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Carita Wang
Doctor Connor
Journal 1
April 5 2006
Frankenstein
Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein is an attractive novel. I am surprised that Shelly
wrote this novel when she was only eighteen years old. She is such a genius. I quite
enjoy reading this novel. When I read it, I am fascinated by its gothic story. An
ambitious adventurer shares the same madness of the scientist. He narrates a tale of an
overreaching scientist, an animated Monster and a series of murders. I feel terrified
when the Monster is rebirth and kills innocent people, but I pity the Monster’s
suffering and solitude. His eloquent confession moves me. Besides, I blame Victor’s
disregarding of consequence. The tragic ending also makes me feel sad. It is a gothic
and moral complicated novel that I am interested in.
In my opinion, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein conveys important issues of human
limits and dangerous knowledge. Knowledge is helpful when you well use it, but it
becomes perilous when you pervert it. In the novel, Victor craves for exploring secret
of life, and surpassing human limits. His madness and pride make him lose reason,
and indulge in forbidden research without thinking the horrible consequence. His
successful “creation” seems to bring eternity to this life, but at last causes the death of
his beloved family. Victor’s surpassing ambition, which wants to be the creator like
God, and accesses the myth of life, results in grievous doom. Mary Shelley conveys in
her Frankenstein that people should learn a lesson from Victor’s tragedy. People
should not traverse the limit of being mankind, and abuse the power of knowledge.
After I read the Frankenstein, I think it reveals some subjects and moral issues
that modern people need to consider. Nowadays, science and medicine are advanced
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and improving. Scientists and doctors always endeavor to cure illnesses and to
prolong human life. In 1997, unprecedented news of the cloning of “Dolly” broke into
the world, and raised a series of discussions. It is a great advancement of the science.
Afterwards, a lot of experts jump into research and want to explore it further. Those
scientists are just like modern Frankensteins who want to apply their knowledge to
create life not through God. The creation of “Dolly” is debatable, but it seems to bring
a light at the possibility of eternity. It is a question that this kind of “eternity” is,
however, really the peaceful eternity for mankind.
The tragic conclusion of Frankenstein seems to foretell the calamity of human’s
future if scientists do not cease their overreaching experiment. There is an
advertisement of biotechnology. It boasts the development of modern science, and
claims “God makes rose to be red; now you be God, too.” Scientists have the same
hubris as Victor Frankenstein has in the novel. They both want to have the power of
God. It is now legal to create a colony of your pet by paying millions dollars when it
passes away. If this technology of “rebirth” applies to human, how a disastrous result
will be. I feel that it is a terrible scene that the fictional tragedy turns into the truth.
The classical novel of Frankenstein seems to narrate a story with a modern warning
and premonition.
As for the plot and language of Frankenstein, I had no specific difficulties of
them when I read it. I had been familiar with the story, before I did a close reading of
the novel. Therefore, it was no problems for me to follow the plot. Besides, I think the
explanatory notes of Frankenstein of Oxford edition helped me a lot when there are
some words unclear for me.
Furthermore, because I had read the novel before watching films of Frankenstein,
it was more easily for me to jump into the scenes and followed the plot. However, the
language that the actors spoken in the films is not like the words shown in the text.
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When I watched the films, I thought there were some words that I missed and did not
catch them. Nevertheless, I tried my best to listen what they said and to be
accustomed to their accents. When I listened the conversation that I felt important, I
would stop the video and listen repeatedly to write down the sentences. I think it is
also a good way to practice listening ability.
During these four weeks’s discussions, I attended on the online class, and read
many materials and information that are related to the novel and films of Frankenstein.
I become more objective, and acquire more understanding on Mary Shelley’s
Frankenstein. Before I learned those essays and materials, I quite pity on suffering
situations of the Monster. I thought the Monster was a victim of Victor’s egotistical
ambition, and blamed Victor’s surpassing pride. However, I learn that in the novel
there is no trusting narrator. Walton’s, Victor’s, and the Monster’s narration all have
some points to be doubt. It is possible that the Monster is disguised by the eloquent
Satan, and I become the naïve Eve to be cheated. It is important to remain an
objective and rational mind to investigate the situation. Furthermore, I also learn that
there are different kinds of interpretations of an artful work. There is no definite right
or wrong for each artful presentation. Furthermore, viewpoints of critics alter with the
change of time period. It is these various interpretations that contribute a great
masterpiece.
When I read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, I also found some supplementary
materials to help me more understand background information of the author and the
work. On the website of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, it provides clear biography
of Mary Shelley, introduces some films of Mary Shelley’s works, and external links. It
is a very useful and convenience website, which stores abundant information. After
viewing Wikipedia, I got sketch of Mary Shelley’s biography to help me understand
the work deeply through the knowledge of the author’s experience. Besides Wikipedia,
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I found an essay, The “Birth” of a Monster, written by Kim A. Woodbridge. This
essay focuses on the viewpoint of fear of pregnancy, motherhood, and childbirth. It
also introduces the ideas of Rousseau on Frankenstein. This essay makes me more
understand Rousseau’s viewpoints, and easily to follow Rose’s essay.
In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, it mentions a poem of Romantic poet, Samuel
Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” Walton claims that “I am
going to unexplored regions, to the land of mist and snow; but I shall kill no albatross,
therefore do not be alarmed for my safety, or if I should come back to you as worn
and woeful as the ‘Ancient Mariner’?” I think the issue of nature also plays a
significant role in this novel.
“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” revels the same crisis and warning as Mary
Shelley’s Frankenstein does. In Coleridge’s poem, it deals with the spiritual crisis of
the Ancient Mariner and the alienated situation between nature and human. Ancient
Mariner’s killing of Albatross destroys the peaceful natural laws that human follow.
The barren and desert environment surrounding him corresponds with the sterile mind
of Ancient Mariner. Same with Ancient Mariner’s situation, Victor Frankenstein ruins
the natural rules. His forbidden search undergoes in the laboratory where he secludes
himself from the outside world that makes him indulge in madness. He wants to
surpass the ordinary boundary between nature and human to create the life. The icy
Arctic and bitter whether reflect Victor’s empty mind, and symbolically show the
aftermath of destruction of natural world by experimental research.
After I watched several films of Frankenstein, I still like the original text, which
is the true Frankenstein, and possesses the true original spirit of Frankenstein. I think
the films cannot help but lose many detailed elements of the novel, and contains
director’s own viewpoints on the work, which is not the author’s intention. For James
Whale’s Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein, I prefer the Bride of Frankenstein.
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James Whale treats the Monster as an Adam, the lost sheep in the eyes of God.
However, I think Mary Shelley gives her Frankenstein various but ambiguous
interpretations. She does not specifically characterize the Monster as an innocent
Adam in the work. As for Branagh’s Frankenstein, even though Branagh almost
follows the same arrangement of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, I still think Branagh’s
Frankenstein is too romantic and violent. It reverses Shelley’s true spirit of
Frankenstein. For the last film, Brook’s comic Frankenstein, I like this film because it
is so funny and humorous. It makes me laugh, and forgets the serious and tragic plot
of Shelley’s Frankenstein. However, comparing with the original text, I think Brook’s
Frankenstein is not faithful to the Shelley’s Frankenstein. It just represents a solemn
work in a funny way.