace. Democratic awakening has dawned upon their poverty and squalor. The people of this class are becoming politically conscious and are coming out from the obscurities to assert “ an Englishman’s heaven-born privilege of doing as he likes, meeting where he likes, bawling what he likes, braking what he likes.”

Thus Arnold finds a sort of caste-system in England consisting of the Barbarians, the Philistines and the Populace.

 Culture and Anarchy is his Critical Essay in which he discusses many terms like:  

Light, sweetness,culture,

Barbarian

Hebraism

Philistine

Hellenism

Hebraism is used for moral education. Hellenism welcomes new ideas and delights.

Hebraism:

Hebraism is strict obedience exclusion of the use of intellect, strictness of conscience and spontaneity of consciousness. The moral issue implies an implicit faith in the world of God. Mr. Sidgwick points out the Hebraism are manful walking by the best light of fire and strength.

Arnold and God:

If Hebraism means only the knowledge of the Bible and the Word of God, then Arnold has come to the defense of culture and says-

No man,

Who knows nothing else?

Know even his Bible!”

Essential to Hellenism, is the impulse to the development of the whole man.

 Hebraism only insists on perfection only on strictness of conscience. The Victorian age boosts of British freedom, British industry and British muscularity.

Hellenism:

Hellenism sharpens one’s intellectual side. Sweetness and light of Hellenism fortifies one’s mind to see things as they are and to realize the intelligible law of things.

"What we want is a fuller harmonious development of our humanity, a free play of thought upon our routine notions, spontaneity of consciousness, sweetness and light.”

It means man must seek perfection by knowing and spreading the best which has been reached in the world.

Arnold exhorts his countrymen against the diseased spirit of cultivated enacting.

Aim of Hebraism and Hellenism:

Hellenism is to see things as they are where as Hebraism is conduct. Hellenism is spontaneity of consciousness and Hebraism is strictness. Hebraism is doing more than knowing. Hellenism is thinking clearly. Hebraism thinks of the original sin of Man. According to Arnold Hebraism and is intelligible law of things.

Renaissance and Reformation:

In England we find both and intellectual awareness sharpened by Reformation and Renaissance. Reformation was a cry to return to the bible and a movement to do, from the heart, the will of god. Hellenic idea was the Platonic idea to study the law and science of things as they really are. Thus enlightened Protestantism’s attitude toward the Bible as the word of God is very much like the conservative Catholicism looking forward in hope of salvation towards god’s church instead of god’s words.

Renaissance and Reformation in England brought in their wake Humanism, born of the great reawakening of Hellenism. So Arnold thinks that as Hellenism is of Indo-European growth, Hebraism is of Semitic Growth.

Again Puritanism was the reaction in England. In the 17^th century of the conscience and moral sense of the English people. As in the early days of Christianity, Hebraism had to fight and vanquish Hellenism and Puritanism gave an effective check to Renaissance Humanism.

And ever since the days of Queen Elizabeth I the main stream of man’s advance and the central current of world’s progress had followed the path chalked out both by Hebraism and Hellenism.

The rule of life must be based on the actual instinct of seeing things as they really are and guiding our moral impulses in unison with the intellectual impulse is that we can serve the ends of Hebraism and Hellenism.

Man’s perfection As the Final Aim:

The final aim of both Hellenism and Hebraism is man’s perfection or salvation. The Grecian culture as well as Jewish culture, in the final analysis, appears to aim at that perfection through which “we might be partakers of the Divine Nature”. This is the Pauline doctrine of Christianity and this is at the back of Hellenic concept of seeing things as they really are; the human nature aspiring towards perfection must embrace either Hellenism or Hebraism. Human life upper the spell of Hellenism and Humanism urges man to see things as they really are, and to see them in their beauty which would lead to ultimate truth so, according to Socrates:

“The best man is he who most tries to perfect himself and the happiest man is he who most feels that he is perfecting himself.”

Danger of Anarchy in Society:

Doing as one likes may become an anti-social activity. Then liberty becomes license and in an organized society Anarchy breaks out. Arnold’s ‘culture’ may bring about a spirit of cultivated inaction. If this culture is blind to the existing evils of society or this culture is in danger of being and enemy to all reforms and reformers, then that culture is bound to become all moonshine. Arnold’s critics believe in action and not in aesthetic detachment.

Arnold’s contention is that to act properly one must think rightly; one must be able to see things as they are Culture which is a pursuit of perfection endows a man with a clear perspective to see things as they are. Without sufficient light it is difficult to guide, the lovers of action plunge themselves in ill-calculable harm to society. This action is liable to bring chaos in society.

Conclusion:

Thus to include we may say that for Arnold, OUR BEST SELF which Culture, or the study of perfection, seeks to develop in us is the eventual remedy for anarchy is society. In his concluding paragraph Arnold quotes Bishop Wilson to prove himself in asserting, how important intelligence is and reason to judge right, in doing as one likes:

‘Firstly, never go against the best light you have;

Secondly, take care that your light be not darkness,’

 

 

Sources: Net and Reference Book               Words: 2,380