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