The Feverish Humanity in the Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
| Subject: | 📚 Literature |
| Type: | Critical Analysis Essay |
| Pages: | 3 |
| Word count: | 869 |
| Topics: | 👹 Frankenstein, Humanism, 📗 Book |
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Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein is a mind blowing literature piece of work that has allured authors and scholar to periodically analyze various issues that come forth evidently in the play. In the play, we find Mary Shelley through a life of abandonment, parental neglect and childhood without parental love. She elopes with Percy Shelley, a total stranger who later turns out to be her lover, husband and cheerleader. Percy is thrilled by science and often conducts some bizarre experiments in the University behind closed doors (Sterrenburg, 1979).
This electrifying piece apparently tactful brings out elements of science, conscience, identify and romanticism among many other topics of discussion. Percy learns of the possibility to use electric currents to stimulate nerve impulses. From his many successful and failed tests, triumphantly makes a Creature although with a distorted visage. The Creature pursues love from a peasant poor family but is declined. In return, he comes to seek the creator to make a similar being whom to share with the solitude. In reverence of unprecedented impact of creating such a being and the procreation thereof, the creator declines. The Creature in retaliation kills the creators youngest brother, William and his wife Elizabeth; the Frankenstein (Sterrenburg, 1979).
Walter Scott, the author of the Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine analyses this plot and unveils the gravel in the Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. First, forward, Walter Scott is a seasoned novelist, playwright and poet, who jet from Scotland. Other than his successful career in literature, he is a counsel, judge and an administrator of legal issues; having worked for the Sheriff-Depute of Selkirkshire and as a Clerk of Session. He is behind some poetic pieces such as the Glenfinlas, The Eve of St. John, and The Lady of the Lake and the Lay of the Last Minstrel. Other written literature work under his name are The Heart of Midlothian, The Bride of Lammermoor, Old Mortality, Waver ley and Rob Roy just to mention but a few (Levine & Knoepflmacher, 1982).
Using his innovative analytical skills, Walter approaches the subject as a romantic fictions work. It is romantic because it uses the dramatized personae to address issues of relationships and survival. The character herein possesses some peculiar extraordinary ability in their conduct questionable under science. He makes a well-harnessed critic on the science, conscience and identity. Motivated by the effects of the marvels, his amours his analysis on the nature and the justifiable truths.
He clearly, puts a distinction between mystery and the effects of mystery as separate and independent things. The mantra “I have thus endeavored to preserve the truth of the elementary principles of human nature, while I have not scrupled to innovate upon their combinations,” explains his disposition. It is while at the University of Ingolsadt, that the subconscious fatal excitement in the wonder of modern chemistry results in life of the rare creature and the death of the creator and his associate relatives (Pollin, 1965).
Horrific turn of events written as a scientific piece lacks evidence in how a dead tissue can be reawaken to take the living form of a human being that is capable of reading, writing and needs socialization. The science knowledge possessed by Mary is similarly questionable since she had no formal education or training to understand the internal body mechanisms. Evidently, science knowledge would have been developed to make other creatures acceptable in the human race.
Walter Scoot shows confusion in identity. Mary Shelley cannot be identified with his biological father, William Godwin who abandoned her and her sister when parental duties overwhelmed him after his wife (and the mother to Mary Shelley) passed on. In addition, Mary cannot identify with his estranged husband, Percy Shelley since he died shortly after the two got married in 1822 by drowning; following his wife’s persistent claims of him killing their son William (Sterrenburg, 1979).
On the other hand, the Frankenstein is struggling with identity issues since it cannot establish networks with the human race and the solitude is too much. The artificial creature in several instances tries to become friendly with people but there is open rejection, violence and disgust. The creator is adamant to make another creature for dire consequences. He painfully has already lost the wife and brother in the monster’s retaliations.
Science as in the play can be hard to comprehend. How in those ancient days would a semi-illiterate person make forth a peculiar being? To me, this is far from the truth since the element of nature are obliviously ignored or assumed. Similarly, the attempt to rekindle life in her death child should have been successful was it that indeed the formation of the rare creature knowledge was factual (Levine & Knoepflmacher, 1982).
I tend to concur with Erik Erikson model of the eight stages of Man in the psychosocial development. These stages include; trust vs. mistrust, autonomy, initiative vs. guilt, industry vs. inferiority, identify vs. role confusion, intimacy vs. isolation, generativity vs. stagnation and finally integrity vs. despair. The Erikson theory says that inmate bonds have a way of bringing once identity. The analysis of Mary’s life and fiction is supportive of this theory. Mary’s life turned out loathsome due to the scandalous relationships in upbringing and socialization.
- Levine, G. L., & Knoepflmacher, U. C. (1982). The Endurance of Frankenstein: Essays on Mary Shelley’s Novel. Univ of California Press.
- Pollin, B. R. (1965). Philosophical and literary sources of Frankenstein. Comparative Literature, 17(2) , 97-108.
- Sterrenburg, L. (1979). Mary Shelley’s Monster: Politics and Psyche in Frankenstein. . The Endurance of Frankenstein, , 143-71.
Offered for reference purposes only.