Frankenstein by Mary Shelley - Essay Example

? Frankenstein Frankenstein Frankenstein is a fictitious novel that has the strong appeal of being scary and is one of the earliest works of horror fiction. Written by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, the idea of this book was born almost accidentally in 1816, when Ms Shelley was sitting with her friend Lord Byron in an attempt to write a better ghost story than him (SparkNotes, 2013). The novel revolves around the protagonist called Victor Frankenstein who embarks on a journey to unveil the science of life. The force of fame and power drives him to extents that later he will regret. The book is then followed by a series of unusual happenings as it carries on with the element of horror and surprise with a touch of thought provoking events. The story is a package of entertainment in the form of horror, while it also serves the purpose of being thought provoking and sending an extremely positive message throughout. What makes the book so special and popular? What were its drawbacks? Lets take a look. The main theme of the story is horror fiction but the story reflects some major characteristics of Ms Shelley’s personality. Can be termed as short comings, but her bitter personal experiences seem to have made their own place in the novel. Her characters are dented with personal loss, less or no family values, and this clearly points towards the deprivations of her own life. The character of Victor Frankenstein runs on single ferocity with no consideration for anything else. When he made up his mind to create another human being, he persisted and worked on that idea until he was successful. In the process of trying to achieve the unachievable, Victor lost all his ties to his family, because his experiment required isolation and demanded a great amount of time. He was ready to and did sacrifice relationships for something which later on in the novel he regretted the most. This behavior of Victor imitates a little of Mary’s disturbed childhood: her mother died while giving birth to her and she was left in the hands of her radical father. As a child she learned how to go about things in life on her own, hence the character of Victor. The novel lacks strong female characters and it shows clearly how Mary shies away from the reality of life. Even though Shelley’s mother was a feminist and wrote a book on it, Shelley never in her life witnessed an empowering woman. The only woman she actually interacted with was Harriet, who happened to be the first wife of her future husband Percy. Shelley’s characters lack mothers, which clearly show how she missed the void in her life. The deprivations of nurturing in her characters are the source of her own failed mother hood. (SparkNotes, 2013) Mary Shelley’s book is a thought provoking story disguised in horror. What this means is that the actual theme or the main focus of this book is how important family values are and how much they mean to us in every phase of life. To keep it in simple words: Victor was ambitious and he wanted to conquer science by creating a living thing. In order to achieve that, he did whatever possible and this included seclusion and a complete breaking of family ties. Through Victor’s character Mary tried to explain the importance of family bonds in one’s life by portraying the negative of aspects of what happens when one ignores them. Had Victor not lived a life of complete exile, blinded by his unrealistic dream, had he been in touch with his loved ones, he would have had a better understanding of what he was about to do and its consequences. Families are a source of inspiration and they make your personality strong, they help you through thick and thin and they show you the way when you are blind. Just like that, when Victor was blinded by the fantasy of creating a living thing, he had no one to tell him the dire results of this act. His obsession took over him slowly but fanatically: “My application at first was fluctuating and uncertain; it gained strength as I proceeded and soon became so ardent and eager that the stars often disappeared in the light of morning whilst I was yet engaged in my laboratory” (Frankenstein, 2013). Just as so, two years flew by and Victor stayed persistent without paying a single visit to Geneva. Mary Shelley was extremely successful in portraying exactly what she wanted to. Victor’s acts made him suffer and he soon did realize what wrong he had committed with the creation of his monster. Victor Frankenstein’s character is selfish and arrogant; his choice of science over family is a proof of this fact. The idea of him becoming the greatest mind alive by achieving the impossible blurred his judgments, he no longer realized what was right and what was wrong and he certainly did not realize what he actually was aiming for. His quest of gaining more and more information on recreating a living being all on his own, and the greed for fame and power drove him further away from all boundaries of sanity. So engrossed he was in his project, that he grew pale and thin. The man was blinded throughout the process of working on the experiment. His isolation and untiring efforts, in the end, only backfired. There couldn’t have been a worse punishment for Victor and his actions. (SparkNotes, 2013) As famous and appreciated Frankenstein was in its time and in modern day world, it had its own selection of critics. Family is an important aspect of this novel; however the book was criticized greatly for its passive portrayal of women. “Female characters like Safie, Elizabeth, Justine, Margaret and Agatha provide nothing more but a channel of action for the male characters in the novel.” (S.Haddad, 2013). Stephanie Haddad in her critical approach explains how the women in Frankenstein were merely used as bridges to force an action out of the men. According to her, the women in the novel were “passive” and “disposable.” One does feel throughout the book that as important as women are to families and their betterment, the more they are absent. Female characters were constantly put under the spotlight of cruelty and were tested under harsh and extreme circumstances. It’s surprising to an extent that the author being a female, fails to bring about the real personality of women. Moreover, Mary Shelley’s mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, was a feminist who encouraged the empowerment of women and wrote a book called: “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman” (SparkNotes, 2013). Women have always been an important part of the society and reflect a society’s upbringing. (S.Haddad, 2013) There is no doubt about the fact that Frankenstein is no less than a genius’s production. The presentation of facts and the complexity of characters give it a spark and edge over some modern books too. The evolution of events and the element of surprise blow the reader’s mind away. The protagonist can be disliked for being so cruel and blind, but at the same time, one can definitely empathize with the feelings of the character when he realizes the crime he has committed. However, at the same time, the book has certain flaws; the main one being the absence of a strong female character and the support of a female protagonist could have uplifted the story to an exceptional level. References (2013). Retrieved November 1st , 2013, from SparkNotes: http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/frankenstein/context.html Frankenstein. (2013). Retrieved November 1st, 2013, from Planetebook: http://www.planetebook.com/ebooks/Frankenstein.pdf S.Haddad, S. (2013). Women as the Submissive Sex in Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein'. Retrieved November 1st , 2013, from RSS: http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/139/women-as-the-submissive-sex-in-mary-shelleys-frankenstein Read More