Frankenstein: A Story of Confusing Origins - Term Paper Example

Frankenstein: A Story of Confusing Origins? Having a monster around is not a pleasant idea in any fiction. More so, if the monster has a God-less origin and has no idea of what human morals are. In Mary Shelley’s story “Frankenstein”, such a scenario has been created with drama and lust added to give readers an experience that is out of the world. While there are many criticisms of the work, the present article will concentrate upon the origin of the monster and how different schools of thought show that he is incapable of survival in a human dominated world. The main story and its characters have dubious origins giving critics ample reason to consider Frankenstein as a story of confused origins. We study the same in our thesis here. The Origin: Much as the critics would hate it, Shelley’s depiction of how Frankenstein is created is a wholly enjoyable read that has the elements of hatred and loathsomeness intertwined with a feeling of awe and surprise. Shelley has used words like “trance”, “work-shop of filthy creation”, and “all soul and sensation” (Shelley, 50), which add that poetic flavor to a scene that is in plain words horrendous and ethically wrong. Victor Frankenstein is a person who wishes to create a being of his own type. He is consumed with the idea of being a creator but unaware of the responsibilities that come with it. He creates the monster or ghost in a state of trance, wherein no other human element is involved. Thus, the ghost is a sub human creation and not a clone expected through science. Factors That Create Ambiguity In Origin: The Shelley Story Using the power of spirit to rule over the world is often a writer’s chance to open up different visuals in the mind of the reader. Many argue that quite a few salient features of the original novel are missing from its movie version. Amongst these features, one factor is the emphasis on the confused origin of the monster clone. Humans have grown with the understanding that for procreation, a male and a female must come together. In this story, the scientific vision of creation, that is solely man-made, is generated by making Victor the sole creator of a monster, which is born out of no woman. Therefore, again the monster’s origin is non-human which makes him unfit to exist in the human society, let alone be born or have a family. With such a start, the reader goes through a series of thought lines that the monster takes in his consecutive scenes. According to the writer, the monster grows a fondness for Elizabeth who is Elizabeth’s cousin and a love interest. We can understand that such fondness comes from the fact that the monster is a clone of the human. But we cannot relate to the fact that the monster starts looking for a mate after he has visualized Elizabeth and realized that having a woman factor in life is important. The question that arises here is whether the writer does justice to the human source of origin of the monster or injustice to the fact that the monster was not woman-borne and therefore, not expected to be interested in sexual activities. The second most bewildering fact about Frankenstein is his ability to derive power from sources that are not in flesh. The monster created by Victor is powerful while the creator himself is not. In case of humans, all power is known to be superseded by the power of the Almighty Creator whom man refers to as God. In Frankenstein, Shelley throws an open challenge to this belief that the creation can be more powerful than its creator. In his criticism of Shelley’s work, Martin Tropp correctly points out that Shelley tried to create a ghost story with a scientific context that lost its impact because the main protagonist was indulged in psychomachia (Tropp, 52), which means psychological tension and stress that arises from a conflict between mind and soul. The origin of the monster is highly ambiguous and therefore, the expression of the ghost, his activities, expectations and thoughts are unscrupulously new. As the writer puts it, “technology can never be more than a magnified image of the self.” (Shelley, 55). Throughout Frankenstein, this creative restrict in which the writer is unable to grant superhuman thinking to the ghost is seen. In the background of a non-human origin, this seems to be a gross error that fails to convince the reader of the ghost’s desires. Owing to the same reason, the creator of this monster is unable to take complete responsibility of the ghost’s desires. When in later stages of the story, the monster mentions that he wants to have a mate and build a family like humans do, Victor does not welcome the idea of allowing a family of monsters to come up in the society. As Tropp points it out, Shelley gave everyone a glimpse of the large scale disaster that cloning can lead to, although in a much dramatized form. The reader in fact relates to the two characters in the story just as he would relate to the technology of building human clones and while the monster is showcased to get emotional and wants to indulge the readers, the writer is actually using it as a tool to showcase the monstrousness of hidden human tendencies. Victor is the person who comes face to face with the dilemma of encouraging the monster or discouraging him. The horrendous impact of getting rid of the monster further reduces the chances of the reader wanting to face a clone of himself. Overlapping Metaphors That Led To Confusion Of Origins In short, having creations emerge from un-divine sources is going to spell doom on mankind. We are all aware now, that the ferociousness and inhumanity of the monster’s actions are a direct result of the confused and immoral origin of the monster, which happens to be in the hands of a Victor Frankenstein who was in a trance. However, we also cannot deny that the grip of the whole story is provided by the unraveling of human instincts that are gruesome and immoral. The same is portrayed by his vision of a dead Elizabeth wherein he sees the monster staring at him and looks in contempt. Victor is seen to go through several such psychologically intense situations throughout the story, in which there is no basis or reason behind the monster’s psychology or actions. And to take the hands of the clock back to origin, the reason behind this volatility is the unethical origin of the monster itself. “Believe me, Frankenstein, I was benevolent: my soul glowed with love and humanity; but am I not alone, miserably alone?” (Shelley, 95) Victor is Shelley’s most important tool in story telling here, who shows what man can achieve and how man’s own achievements can lead to destruction of people around. Her depiction of the divided self is albeit complete and horrendous, although there are other doubles in the story. Elizabeth is the double of Victor’s mother and Walter is a possible Frankenstein himself who believes in science and creation through technology. Ultimately, in all the characters that Mary Shelley has used, a clear connection of divided self and double roles is seen wherein the origin of the characters is overshadowed by its resemblance to another character in the story. By the end of the story the reader is not sure whether Elizabeth is really his cousin or his mother, because the characterizations have been done in a similar manner. This blurs their legitimate origins in the story and removes hem from being regular characters in society. In short, the use of these approaches makes Frankenstein a gripping story full of metaphors and double visuals of the same characters whose origins are ultimately juxtaposed to increase impact on the reader. Conclusion: Thus, in view of the study above, we see that Frankenstein is a story of confused origins and the horrendous result of having such characters in society and in a story. There is gruesomeness not only in the visuals created using juxtaposed characters, but also in the ultimate annihilation of the monster. The book and its characters do not find a homogeneous origin in its narrative that stays consistent from start to finish. Mary Shelley’s work of metaphors is therefore, known for its idiosyncrasies and horrendous scenes. Added to that is the cynicism of man’s obsession with technology and the ambivalence of the origin of the characters and the storyline. Overall, Shelley uses blurred characters and an epic storyline to bring out the monstrous thoughts in humans. References: Shelley, M. (1999). Frankenstein. Broadview Press. London Tropp, M. (1976). Mary Shelleys monster: the story of Frankenstein. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Read More