Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
April 2, 2014; Dr. Solomon
Agenda
• Enlightenment and Romanticism
• “Frankenstein”: an introduction and
contextualization
• The story of becoming (or not
becoming) human: learning,
language, self, sympathy
Keywords associated with general notions
of:
Enlightenment
Romanticism
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late 17th – turn of 19th c.
Order
Logic
Rational Method
Empirical Observation
• Domination of nature
• Daring!
• Progress
late 18th – mid-19th c.
Imagination
Intuition
Emotion
Individuality
• Up with: Nature!
• Human limitation: Sublime!
• Boo: Urban Industrialization
Not an ideal Cartesian subject
• “I passed the night wretchedly. Sometimes my
pulse beat so quickly and hardly, that I felt the
palpitation of every artery; at others, I nearly
sank to the ground through languor and
extreme weakness” (Shelley 35)
Not an ideal Cartesian subject
• “Could he be (I shuddered at the conception)
the murderer of my brother? No sooner did
that idea cross my imagination, than I became
convinced of its truth; my teeth chattered, and
I was forced to lean against a tree for support”
(Shelley 48)
Mary Shelley
• 1797-1851
• Mother: Mary Wollstonecraft
(Vindication of the Rights of
Men, 1790; Vindication of the
Rights of Women, 1792)
• Father: William Godwin
(Enquiry concerning Political
Justice, 1793)
• Husband: Poet Percey Shelley
Questions to consider
In what ways does the creature’s story critique
what we know of the principles of
Enlightenment?
• Is he a Romantic figure and his maker a
representative of the Enlightenment? Or does
each share qualities of both?
Contemporary Science: animation
of lifeless bodies
Bad Science: Frankenfoods
• FRANKENSTEIN; or, THE MODERN
PROMETHEUS
• Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus
• “or” = either/or?
• “or” = also known as?
This Prometheus looks a lot like
Frankenstein
1831 Frontispiece
Promethus: Maker of Man
A creature of a more exalted kind
Was wanting yet, and then was Man design'd:
Conscious of thought, of more capacious breast,
For empire form'd, and fit to rule the rest:
[…]
[with] Earth, but new divided from the sky,
And, pliant, still retain'd th' aetherial energy:
Which wise Prometheus temper'd into paste,
And, mixt with living streams, the godlike image cast.
(Ovid “The Creation of the World” ll. 77-84)
Promethus: Maker of Man
A creature of a more exalted kind
Was wanting yet, and then was Man design'd:
Conscious of thought, of more capacious breast,
For empire form'd, and fit to rule the rest:
[…]
[with] Earth, but new divided from the sky,
And, pliant, still retain'd th' aetherial energy:
Which wise Prometheus temper'd into paste,
And, mixt with living streams, the godlike image cast.
(“The Creation of the World” ll. 77-84)
Promethus: Maker of Man
A creature of a more exalted kind
Was wanting yet, and then was Man design'd:
Conscious of thought, of more capacious breast,
For empire form'd, and fit to rule the rest:
[…]
[with] Earth, but new divided from the sky,
And, pliant, still retain'd th' aetherial energy:
Which wise Prometheus temper'd into paste,
And, mixt with living streams, the godlike image cast.
(“The Creation of the World” ll. 77-84)
Prometheus: Giver of Technology
Prometheus came to inspect the distribution, and he
found that the other animals were suitably
furnished, but that man alone was naked and
shoeless, and had neither bed nor arms of defence.
The appointed hour was approaching when man in
his turn was to go forth into the light of day; and
Prometheus, not knowing how he could devise his
salvation, stole the mechanical arts of Hephaistos
and Athene, and fire with them.
Plato, Protagoras 320c - 322a (trans. Jowett)
Prometheus Bound (Rubens, 1611-1618)
Who is the monster?
Three concentric “I”-narratives
Robert Walton of Victor Frankenstein
“I begin to love him as a brother; and his
constant and deep grief fills me with sympathy
and compassion” (15)
Frankenstein’s science
• “Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds,
which I should first break through, and pour a
torrent of light into our dark world” (32).
• “I seemed to have lost all soul or sensation
but for this one pursuit” (32)
• “how often did my human nature turn with
loathing from my occupation” (32)
Three concentric “I”-narratives
“Geneva and its environs”
“Geneva and its environs”: character movements
Google Earth: character movements
The bonds of sympathy
Sympathy and Self-recognition
“As I read, however, I applied much personally
to my own feelings and condition. I found
myself similar, yet at the same time strangely
unlike the beings concerning whom I read,
and to whose conversation I was a listener. I
sympathized with, and partly understood
them, but I was unformed in mind; I was
dependent on none, and related to none”
(86).
Self-consciousness
“My person was hideous, and my stature
gigantic: what did this mean? Who was I?
What was I? Whence did I come? What was
my destination? These question continually
recurred but I was unable to solve them.” (86)
The Humanities make humans?
“Literature, taken in all its bearings, forms the
grand line of demarcation between the human
and the animal kingdoms”
– William Godwin, “Of an Early Taste for Reading”
A Review of Humanity in HUM 102
• “And yet what do I see from the window but hats
and coats which may cover automatic machines. Yet I
judge these to be men.” (Descartes, CP 23-24)
• “They don’t let ordinary people get used to cutting
up animals, because they think it tends to destroy
one’s natural feelings of humanity” (More CP 54)
• “Second Apparition:
Be bloody, bold, and resolute; laugh to scorn
The power of man, for none of woman born
Shall harm Macbeth.” (Macbeth, Act 4, Sc. 1)
A Review of Humanity in HUM 102
• “To describe the nature of this artificial man, I will
consider First the matter thereof, and the artificer;
both of which is man” (Hobbes, CP 161)
• “… it finally even influences the principles of
government, which finds that it can profit by treating
men, who are now more than machines, in accord
with their dignity” (Kant, CP 168)
• What does Mary Shelley’s novel add to this
collection of discourse?
Concluding Questions
• Are we to blame Frankenstein for creating the
creature? Or for abandoning him?
• Was the creature always already (biologically)
a monster from the moment of his animation?
• Or was he made into a monster through his
treatment by humans? Through the absence
of companionship and sympathy?
• Would it be possible to be human without a
community that accepts and recognizes him as
such?