Shelley gave her views n the scientific and political revolution by using her characters Frankenstein and the creature. Firstly, she denounces the French revolution, where the king was beheaded as a result of armed insurrection. She denounces democracy and supported regal control, as revolution is like a child going against their parents, even if there is a justifiable reason. She did it by showing Victor’s refusal to create a mate to the creature, despite being threatened. (Allen,pp.76,78,80) Secondly is Shelley showing support to racial division as a means of England’s consolidation of power in India in 1760’s instead of racial integration by having Victor’s ill-treatment of the creature. In the field of science, Shelley shared that being ambitious and going against the order of nature in the name of science. Instead people should seek happiness. (Shelley pp.186) If one is ambitious, it can lead to the consequences, such as Charles Darwin’s book “Origin of Species”, led him to face certain consequences.
Victor finally showed that he had developed morally, such as agreeing to give him a mate to show his “duties of a creator” (Shelley pp.121-2) He even took up civic responsibility by refusing to continue creating the creatures’s mate. This is in fear that the mate may be “ten thousand times more malignant” than the creature and the possibility of procreation of the creature’s offspring that could threaten the future of human just for his own benefit. (Shelley,pp 138) He even went to the extent of risking his family and personal safety and ultimately attempting to eliminate the creature to the extent that he died from sickness. He even asked Walton to help him get rid of the creature and when he realized that Walton’s ship was in trouble, he showed understanding and asked him to give up the chase. (Shelley pp.140-1,184-6)
After looking at how Shelley’s Frankenstein have shown how gothic and surreal modes that can mould an individual’s development, we do find certain similarities in a more down to earth version in Dicken’s Great Expectation. Unlike Victor Frankenstein, Pip started off as a naive child from a lower class family. From young, Pip lacks parental care and attention as his parents had died or proper guide from those around him. Thus his childhood is subjected to being denatured and corrupted. From young, his sister had ill-treated him, while his childlike brother-in-law did not give good guidance. Pip was even bullied by everyone except Joe during Christmas Eve dinner, except by Joe, into learning what is virtue. (Dickens, pp.8) So Pip grew up to be so sensitive that Magwitch could threaten Pip in a graveyard at a desolated Marsh landscape, to steal or pilferage from Joe and his inability to confess his misdeed and even align himself with the convicts. (Dickens,pp.3,8;Allen,pp.141;Said,pp.250)
As for the parent’s child relationship, unlike Frankenstein, Pip has a surrogate like parents such as Magwitch, and Miss Havisham, though they are unrelated to Pip by blood. However, Miss Havisham helps to pay for his apprenticeship with Joe. (Dicken, pp.6,15,99,104) However, Pip’s decision to changes his ambition to be a London gentleman than a blacksmith, unlike Frankenstein, is due to his the people around him. For example, Estella made him ashamed of his lowly status after calling him a “common labouring boy”. (Dicken,pp.59) As Pip took a fancy of Estella, he felt ashamed of his lowly status and wanted to be a London gentleman and gained Estella’s love. (Dicken,pp.88,104) In addition, Magwitch helped to sponsor Pip’s transformation into a gentleman, which Pip accepted as he dislike to work. (Dicken’s pp315) Pip, like Frankenstein, avoided family members like Joe and Biddy for fear of losing social status being associated with a lower class. However, he soon found out that his sponsor is Magwitch, a person whom he despised, he tried to send him off.
However, Pip, like Frankenstein, soon acquires moral development. For example, Pip acquires a sense of guilt for his treatment of his sponsor Magwitch, that he tried to help him to escape when Magwitch presence in England was discovered. With the capture of Magwitch, Joe being penniless was left in despair until Joe came to rescue him. (Walder, pp.152-3) Pip achieves greater moral development when Joe helped to pay for his debts and became like a father that Pip never had. Thus he sought forgiveness from Joe. (Dickens, pp,474-5) and even developed religiously by saying “God Bless this gentle Christian man”. (Dickens, pp.458) Ultimately, Pip realized the folly of being a false London gentleman. He avoids the danger of wealth and turns to hard work, manage his finances well and ultimately meet ends need. (Dickens, pp.474-5) He not only refuses Miss Havisham help when offered, despite knowing that he could soon be penniless. (Dickens, pp393) He even became selfless, like Victor Frankenstein, by saving her and thus injuring himself when she burnt herself. (Dicken’s pp.397)
In Great Expectation, Dickens showed the society where the attitude of Britain to Australia is that of less tolerance. That is why Magwitch return from Austalia upon beng discovered resulted in forfeiture of Magwitch property. As for business with the east, Pip success in his business signaled the arrival of British promotion of trade with the East. (Walder, pp162)
Counter Argument
Everyman has a right of a decision, so when the decision results in consequences, man should only have himself to blame. He cannot blame it on his environment just to justify his action. Secondly, Man has only himself to b
It is not right to say Victor has violated the parent child relationship by trying to kill the creature, as he has a greater role to play in save guarding the interest of society. However, the realism of the creature’s ability to develop so much knowledge and eloquence by himself in such as a short time is unbelievable and its ability to track down Frankenstein and his family to persecute them is questionable. As for Great Expectation, Pip being sponsored for his assumed kindness to Magwitch when he was young and the risk of property forfeiture to visit him is quite unbelievable. If these had been addressed, the realism of the novel would have somewhat risen in the eyes of the reader.
In Conclusion
Unlike Prometheus, Frankenstein did not seek to create life with noble intend. As a result, he paid a heavy price for violating the beauty of creation.
References
Dickens, C. (1998) Great Expectation. Oxford University Press. United States. New York
Shelley, M. (1998) Frankenstein. . Oxford University Press. United States. New York
Allen, R. (1995). Approaching Literature- The Realist Novel. The Open University. Routledge. London. Great Britain.(Chapter 3).
Walder, D. (1995). Approaching Literature- The Realist Novel. The Open University. Routledge. London. Great Britain.(Chapter 5).
Said, E. (1995). Approaching Literature- The Realist Novel. The Open University. Routledge. London. Great Britain.
It was apparent that the life of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin was going to be out of step with the ordinary from the moment of her birth on August 30, 1797. She had both unorthodox parents and an orthodox family structure: her father, William Godwin, was a celebrated philosopher and historian who had briefly been a Calvinist minister. A cold, remote man who overate grossly and borrowed money from anyone who would give him a loan, he had little time for anything but his philosophical endeavors. This intellectual single-mindedness was somewhat modulated by his passion for Mary Wollstonecraft. With the possible exception of William Blake, Wollstonecraft was the most influential of the Enlightenment radicals. Having declared herself independent at the age of twenty-one, she ran a school with her sisters and was the respected friend of the philosopher Samuel Johnson. While in France, she had an affair with an army captain which ended in the birth of her first daughter, Fanny. After the soldier abandoned her and the child, she returned to England and attempted suicide. Happily or unhappily, she failed, and began writing in a variety of genres. It was her revolutionary feminist writings, however, that won her lasting fame.
The first meeting between Godwin and Wollstonecraft took place at a dinner party at Godwin's home. Drawn to each other by virtue of their shared philosophical beliefs, the two began an affair begun in the autumn of 1796. When Mary discovered that she was pregnant, the couple decided to marry in order to legitimate both of Mary's children. The couple, however, in adherence to their enlightened views, continued to live and work independently. The pair remained devoted to each other, and Godwin was devastated when Wollstonecraft died shortly after the birth of their daughter, Mary. Although he was fond of his daughters, the task of raising them alone proved too much for Godwin, and he immediately set about finding a second wife. His proposal to Maria Reveley, who would later become Mary's best friend, was rejected.
He later married Mary Jane Clairmont, the first woman to respond to his overtures. This second wife proved to be a cruel, shallow woman who neglected Fanny and Mary in favor of her own children. Mary (who was so lively that her father had nicknamed her Mercury) was frequently whipped for impertinence; rebellion came naturally to the headstrong Mary, and she refused to be subdued. Though the girls were given lessons in domesticity (cooking, cleaning, and other wifely duties) Mary could not feign interest in such pursuits: she would simply take up a book and let the dinner burn. Her father was the most important person in her life, and his favor meant everything to her. She excelled in her lessons and could hold her own in adult conversation ? often with the great minds of her time ? from a remarkably early age. Around the age of eight, she began reading the writings of her mother. By the time she was ten, she had memorized every word.
Mary spent hours at her mother's grave, reading or eating meals when the atmosphere at home was particularly bad. This habit continued well into her teens, when she was sent to live at Ramsgate with a Miss Petman. This move was prompted by Mary's frailty and inability to concentrate at home. From Ramsgate, she journeyed to Scotland to stay with Baxter, a close friend of her father's. Living with the Baxters was the happiest time that Mary had thereto known. When she returned to London a year later, she had grown into a woman. She became closer to her father than ever before, and the two engaged in constant philosophical debate. This served, predictably, to augment her stepmother's hatred.
The poet Percy Shelley, a devoted follower and friend of William Godwin's, began spending a great deal of time in the Godwin home. Although he was married, his presence made an immediate impression on Mary, who began to read poetry at his inducement. Shelley's genuine admiration for the works of Mary's mother earned him her trust ? she invited him to accompany her on her visits to her mother's grave, and the two became inseparable. Their intellectual kinship was passionately felt by both of them, and they rapidly fell in love. Godwin was furious at this development, and immediately barred the poet from his home. The couple, however, refused to be separated and began a clandestine correspondence. With the help of Mary's stepsister, they were able to elope.
Setting up housekeeping in London was expensive, and money was very tight for the newly married pair. Relations between them were somewhat strained: Shelley's first wife Harriet belatedly bore him a son, and his good friend Thomas Hogg became enamored of Mary. To make matters worse, Mary became pregnant; the child, a daughter, died shortly after birth. Mary fell into an acute depression.
Having conceived a dislike for London (perhaps as a result of their misfortunes), the couple began traveling: in the English countryside, in France, and elsewhere. Mary was writing profusely, and published Frankenstein in 1818. No one could have predicted the extent of the book's popularity: it would remain the most widely-read English novel for three decades. Although it was maliciously rumored that Percy Shelley was the book's true author, Mary was catapulted to the forefront of the struggle for recognition then being waged by woman writers.
Tragically, Percy Shelley drowned in a shipwreck in 1822. Though Mary was desolate, she remained dedicated to her son, Percy Florence. She spent the remainder of her life championing her husband's neglected poetry, and was eventually successful in forcing its publication. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley died in her sleep at age fifty-four.
The early nineteenth century was not a good time to be a female writer particularly if one was audacious enough to be a female novelist. Contemporary "wisdom" held that no one would be willing to read the work of a woman; the fantastic success of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's Frankenstein served to thoroughly disprove this rather asinine theory.
Frankenstein established Wollstonecraft Shelley as a woman of letters when such a thing was believed to be a contradiction in terms; her reputation in Europe was surpassed only by that of Madame de Stael. De Stael, however, was more famous for continuing to publish her works despite the fact that the Emperor Napoleon had explicitly forbade her to do so rather than for the quality of the works themselves.
Though Frankenstein is now customarily classified as a horror story (albeit the first and purest of its kind), it is interesting to note that Wollstonecraft Shelley's contemporaries regarded it as a serious novel of ideas. It served as an illustration of many of the tenets of Godwin's philosophy, and did more to promote his ideas than his own work ever did. The novel does not, however, subscribe to all of Godwin's precepts. It stands in explicit opposition to the idea that man can achieve perfection in fact, ity argues that any attempt to attain perfection will ultimately end in ruin.
Frankenstein is part of the Gothic movement in literature a form that was only just becoming popular in England at the time of its publication. The Gothic mode was a reaction against the humanistic, rationalist literature of The Age of Reason; one might say it was ushered in by the death of Keats, the English author with whom Romanticism is perhaps most closely associated. Frankenstein might be seen as a compromise between the Gothic approach and the Romantic one: it addresses serious philosophical subjects in a fantastical manner though it confronts recognizable human problems, it can hardly be said to take place in a "rational," comprehensible, recognizable natural world. Some critics have suggested that this tension between Gothic and Romantic literary modes echoes the philosophical tension that existed between herself and her husband, the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley.
As the prejudice against women writers was quite strong, Wollstonecraft Shelley determined to publish the first edition anonymously. Despite this fact, the novel's unprecedented success paved the way for some of the most prominent women writers of the nineteenth century, including , George Sand, and the Bronté sisters. All of them owed Mary a tremendous literary debt. Without the pioneering work of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, a great many female authors might never have taken up their pens; they might never have felt free to exhibit dark imagination, nor to engage in philosophical reflection. Without her, and the women whose work she made possible, English literature would be unquestionably the poorer.
Analysis
In this chapter, Victor's scientific obsession appears to be a kind of dream one that ends with the creature's birth. He awakens at the same moment that the creature awakens the moment the creature's eyes open, Frankenstein's own eyes are opened to the horror of his project. He is wracked by a sickness of both mind and body; this reflects the unnatural character of his endeavor, in which he attempted to take the place of god.
The narrator's sentences become abbreviated, abrupt, indicating his nervous, paranoid state. It is significant that Victor dreams of his mother and Elizabeth: as women, they are both "naturally" capable of creation (through giving birth). With their deaths, the natural creation and earthly virtue they represent dies as well. Victor's kiss is the kiss of death, and his marriage to Elizabeth is represented as being equivalent to both a marriage to his mother and a marriage with death itself.
At the moment of his birth, the creature is entirely benevolent: he affectionately reaches out to Frankenstein, only to have the latter violently abandon him. Despite his frightful appearance, he is as innocent as a newly-born child which, in a sense, is precisely what he is. Victor's cruel treatment of the creature stands in stark contrast to both his parents' devotion and Clerval's selfless care: he renounces his child at the moment of its birth. The reader begins to recognize the profoundly unethical character of Frankenstein's experiment and of Frankenstein himself.
Gothic romance often deals with mysterious and supernatural subjects. Gothic stories frequently take place in rugged, natural settings, near ancient castles or monasteries. The plots are suspenseful and usually deal with.
Perhaps no book is more of its age than Frankenstein. Written and published in 1816-1818, Frankenstein typifies the most important ideas of the Romantic era, among them the primacy of feelings, the dangers of intellect, dismay over the human capacity to corrupt our natural goodness, the agony of the questing, solitary hero, and the awesome power of the sublime. Its Gothic fascination with the dual nature of humans and with the figurative power of dreams anticipates the end of the nineteenth century and the discovery of the unconscious and the dream life. The story of its...
Romantic literature is characterized by several features. It emphasized the dream, or inner, world of the individual. The use of visionary, fantastic, or drug-induced imagery was prevalent. There was a growing suspicion of the established church, and a turn toward pantheism (the belief that God is a part of the universe rather than separate from it). Romantic literature emphasized the individual self and the value of the individual’s experience. The concept of “the sublime” (a thrilling emotional experience that combines awe, magnificence, and horror) was introduced. Feeling and emotion were viewed as superior to logic and analysis..
