Human Relationships In Frankenstein

Victor Frankenstein, blinded by ambition or driven by madness? In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley embodies a cloud of characteristics that follow Victor along for the entirety of the novel. As a young scholar, Victor was driven to invest in his interests of chemistry and science. Hence, Victor soon became enamored with the ideas that lie in between life and death. Further pondering led Victor to become obsessed with the idea of bringing inanimate objects to life.

However, while the monster’s isolation is forced upon him by others, Frankenstein isolates himself, creating insurmountable social deficits. The monster’s isolation comes from the fear of the villagers reaction to his appearance. They react in a strongly negative manner towards him, so he relates society to being cruel to him. As well, Frankenstein abandoning his hours old creation due to fear and disgust deeply impacts the monster’s ability to interact with others. Victor Frankenstein’s isolation is self-inflicted.

“Mad scientists", men who disregard their safety and the safety of their surroundings to achieve their goal has become a staple of modern literature, almost a cliche. Yet, every cliche has its beginnings, and its origin was Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley. Written almost two centuries ago, the novel crafts one of the first descriptions of a man consumed by a scientifically sparked passion who tries

This effect of the double edged sword has been a constant issue that we as humans have had to face but in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein this issue affects Victor and the monster. Victor is a man that wants to be a jack of all trades but his main focus is on alchemy and creating life. His thirst for knowledge leads him to create the monster which he hates with all his heart. This leads the monster to learn everything by himself. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the use of science, technology and knowledge is a double edged sword due to the constant conflict between the Creature and Victor.

That theme is the art and science of creating human beings. Some of the similarities between the novels is that in both Frankenstein and Brave new world are desperate for having a perfect society where there are no issues. Another similarity between Brave New World and Frankenstein is that in brave new world the society was artificially created and were controlled by the drug soma. While the same thing occurred in Frankenstein but in this novel a monster was created in a way where he can control his emotions. Paradise lost is also similar to Frankenstein and Brave New World because in each book has a person who created a society.

“Both the man of science and the man of action live always at the edge of mystery, surrounded by it” (J. Robert Oppenheimer, 1904-1967). Dr. Victor Frankenstein, the creator of the monster constructed crudely out of human body parts in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, was tempted by the mystery surrounding life. Julius Robert Oppenheimer, the chief physicist of the Manhattan Project, and father of the atomic bomb, was allured to the study of destructive properties of an atom because of the mystery behind it. Frankenstein and Oppenheimer were led from ethnical science and trapped in the dazzling world of prodigious discovery. Oppenheimer’s curious childhood led into an impractical and eccentric young adulthood.

Frankenstein’s desire to possess forbidden knowledge lessened the pain he felt after his mother’s death. His uncontrollable grief contributed to the frantic rush in which Frankenstein created his monster, leaving it hideously mismatched and enormous. “Many of Frankenstein’s faults are evident in the appearance of his creation” (Creator’s). Frankenstein built Creature using dead and decaying body parts that added horror to the already terrifying size of the monster, easily allowing judgement of Creature’s character just based on his outward appearance. Creature’s looks inhibited his capability of fitting into society despite his civilized manner.

Finally, Dr. Victor Frankenstein is believed to be the real monster. He must be blamed for the events leading to death and eventually the monster. No blame should be put on the monster because he is an experiment that went wrong. Victor is the master-scientist behind the whole operation and is supposed to have its creation under control at all times. In fact, excess isVictor ambition to be famous that reaches the head, leaving him blind to all the possible consequences of their action.

Many believe cloning is a perversion of science, and some are even concerned with a real life Frankenstein situation: “Reproductive cloning… could lead to a Dr. Frankenstein’s vision of lab manufactured humans. To me this is a perversion of science” (Ford 1). Furthermore, in Frankenstein, Dr. Frankenstein detached from the world as he became obsessed with his studies, diminishing his health. A similar thing could happen to scientists who clone if they decide that they are “playing god,” which can be dangerous for the scientists and the clones. Cloning is so controversial and causes an overbearing amount of stress for it to be befitting to the human mind, as Victor Frankenstein puts it, “If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your affections, and to destroy… those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study is certainly unlawful… not befitting of the human minds” (Shelley 50).

In Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, we dive headfirst into a man who is consumed by knowledge and thrives off of it. Victor Frankenstein takes his mother's death to extremes by becoming obsessed with trying to create, or recreate life. Instead of trying to "create" life Victor's quest for knowledge could've been much better spent on research in different fields. Victor became possessed by knowledge, raising the question, is there such thing as too much knowledge? In more modern times we have used knowledge and research to excel in the technological world.