Category Archives: Group 5

Julia, this blog post inspires the question, who is the monster and who is the victim? Yet, I feel that you conclude that Frankenstein is the true monster. “Frankenstein and the creature have both harmed each other unto the point of death, but the creature is the only one who feels remorse. Frankenstein may have been telling the story, but he is far more the villain than the hero.” While there is no doubt that he truly is a monster, I feel as if both Frankenstein and the demon are equally to blame for the chaos that ensued. Both characters experienced events that victimized them and caused monsterous actions, which you reveal above.

However, I think it’s fair to argue that Frankenstein’s erratic behaviors of obsessing over death, grave robbing, and sewing together body parts stem from his overwhelming grief over losing his mother. It appears that Frankenstein’s actions reveal his personal search for the meaning of life. When it arrives, death enters the mind, body, and soul to create an irreversible change to the living and the dead who encounter it. This permanent change made to Frankenstein appears to spark his passion to become a creator, to re-create the change that was made to him and his mother. This strongly makes me question, had Frankenstein never met death, would it have ever possessed him to create life? Continue reading →

According to Isaac Asimov, "Mechanical human beings are to be found in ancient and medieval myths and legends, and the word "robot" originally appeared in Karl Capek's play R.U.R, which first staged in 1921 in Czechoslovakia, but was soon translated into many languages." I remembered him mentioning something about that in an introduction to his novel The Caves of Steel (One of my favorite SF novels BTW). Asimov also points out, "R.U.R. added its somber view to that of the even more famous Frankenstein, in which the creation of another kind of human being also ended in disaster, though on a more limited scale. Following these examples, it became very common, in the 1920s and 1930s, to picture robots as dangerous devices that invariably destroyed their creators. The moral was pointed out over and over again that 'there are some things Man was not meant to know.'" Everyone should definitely pick up the Robot Trilogy. The prequel I’ Robot is excellent. That Will Smith movie does Asimov’s work such poor justice. The whole saga is awesome. Continue reading →

Good point– I could see where Shelley’s audience might find the idea more plausible, particularly those who were less educated about biology and other sciences. I’m not sure I have a strong enough understanding of what science was like in 1818 to say for sure, though.

I would say that we are absolutely still trying to harness the “power” of the natural world, probably more today than we were then. After all, what else are solar panels and wind turbines? Even fossil fuels are a way of harnessing the natural world’s power! Continue reading →