Frankenstein - Mary Shelley

Frankenstein

Mary Shelley

'Frankenstein' is the most famous book written by Mary Shelley. She was born in 1797. her fathre was the philosopher William Godwin and her mother the feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. She married the poet Shelley, and then she travelled in Europe, spending summers in Switzerland. During the summer of 1816, owing to an idea of Lord Byron which visited Shelley's, Mary began the story of Frankenstein, that was published in 1818. After the death of her husband, she lived a while in Italy, and then returned in England with her son, and there she began to werite articles and essays; she wrote also poetries. Mary Shelley died in 1851 and was buried with her parents.

The plot of Frankenstein is quite simple: Robert Walton, an explorer that wants to arrive to the North Pole, stopped ny mountains of ice, meets Victor Frankenstein, a scientist who seems exhausted and near death. Walton helps Frankenstein. They become friends, and when the explorer reveals his dreams to the scientist, Frankenstein becomes sad and tells his history in order to convince Walton to abandon his projects. He begins his history: Frankenstein is from a good-family of Switzerland, interested in science and in the causes of natural events. During his stay at university of Ingolstadt, he achieves to discover the secret of life, and uses it to make a giant man from parts of dead bodies. But when he realizes that he creates an ugly monster, he refuses him. The monster, which is essentially good, after a period of learning in the forest near Ingolstadt, tries to become part of the society, but he is expulsed from a village. So he meet refuge in a poor home in the forest, where, standing hidden, he learnes to speak and to read. He realizes that the family is good, and so he tries to reveal himself, but he is again attacked. He escapes, and achieves to save a girl from drowning, but a man, seeing the monster near to the girl, fires against him. The monster becomes so bad. Arrived in Switzerland, he kills the young brother of Dr.Frankenstein and causes the death of Justine Moritz, a Frankenstein family's friend. Then he asks to his creator help, in order to obtain a companion. At first Dr.Frankenstein agrees, and goes to England and then to Scotland, fllowed by the monster, but after he destroyes his second creation because he consideres very dangerous for mankind the presence of two monsters. So the monster kills the better friend of Dr. Frankenstein, Henry Clerval, and the wife of Frankenstein, Elizabeth. The scientist's father died for ache, while Frankenstein becomes mad for the pain, and when he settles down, he swears his revenge against the monster. the monster is satisfied of this, and so it begins a long hunt, that atke away from the world two Frankensteins, toward the north, passing from lands of Tartary and Russia, toward the North Pole. Dr.Frankenstein ends his tale. After few days he dies. An evening, when Walton is writing a letter to his sister, he hears sounds, and he meets the monster, which is criyng near the Dr.Frankenstein lifeless body. He cries because he lose his creator and he cannot asks forgiveness for his acts. Then, after a brief speech with Walton, he jumpes out of the ship and disappears forever.

In this book Mary Shelley expressed many of the ideas of romantic age, and took inspiration from precedent philosophical and literary experiences, showing so her knowledge and her culture.  

In the text there are influences of Milton's 'Paradise Lost'. In fact the text is present in the education of the monster, and the monster can be considered a modern Adam, that feels a natural sense of respect for his creator, his God, the man, who wants to overcome God, going beyond natural limits. In fact Dr.Frankenstein, blinded by his mad enthusiasm, doesn't respect moral sense, dares death and female role in creation of life, takes God's place. But, as Satan, Dr.Frankenstein seek for forbidden knowledge. The scientist cal also be considered a modern Faust, a man that accept every compromise in order to obtain his aim, or a modern Prometheus, a creator  of life.

Mary Shelley took also inspiration from philosophers of that time, as Hume, Locke and Rousseau. In fact, the young Victor Frankenstein is fascinated by the causes of naturals events, and search a relationship between cause and affect (empiricism of Hume); after his creation the monster lives for a while in the forest, where he feels goodness for the world, but when he tries to enter in the society, he is refused and for this he is corrupted (according to the Rousseau's thought and the myh of the noble savage and that of human ingratitude); finally, in the same part of the text, the reader can recognize the importance of education, experiences and sensations, that are very important in the human development (according to Locke).

The book is also useful to reflect about human injustices, that are still modern, as the racism, the margination of different people, the ethics of transtation, the human moral, the responsibility of human actions.

Finally, in 'Frankenstein' it is possible to recognize fears of the romantic period: Dr. Frankenstein, at thhe begins of the book, represents totally the ure of enlightnment. In fact the scientist is thirst of knowledge, he is inmersed in his studies, he is trustful in the world and in his possibilities, he wants to help the whole human race with his work. But after (the romantic man) he is afraid of his creation, he feels himself alone and disillusioned, he meets peace and serenity in the nature (as the short holiday in the forest near Ingolstadt made by Frankenstein and his friend Henry Clerval), he tries to rejoin himself to his fellows. Romantic man feels the world sad and bitter, and he wants to disappear from world definitively, dying, because he feels consequences of his actions very hard. In fact, Dr.Frankenstein, creating a human being, putted to him feelings ad sensibility. Now, can he destroy a creation that has his own life,  that suffer, that has his own law to be happy? How can man know what is the better thing? So there is an indefinite situation, reflection of human dualism. The scientist and the monster have the same name, and for this reason it is possible to consider two Frankensteins as the double aspect of the same person, the rational part and the instinctive part. This contrast brings, at the end of the book and then at the end of romantic man's life, a strong inner weakness, the alienation of man from the world, and the inevitable destruction of the same man, the unic being able to be so 'powerful and magnificent (noble and godlike), and, at the same time, so wretched and wicked (evil)'