Frankenstein or The modern Prometheus

 Frankenstein or The modern Prometheus 

 

This blog is written in response to the thinking activity given by Yesha Bhatt Ma’am about  the novel Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus By Mary Shelly.

 

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, is an 1818 novel written by English author Mary Shelley. Frankenstein tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment. 

 

Why was Victor not able to accept his dream experiment and its result?

It all started like the other things created, for the betterment of humankind. Victor also wanted to create something and offer humankind the new living species of race. He wanted to cheat death by creating the creature. As a young scientist Victor was ambitious and enthusiastic about his new thinking of creating new living beings.

As time passes he becomes more and more involved in it that he starts to think of himself as a superior person, who has the ability to create and give life to a whole new creature. He starts to think of himself as the new god of the upcoming race of creatures created by him.

When he sees his creation he becomes disappointed by it, because of its appearance it looks like a monster and it horrifice him. He was warned by others that his unnatural methods were harmful and he started to believe in it. At first he thinks that the creature was dead and was going to get rid of it but when the creature comes to him, he becomes shocked and does not want it to find out by any other, but the creature runs away because of the strange behaviour of victor.

 

What made Creature a Monster?

Creature created by Victor was like a newborn child that does not know society, people, world, what is good and bad, morels, value. He does not know how to express the emotions of how to speak his own feelings or literally speak anything. From the first moment of his consciousness he just received the hate of people.

He was created out of the organs of dead bodies of people who once lived, maybe that's why he was fast to learn everything on his own but still he needed someone to guide him in the world, to make him understand how society works.

Even children learn what they see, so it's justified that the creature starts to hurt people because that's what he sees and learns from men.

So it was definitely the society and Victor who made the creature a monster or think of him as a monster.

Can appearance overpower reality?

Yes, appearance can definitely overpower reality. Victor's creation of the creature was just what he made. He made him out of the organs of dead body and never thought about how it will look like. He wanted to create just a living thing but when he saw his creation alive he did not like his creation. From that we can see the double standards of people.

People have this standard of fairness and darkness, beauty and ugly, that is deeply placed in our mind. We always want to see what is considered to be beautiful, cute, adorable, but we never are interested in the insight of the people. Very few of us are interested in the inner beauty, rest of us only do the outer observation and move to the other thing. 

In the case of creatures, happens the same. People only consider his size and body to asume of him as a monster. Victor, people in the city, or the family in the woods only see the outlook of the creature and start to beat him and become frightened by him. Victor was his creator but he also does not try to understand him or care for him.

 

Who is suffering from Deformity in the novel? Which kind of deformity and disability is there? Who decides what deformity is?

There are two types of deformity, one that is in the body or the certain part and the other is the inner deformity. If we consider the first one then it is in the character of the creature. He has a huge and different type of shape in the body because his creation happened out of the organs collected from the different dead bodies. So he has a different type of look because of it and that's why he suffers a lot from his creator and society. He receives hate and gets beaten up and considered as a monster.

If we consider the inner deformity and it was in the character of victor and the society. They have that mind set and double standards that are really harmful to others and that's why others suffer a lot.

Who is the Villain in Frankenstein.

In this story it is very hard to tell who is the true villain. 

Victor was a scientist who wanted to give something fruitful out of the science that he deeply believed in. He wanted to create life that can overcome death that is hard for normal human beings. But he was also one of the humans so he also was made of the foundation from which others are born. He was bound by the thinking process of other humans. He also had a place in society and in high potions. He wanted to become famous and brag about his creation. But it is ruined by the creature who does not know about human nature. Victor plays the major role of the creature being a monster and he does not understand him till the end. So we can define him as a monster.

Creature was created by victor was the main character who do all sort of bad things like murder and hurting people. He kills Victor's brother and father and Elizabeth and other people. He exacts revenge on victor by killing the people who he care for and becomes like a monster. But we can not consider him as monster of villain, because whatever he has done was what he learned form humans and he himself was got hurt form society.

The society

Society is the true villain in this story. First the society tries to stop Victor from experimenting and doing something different and Victor also becomes conscious about what others will think of his creation and he becomes disappointed with the creature. Everytime when people with new ideas and methods try to do something new and innovative, society always questions them and tries to put a hold on them.

Society also disapproves of things that are not like them. When we don't find common in each other we start to get suspicious of each other and start to hate each other. We want everything based on our standards. Society makes invisible rules around it. When someone breaks itm they start to hate them, harm them, and try to get rid of them.

That happens with creatures unknowingly. He was a newborn and does not know about how society works but society hurts him and makes him do bad things. They make him a monster.

So in all sense society is the main villain of the novel, Frankenstein.

 

I have also created a blog on the movie review of the movie Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

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