Frankenstein
In the novel Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, people who know Frankenstein only from the movies are often surprised to learn that in Mary Shelley's novel so-called Monster is thinking and talking being whose predicament evokes considerable sympathy. The novel opens strikingly enough as Victor Frankenstein pursues across the frozen ice, north of Archangel, a strange misshapen giant of a man. However, the figures disappear among the icebergs. Mary Shelley's classic tale concerns a man who manages to create life and the terrible price he and his creation pay for this human meddling in nature's domain. In the novel itself, Victor Frankenstein is understandably reluctant to reveal how he gave life to his creature, "Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world. A new species would bless me as its creator and source (Vol I, Ch.4, p.64)." Victor Frankenstein was the heir of a noble family; he had studied alchemy as well as modern science, and gradually became obsessed with the hope that he might discover the elixir of life. Victor builds his creature as an act of self-assertion, of identity making. By creating life in his lab
Although this novel was written almost two centuries ago, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is today more relevant than ever because scientists, through discoveries in genetics, the achievement of cloning, and the creation of artificial intelligence, have lately begun to break through the barrier separating human knowledge from the secrets of life. But do we really know what "human nature" is? Is it necessarily "dehumanizing" to attempt to eliminate certain genetic defects? Might not curiosity and a desire to alter the genetic code for the betterment of human be itself a central aspect of "human nature"? Today, with the increased work being done in such areas as brain research, the human genome project, and artificial intelligent, these questions are especially pertinent. What inspires researchers to attempt the cloning of human embryos is a combination of curiosity and compassion. Mary Shelley's novel is more relevant than ever, and we need to take its lessons to heart. One of the most obvious concepts developed in Frankenstein is the grand and enlightened potential of modern science and how this potential can, for various reasons, become distorted, with the result that an inventor's creation can turn on him or her and blight humanity. The imaginations of later writers were stimulated by Frankenstein to use the theme of the creation of life. The Monster is the ancestor of many synthetic human beings and robots. But what is more significant, however questionable the science, Mary had added
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Approximate Word count = 1008
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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