Frankenstein

Frankenstein, a novel by Mary Shelley, 1818

• also called The Modern Prometheus

Mary Shelley

• her mother was the famed writer and women's rights thinker, Mary Wollenstonecraft
  • Wollenstonecraft is considered the "first feminist"
• her father, '''William Godwin''', was a famous political philosopher and novelist
  • Godwin was considered a political radical for his attacks on institutions, "aristocratic privilege", and religion
    • he argued
  • he was an early promoter of "utilitarianism," a philosophy that sought to create the "greatest good" or "happiness" for the "greatest number of people"
  • Godwin wrote a novel that drew from John Milton's "Paradise Lost"
    • Mary Shelley also drew inspiration from ''Paradise Lost''
• Shelley had an affair with the poet Percy Shelley, who was married, and married him in 1816

Writing of Frankenstein

The Year Without a Summer

• it was on a trip to Switzerland in 1816 w/ Shelley, the poet Lord Byron, and William Polidor that Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein
• Mary wrote of her time in Switzerland,

"It proved a wet, ungenial summer, and incessant rain often confined us for days to the house"

• there were unusual, frequent thunderstorms that summer
  • in 1815, Mt. Tombora, in Indonesia, had exploded, the largest volcanic eruption in 1,300 years
  • the volcano emitted an enormous amount of ash and particles into the sky
    • caused agricultural disasters and famines across the northern hemisphere
  • the summer of 1816 was known as "The Year Without a Summer"
  • worldwide temperatures dropped 1 degree Celsius
  • in Switzerland ice formed in the mountains during the summer and reddish snow fell during the summer in the Alps regions of northern Italy (bordering Switzerland)
  • and rain across Europe flooded major rivers
  • in Hungry, the volcanic ash mixed with snow and fell as "brown snow"
• during the gloomy summer, to amuse one another, the friends told ghost stories to one another
• Byron suggested they each write one of their own
• Mary was unable to think of one, until her thoughts moved towards "galvanism" and the re-animation of a corpse.

Galvanism

Cartoon of a galvanized corpse (1836)

• Benjamin Franklin's discoveries in the mid-1700s of the nature of lightning as electricity spurred research into electricity
• in the late 1700s, Luigi Galvani realized that muscle tissue reacted to electricity
  • his assistant accidently touched a dead frog's leg with a charged scalpel, which made its leg move
  • Galvani later realized that electricity produced the same effect
  • he proposed that electricity animated living things
  • he called it "animal electricity"
    • became known as "Galvanism"
  • became a cultural phenomenon (meme)
    • cartoons and stories of corpses raised from the dead with electricity
  • the term "Galvanism" was actually coined by Alessandro Volta, who built the first chemical electric battery
    • for Volta, "Galvanism" referred to generation of electricity via chemical reactions

• James Lind, 1736-1812
  • a physician who taught Galvanism and demonstrated it to Percy Shelley with dead frogs and reptiles by making them jump by applying electricity
    • he suggested the use of electricity to treat the insane (called today "electroshock therapy")
    • and he may have revived a cardiac arrest patient with electrical shocks
  • Mary Shelley had nightmares about these sessions
  • Lind was likely the inspiration for the characters De Lacey and Dr. M. Waldman in Frankenstein.

Technological change

• during the early 19th century, the world saw tremendous technological and scientific change and advance
• new technologies and inventions excited and scared the world
• religion was challenged as the sole explanation of the natural world

exploration

• the world was first circumnavigated in the 1500s
• a part of northern Australia was only discovered in 1606 by the Dutch, who never settled it
• the British mapped and settled Australia in the 1780s after losing the American colonies
• explorers were still mapping the Arctics in the late 1700s

electricity

• in the 1740s and 1750s Benjamin Franklin astounded the world by discovering the nature of electricity and lightning
• other scientists and inventors studied and experimented with electricity

steam engine

• the first steam engine was invented in the mid-1700s
• the first steam boats were employed in the late 1700s
• the first steam-powered land vehicles (trains and tractors) were used in the early 1800s

medicine

• along w/ the telescope, the microscope was invented over a long period of time
• in 1676, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek

Science, knowledge & acting like God

• the overall theme of Frankenstein is the danger of knowledge
• "science" originally means "knowledge" or "acquiring knowledge"
  • thus "science" is taking on knowledge
• the novel poses questions about Dr. Frankenstein's experiments and about science itsefl:
  • was he trying to gain knowledge that he should not possess?
  • was he acting like a god or God?
  • is there such as thing as "dangerous knowledge"
  • should there be limits upon scientific experiments?

Literary, mythological & religious inspirations and references

Adam and Eve

• in the Hebrew bible (Christian "Old Testament"), God created man in the form of Adam and Eve
  • they were to live in peace with God and all the animals in the "Garden of Eden"
  • the only rule was that they should not eat the fruit of the "tree of knowledge"
• Satan (the devil) appeared to them as a serpent (snake)
  • and convinced Eve that God was unfair and cruel to not let them eat from the "tree of knowledge"
  • and that they could become like God if they ate the fruit of that tree
  • by eating the fruit, they lost their innocence and were kicked out of the Garden of Eden for it
• while God created Adam and Eve, is God responsible for their decisions?
  • or do Adam and Eve exercise free will (make decisions on their own)?
    • or is He?

Paradise Lost

• by the English poet, John Milton
• tells the Biblical stories of
  • the fall of Satan and other angels who are banished from Heaven for rebelling against God
  • the "fall of man" through the narrative of Adam and Eve and their "temptation" by Satan to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge

Prometheus

• Frankenstein is also called, or sometimes uses the subtitle, "The Modern Prometheus"
• = Greek myth of "Prometheus"
  • he was a Titan who stole fire from the gods and gave it to humans in order to help them
  • = giving humans knowledge of the gods
• the gods were angered and punished Prometheus to eternal torment
  • by being tied to a rock and having his liver eaten by an eagle every day
  • then it would grow back to be eaten again the next day
  • eventually the hero Heracles rescued him

Problems for Dr. Frankenstein

so a question for Dr. Frankenstein is if he is acting like God, the Greek gods, or Adam & Eve or Prometheus?

• if Dr. Frankenstein is acting like God, is Frankenstein responsible for the actions of the monster?
• if, instead, Dr. Frankenstein is acting like Adam and Eve or Prometheus, is he not then responsible for his actions, as he stole "knowledge" from God/gods?
• is some knowledge dangerous?
• should there be limits upon knowledge?
• is there responsibility with knowledge?