Unn@ti'$ Blog: Assignment 103: Initial Exploration of Theme in ' Frankenstein.'

I'm writing this blog as a part of Assignment assign by our professor Dr. Dilip Barad, from English Department, MKBU. In this assignment, the topic which I'm going to deal with is, Initial Exploration of Themes in ' Frankenstein.'

■ Personal Information ■

Name: Unnati Baroliya

Batch: M.A Sem 1( 2023-25)

Enrollment number: 5108230002

Email Address: unnatibaroliya@gmail.com

Roll no: 32

■ Assignment details ■

Topic: Initial Exploration of the Themes in 'Frankenstein.'

Paper: Literature of the Romantics

Paper number: 103

Subject code: 22394

Submitted to: Smt. S. B Gardi Department of English M.K.B.U

■ Points to Discuss ■

♧ Abstract

♧ key words

♧ Plot and Major Characters

♧ Critical Reception

♧ Frankenstein: Creation as Catastrophe

♧ Alienation

♧ Romantic form and Nature

♧ Revenge

♧ Ambition and Fallibility Theme Analysis

♧ Lost Innocence

♧ Conversion from Natural Magic to Modern Science

♧ Godlike Science/ Unhallowed Arts

♧ Conclusion

♤ Let's dive deep into the Themes of Frankenstein by first looking over the brief idea about the novel.

♧ Plot and Major Characters♧

Walton and his men convince him to board the ship, and the narrative shifts to the perspective of this man--Dr. Victor Frankenstein--as he recounts his life story to Walton. Frankenstein's childhood, in Geneva, is happy and privileged. Born to a distinguished family, his parents are kind and he enjoys the company of Elizabeth (his cousin in the 1818 edition of Frankenstein, adopted sister in the 1831 edition), and best friend, Henry.

One day, alone on a glacier, Frankenstein is approached by the creature. The story switches to the creature's narrative as he explains to Frankenstein his descent into despair and rage. Rejected by his creator and without guidance, the monster attempts to do good, but is treated harshly by humans he encounters and begins to realize how very shunned and abhorred he is. Enraged, he curses his life, his creator, and mankind. When the creature discovers a boy in the woods, he hopes that the child might be young enough to be unprejudiced toward him, but the child responds to him with shrill screams. Upon realizing that the boy is Frankenstein's brother, the creature grasps his throat, strangling him. As the creature's narrative ends, he demands that Frankenstein make a companion for him, threatening to destroy Frankenstein if he refuses. Frankenstein reluctantly agrees. He departs for England, accompanied by Henry, to learn of any recent scientific developments. Frankenstein tells his father that the purpose of this trip is to see the world before settling down, and that he will marry Elizabeth upon returning to Geneva.

The creature follows Frankenstein to London, and then on to an isolated island in the Orkneys where Frankenstein has set up a workshop, having left Henry behind in Scotland. After half-completing the female creature, Frankenstein destroys her, fearing the consequences of completing her. The creature vows revenge, saying ominously, "I shall be with you on your wedding-night," and departs. Frankenstein disposes of all evidence of the workshop and female creature, and leaves the island. When he reaches land, he is accused of the murder of a man that has washed ashore. The murder victim is Henry--he has been strangled. Frankenstein, raving and feverish, is imprisoned but acquitted of the crime. He returns to Geneva and he and Elizabeth are quickly married. They sail to an inn in Evian and, minding the creature's ominous warning, Frankenstein suggests that Elizabeth retire to their room; meanwhile, he prowls the inn, watching for any sign of the creature. Hearing a scream, Frankenstein rushes to the room and is devastated to find that Elizabeth has been strangled. Frankenstein returns to Geneva, and after his father learns of Elizabeth's murder, he dies of grief. Frankenstein vows to kill the monster he has created. He pursues his progeny to the Arctic Circle, where he encounters Walton. The novel ends with a second set of letters written by Walton. Frankenstein, who had been ill and weakened from cold when found by Walton and his shipmates, deteriorates and dies. Later, Walton finds the creature in the room where Frankenstein lies in state. Walton regards the creature with anger and fear. The creature expresses his suffering, remorse, and self-loathing, and then departs, intending to die.

♧Critical Reception♧

Upon its publication, Frankenstein garnered commercial success as a Gothic novel, but critically it was for the most part condemned as sensationalist and gruesome. Some reviewers gave halting praise to the anonymous author's powerful imagination and descriptive abilities, while others openly questioned "his" sanity. Frankenstein was viewed as light reading and received scant attention as a serious work of literature until well into the twentieth century. In the mid-twentieth century, critics began to recognize the importance of Frankenstein as a cautionary tale on the dangers of scientific knowledge and now view it as a progenitor of science fiction. Students of both Shelleys find ample discussion fodder in the appearance of the Promethean myth in Percy's Prometheus Unbound and in Frankenstein.

Interpretations of the novel from biographical, psychological, sociopolitical, philosophical, and feminist perspectives have proliferated in recent years. Sources for and influences on the novel are another area of critical examination and have mentioned such respected works as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust and Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner." While the novel has received growing respect, the author's esteem has remained qualified. In a detailed analysis published in 1987, Muriel Spark stated, "The point I wish to establish is, not that Mary Shelley excelled as a prose writer-I believe otherwise-but that where her comparatively utilitarian style is combined with an elaborate theme, her writing is distinctive." Commentators note that it is Frankenstein's ability to support a variety of readings that has inspired continuing critical attention. In a 1988 examination of the novel, Allene Stuart Phy remarked, "There seems no end in sight to the books and essays ... offering 'the true meaning' of Frankenstein" and asserted that Shelley "may well have written the most influential minor novel of all time in any language."

♧Creation as Catastrophe♧

As FRANKENSTEIN gets under way, we are lured by the promise of a new be- ginning: Walton's pathbreaking journey to the North Pole. Bound for Archangel to as- semble a crew, Walton is inspired by the cold northern wind to envision a perpetually warm and radiant paradise at the summit of the globe. To be there would be to capture the heavens in a glance, to tap earth's central power source, and to stand within the magic circle of the poets he once sought to emulate but whose sublimity he could not match. Such extravagance is easier to credit if we keep in mind the uneasiness it is intended to dispel: "There is something at work in my soul, which I do not understand". Perhaps for his own good, and certainly at the dramatically right moment, the quest found- ers somewhere in the frozen wastes between Archangel and the Pole, just where Walton is waylaid by Frankenstein, who is feverishly pursuing the path of the Creature's departure. It may be more accurate to say that the quest is deflected. For although Walton is relegated to the periphery of the fiction, ushering in and out a wondrous tale that preempts his own, he is profoundly implicated as well. The tale, of course, is a monitory example meant for him, but it is also a riddle of fate that means him: the mystery that he is and that becomes his by virtue of his fascinated participation in Frankenstein's story.

In short, Walton is in the critical position, and nowhere is his situation better evidenced than at the end of the novel. Frankenstein, burdened by his tale's monstrous residue, concludes his narrtive by enjoining Walton to slay the Creature after his death. Yet the climactic encounter with the Creature unsettles everything even more and leaves Walton powerless to act. The final word and deed belong to the Creature, who vows to undo the scene of his creation once he bounds. from the ship: "I shall seek the most north- ern extremity of the globe; I shall collect my funeral pile. and consume to ashes this miserable frame, that it remains may afford no light. my ashes will be swept into the sea by the winds", To Walton, however, be- longs the burden of the mystery as he watches this self-destroying artifact vanish into darkness and distance and contemplates a catastrophe at the Pole.

Mary Shelley might well have titled her novel
One Catastrophe after Another. For Franken-
stein, who is dubiously in love with his own
polymorphously disastrous history, the fateful
event to which every other catastrophe is postscript is the creation. According to
the archaic model implicit in his narrative,
transcendence is equivalent to transgression, and his presumptuous deed is invested with the aura of a primal sin against nature that somehow justifies the ensuing retributive bother. Condemned by nature's gods to limitless suffering, the aspiring hero learns his properly limited human place. Frankenstein, however, knows differently. A reading alert to the anti-Gothic novel Mary Shelley inscribes within her Gothic tale will discover that nothing is simple or single. The critical event is impossible to localize, terms. such as "justice" and "injustice" do not so much mean as undergo vicissitudes of meaning, and all the narrators are dispossessed of their authority over the text. As the central misreader, Frankenstein is the chief victim of the text's irony, the humor becoming particularly cruel whenever he thinks he is addressing the supernatural powers that oversee his destiny, for his invocatory ravings never fail to conjure up his own Creature. Indeed, the evacuation of spiritual presence from the world of the novel suggests that Frankenstein is more a house in ruins than the house divided that its best recent critics have shown it to be.

♧Alienation♧

Frankenstein suggests that social alienation is both the primary cause of evil and the punishment for it. The Monster explicitly says that his alienation from mankind has caused him to become a murderer: “My protectors had departed, and had broken the only link that held me to the world. For the first time the feelings of revenge and hatred filled my bosom.” His murders, however, only increase his alienation.

For Frankenstein, too, alienation causes him to make bad decisions and is also the punishment for those bad decisions. When Frankenstein creates the Monster he is working alone, in a “solitary chamber, or rather cell.” Being “solitary” has caused his ambition to grow dangerously, but this isolation is already its own punishment: his laboratory feels like a “cell.” Once he has created the Monster, Frankenstein becomes even more alienated from the people around him because he can’t tell anyone about his creation.

Both Frankenstein and the Monster compare themselves to the character of Satan in Paradise Lost: alienation from God is both Satan’s crime and his punishment. The novel presents the idea that alienation from other people is caused, at root, by alienation from oneself. Frankenstein’s father points out the link between self-hatred and alienation: “I know that while you are pleased with yourself, you will think of us with affection, and we shall hear regularly from you.” As long as a person feels they have self-worth, they’ll maintain contact with others. The Monster feels that he is alienated from human society because he looks monstrous. He first recognizes that he is ugly not through someone else’s judgement but through his own: “when I viewed myself in a transparent pool[…]I was filled with the bitterest sensations.”

At the end of the novel, with Frankenstein dead, the Monster is alone in the world. His alienation is complete, and so is his self-hatred: “You hate me; but your abhorrence cannot equal that with which I regard myself.” The ultimate consequence of alienation is self-destruction. Frankenstein drives himself to death chasing the Monster, while the Monster declares his intention to kill himself.

♧Romantic Forms and Nature♧

Although Mary Shelley's Frankenstein has begun to receive more critical attention now than it has in the past, and although two critics have recently examined its relationship to other Romantic literature, it has not been generally regarded as congruent in form with contempe contemporary Romantic works. Robert Kiely does discuss it in company with contemporary novels in The Romantic Novel in England but he is interested less in scrutinizing its form than in demonstrating a "dissonance" between what he sees as its two dominant themes. In his discussion, however, Kiely locates contradictory attitudes toward Frankenstein that, while they perhaps reflect Mary's own doubt toward Percy, raise an important critical question about the novel's true moral sympathies-is Frankenstein right or is the monster?

Romantic writers portrayed nature as the greatest and most perfect force in the universe. They used words like "sublime" (as Mary Shelley herself does in describing Mont Blanc in Frankenstein) to convey the unfathomable power and flawlessness of the natural world. In contrast, Victor describes people as "half made up." The implication is clear: human beings, weighed down by petty concerns and countless flaws such as vanity and prejudice, pale in comparison to nature's perfection.

It should come as no surprise, then, that crises and suffering result when, in Frankenstein, imperfect men disturb nature's perfection. Victor in his pride attempts to discover the "mysteries of creation," to "pioneer a new way" by penetrating the "citadel of nature." But just as a wave will take down even the strongest swimmer, nature prevails in the end and Victor is destroyed for his misguided attempt to manipulate its power.

♧ Revenge ♧

The monster begins its life with a warm, open heart. But after it is abandoned and mistreated first by Victor and then by the De Lacey family, the monster turns to revenge. The monster's actions are understandable: it has been hurt by the unfair rejection of a humanity that cannot see past its own prejudices, and in turn wants to hurt those who hurt it. As the monster says when Felix attacks it and flees with the rest of the De Lacey family, "...feelings of revenge and hatred filled my bosom...[and] I bent my mind towards injury and death." But in taking revenge, two things happen to the monster. First, it ensures that it will never be accepted in human society. Second, because by taking revenge the monster eliminates any hope of ever joining human society, which is what it really wants, revenge becomes the only thing it has. As the monster puts it, revenge became "dearer than light or food."

Revenge does not just consume the monster, however. It also consumes Victor, the victim of the monster's revenge. After the monster murders Victor's relatives, Victor vows a "great and signal revenge on [the monster's] cursed head." In a sense then, the very human desire for revenge transforms both Victor and the monster into true monsters that have no feelings or desires beyond destroying their foe.

♧Ambition and Fallibility Theme Analysis ♧

Through Victor and Walton, Frankenstein portrays human beings as deeply ambitious, and yet also deeply flawed. Both Victor and Walton dream of transforming society and bringing glory to themselves through their scientific achievements. Yet their ambitions also make them fallible. Blinded by dreams of glory, they fail to consider the consequences of their actions. So while Victor turns himself into a god, a creator, by bringing his monster to life, this only highlights his fallibility when he is completely incapable of fulfilling the responsibilities that a creator has to its creation. Victor thinks he will be like a god, but ends up the father of a devil. Walton, at least, turns back from his quest to the North Pole before getting himself and his crew killed, but he does so with the angry conclusion that he has been robbed of glory. Neither Victor nor Walton ever escapes from their blinding ambitions, suggesting that all men, and particularly those who seek to raise themselves up in glory above the rest of society, are in fact rash and "unfashioned creatures" with "weak and faulty natures."

♧ Lost Innocence ♧

Frankenstein presents many examples of the corruption of youthful innocence. The most obvious case of lost innocence involves Victor. A young man on the edge of adulthood, Victor leaves for university with high hopes and lofty ambitions. He aims to explore "unknown powers" and enlighten all of humanity to the deepest "mysteries of creation," but his success and his pride brings an end to his innocence. He creates a monster that reflects back to him the many flaws inherent in his own species (an unquenchable thirst for love, a tendency toward violence, and a bloodthirsty need for justice and revenge) and in himself (prejudice based on appearance). And, in turn, Victor's cruel "un-innocent" behavior also destroys the monster's innocence.

Victor and the monster's losses of innocence ultimately lead to the deaths of William, Justine, Elizabeth, and Clerval, four characters whom the novel portrays as uniquely gentle, kind, and, above all, innocent. Through these murders, Shelley suggests that innocence is fleeting, and will always be either lost or destroyed by the harsh reality of human nature.

♧Conversion from Natural Magic to Modern Science ♧

Frankenstein gives an account of the first stage of the "conversion" from his enthusiasm for ancient occult philosophers to modern science, a "conversion" which hinges upon his experience of seeing an oak tree destroyed by lightning when he was fifteen years old. Here the word "conversion" within qualifying quotation marks for reasons that will become increasingly apparent as this analysis proceeds.

In the early 19th century, natural magic, rooted in witchcraft and mystical traditions, was still prevalent. Victor Frankenstein's early fascination with natural philosophy aligns with this mystical approach to understanding the world. His desire to unlock the secrets of life is reminiscent of alchemical pursuits, where practitioners sought to transform or create life through esoteric means.

However, as the novel progresses, Shelley highlights the emerging paradigm of modern science. Victor's experiments become more grounded in empirical methods and scientific principles, marking a shift away from the supernatural. The narrative emphasizes the consequences of this transition, as Victor's scientific ambitions lead to unintended and tragic outcomes.

Shelley's portrayal of Victor's transformation reflects the societal changes occurring during the Industrial Revolution. The novel questions the ethical implications of unchecked scientific advancement and the potential dangers of divorcing scientific inquiry from moral considerations. In essence, "Frankenstein" serves as a cautionary tale about the evolving nature of scientific exploration during the 19th century, illustrating the perils of divorcing science from ethical responsibility. The transition from natural magic to modern science in the novel mirrors the broader shift in society's understanding of the natural world and the ethical responsibilities associated with scientific inquiry.

♧Godlike Science/Unhallowed Arts♧

Mary Shelly's Frankenstein continues to solicit and disturb us not only through its creation of a decisive image of gothic horror, but also by the pathos of a monsterism in doomed dialectic with nature and with culture. It is above all in the question of language, both as explicit theme of the novel and as implicit model of the novel's complex organization, that the problem of the monstrou is played out.

We might approach the network of issues dramatized in the novel first of all through the crucial scene of Victor Frankenstein's first interview with his monstrous creation, the interview which leads to the Monster's telling his tale to Frankenstein, the story-within-a-story (which is a story-within-a-story-within-a-story, when we consider the outer frame of the novel and the role of Robert Walton as initial and ultimate narrator). Following the first murders committed by his Monster-William strangled, Justine judicially done to death through maliciously falsified evidence-Frankenstein journeys to seek solace in the mountains above Chamonix. He penetrates into the "glorious presence-chamber of imperial Nature," climbs to Montanvert and the Mer de Glace, hoping to recapture a remembered effect of "a sublime ecstasy that gave wings to the soul, and allowed it to soar from the obscure world to light and joy." His ascension takes him to a "wonderful and stupendous scene," overlooking the Mer de Glace, facing the "awful majesty" of Mont Blanc; his heart once again opens to joy, and he exclaims, in the tones of the Ossianic bard, "Wandering spirits, if indeed ye wander, and do not rest in your narrow beds, allow me this faint happiness, or take me, as your companion, away from the joys of life" (p. 98). Whereupon a superhuman shape comes bounding over the ice. It is, of course, no spirit of the departed, and no beneficent spirit of nature, but the Monster himself, who has at last tracked down his creator and will force him into parley.

♧ Conclusion ♧

Certainly, In the conclusion of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein," the narrative culminates in a tragic reckoning of the consequences stemming from Victor Frankenstein's unchecked scientific ambition. The novel delves into the complex interplay of themes such as the pursuit of knowledge, the isolation of the individual, and the ethical responsibilities that come with creation.

Victor's relentless pursuit of scientific advancement, driven by a desire to transcend the boundaries of mortality, leads to the creation of the Creature. However, the Creature's existence becomes a testament to the moral quandaries surrounding scientific innovation. Shelley challenges the reader to confront the ethical implications of playing god and wrestles with the notion of responsibility in the face of creation. The isolation experienced by both Victor and the Creature underscores the theme of alienation, illustrating the profound loneliness that arises from societal rejection. This isolation amplifies the tragedy, as it becomes a pervasive force, shaping the characters' destinies and contributing to the unfolding tragedy.

Furthermore, the blurred lines between creator and creation prompt reflection on the nature of humanity. Victor's initial rejection of the Creature and the subsequent tragic events raise questions about empathy, compassion, and the ethical considerations that accompany the act of bringing life into the world. As the narrative concludes, the novel serves as a cautionary tale, urging readers to contemplate the moral dimensions of scientific progress. Shelley's exploration of the repercussions of unchecked ambition encourages a thoughtful examination of the ethical responsibilities inherent in scientific pursuits. "Frankenstein" thus leaves an indelible mark, challenging readers to grapple with the enduring relevance of its themes and the profound implications of humanity's quest for knowledge.

♧ References ♧