In modern society we know there is nothing we can do to resurrect the dead. Back in the eighteen hundreds when this book was written the common beliefs of the time included myths and mysticism to explain the unexplainable phonemes that occurred. The unanswerable questions of death that plagued scholars and common citizens of the time lead to speculations and stories of resurrections, the mysterious forces of nature and the heavens.Victor Frankenstein grew up in a family with a firm grasp of reality and a strong belief in education. His parents, especially father tried to enforce the importance of reality and not the supernatural or mystical belief prevalent of the time. His parents’ even demonstrated restraint to exposing him to classic horror stories; as a result, “In my education my father had taken the greatest precautions that my mind should be impressed with no supernatural horrors. I do not ever remember to have trembled at a tale of superstition, or to have feared the apparition of a spirit.” (Shelly P. 30) Creating a creature by the resurrection of an exhumed body stems from his fascination of the superstitious and gothic ideas of the time, and not from his factual upbringing. The character’s curiosity and obsession with death and dying is apparent in this next passage; “My attention was fixed upon every object the most insupportable to the delicacy of the human feelings. I saw how the fine form of man was degraded and wasted; I beheld the corruption of death succeed to the blooming cheek of life…that I alone should be reserved to discover so astonishing a secret” (Shelly P. 33) The author does not mention how the death of Victor’s mother affected him, or if her death may have triggered his allure towards death; as in the prior passage the author eludes to his urge to be able to control death. Although the character, Victor, was brought up without belief in the supernatural, he is unable to control his urge to make sense of the unexplained. The character’s captivation with how the body withers away as it ages and going through the stages of dying, to some readers may be distasteful, but it demonstrates the normal curiosities people have towards explaining the unknown through a scientific, fact based, method.
Photo from:http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Shelley
Shelley, Mary. Frankesnstein. a norton critical edition. 1. New York: W.W. Norton Company, Inc, 1996. 335. Print.
Hello Rigo,
ReplyDeleteAll the quotes you chose to write your essay were really great and you had good lines that backed up what you were trying analyze. You speak about the ethics Victor was raised with and how this effected his growing as a child into a man, raising his curiosity. When the subjects “superstition” or “death” were brought up, his parents wouldn’t let him have any part of it; this may have planted the idea into his head to delve into a darker world or like you mention become obsessed with death. Since Victor portrays a mad scientist in a sense, his mind wandered into the idea creating a creature from the dead and reaching “impossible” means to make this happen; for him to have a friend. You mention how the death of Victor’s mother is not mentioned and how that could have played a park in him seeing his creations in a different light.