Frankenstein: Relationship Between Humanity And Nature

Humanity and Nature Can humans control nature? Should we? Is it in human nature to attempt to do this? What is our relationship with nature? These are the types of questions I am probed to answer when it comes to the topic of humanity and nature because they are just as pertinent today as they were three hundred years ago. Even just this year there are debates whether or not man has the authority to exploit nature to create the Keystone Pipeline, just as we questioned manipulating electricity as playing God in the 19th century. Mary Shelley touched upon this topic in her novel, Frankenstein, along with Nathaniel Hawthorne in “Birthmark” and Campbell in “Myths and the Modern World. The consequences of attempting to control nature is clearly evident in Frankenstein by Shelley. Victor Frankenstein is a brilliant scientist who endeavors to bring the dead back to life through electricity. Just through making electricity he is

In “Myth and Modern World” Campbell offers multiple relationships humans have with nature. He cites Chief Seattle stating “We are part of the earth and it is part of us.” (42), highly contrasting the adversarial relationship between humanity and nature defined by Frankenstein and “The Birthmark.” Campbell also mentions two other points of view that contrast the antagonistic relationship supported by Frankenstein and “The Birthmark.” In the Christian religion it is believed that nature is condemned and that humans have every right to manipulate nature as freely as humanity wishes because gave nature to them, giving humans, in this dynamic, full control over nature without consequences. While the Japanese hold the belief that, “natural impulse is not to be corrected but to be sublimated”(29), meaning they believe that nature can be modified to please humans, but can never be