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?