Frankenstein - the role of Safie in the novel.
Q.CRITICALLY ANALYSE THE ROLE OF SAFIE. "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster" -Friedrich Nietzsche Written in 1816, when the writer M.Shelley was just nineteen her novel "Frankenstein", a Sui Generis dramatized the potential of life begotten upon a laboratory table. M.Shelley merges many forms of writing- the memoir, the journal, the letter novel, the picaresque to produce themes as romantic myth making, the gothic project, contemprory history and politics and the discourse of gender. In the novel, one also witnesses two families working on opposite set of ideologies. On the one hand, where Frankenstein's family represents vision pattern of political inequality and injustice, the De Lacey family represents vision of a social group based on justice, equality and mutual affection. The structure of De lacey's family constitutes M.Shelley's ideal, an ideal derived from her mother's "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman". Infact, it is the character of Safie, the beloved of Felix De Lacey which best exemplifies to it which shall be discussed in the following paragraphs. Safie, the daughter of the Turkish merchant is appalled by her father's betrayal of Felix and by the Islamic oppression of women he endorses. Therefore, she decides to escape from the clutches of her father and flees from Turkey to Switzerland, seeking
Frankenstein contrasts his 'thirst for knowledge' with Elizabeth's interest in 'the aerial creations of the poets'.
Frankenstein contrasts his 'thirst for knowledge' with Elizabeth's interest in 'the aerial creations of the poets'. What is your response to Shelley's exploration in Frankenstein of the relative merits of science and literature? Mary Shelley grounded her fiction of the scientist who created a monster he cannot control upon an extensive understanding of the most recent scientific developments during her days. She thereby initiated a new literary genre, what we now call science fiction. More importantly, she used this knowledge both to analyze and to criticize the more dangerous implications of the scientific method and its practical results. Implicitly she contrasted what she considered to be "good" science - the detailed and reverent description of the workings of nature- to what she considered "bad" science, the hubristic manipulation of the elemental forces of the nature to serve man's private ends. In Frankenstein, she illustrated the potential evils of scientific hubris and at the same time challenged the cultural biases inherent in any conception of science. Victor Frankenstein chooses to work within the newly established field of chemical physiology. He must thus become familiar with the recent experiments in the disparate fields of biology, chemistry, mechanics, physics and medicine. The need to span the entire range of science is stressed by Frankenstein's chemistry
An exploration into the similarity and differences between Mary Shelly’s ‘Frankenstein’ and John Steinbeck’s ‘Of Mice and Men’
An exploration into the similarity and differences between Mary Shelly's 'Frankenstein' and John Steinbeck's 'Of Mice and Men' Mary Shelley, born August 30, 1797, was a prominent, though often overlooked, literary figure during the romantic Era of English Literature. She was the only child of Mary Wollstonecraft, the famous feminist, and William Godwin, a philosopher and novelist. She was also the wife of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Mary's parents were shapers of the Romantic sensibility and the revolutionary ideas of the left wing. Mary, Shelley, Byron, and Keats were principle figures in Romanticism's second generation. Whereas the poets died young in the 1820's, Mary lived through the Romantic era into the Victorian. Mary was born during the eighth year of the French Revolution. "She entered the world like the heroine of a Gothic tale: conceived in a secret amour, her birth heralded by storms and portents, attended by tragic drama, and known to thousands through Godwin's memoirs. Percy Shelley would elevate the event to mythic status in his dedication to The Revolt of Islam".(from page 21 of Romance and Reality by Emily Sunstein.) From infancy, Mary was treated as a unique individual with remarkable parents. High expectations were placed on her potential and she was treated as if she were born beneath a lucky star. Godwin was convinced that babies are born with a