Frankenstein

Frankenstein, a novel by Mary Shelley, 1818

Mary Shelley[edit | edit source]

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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?

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?

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

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

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?