NL+-+Essay

Frankenstein - search for knowledge and judmental society: a brief analysis //Frankenstein,// by Mary Shelley, is a classic of English literature, and due to this it is possible to find several studies analyzing different aspects of this novel. Two very interesting aspects are Victor's pursuit of knowledge and the prejudice that the creature suffers because of the way he look (his appearance). After carefully reading the novel we see that these two subjects are deeply discussed by Shelley and we could not help but making ( instead of to make) a connection between them, since we believe that one is a consequence of the other, for the monster is created only to satisfy Victor's will, and he, the monster, ends up suffering the consequences of this obsession for science and the creation of life. One of these consequences is the rejection of the monster by a judgmental society, which still prevails nowadays ( instead of that still we all live in). In //Frankenstein,// we are able to see a critique of science and its impacts on society. Many literary critics have written about this particular theme and to guide our work we are going to use the article by Lucia de La Rocque and Luiz Antonio Teixeira, which discusses the role of science in literature and especially in //Frankenstein//. In this article the authors discusses how people believe that science is something that they ( instead of we) can always trust and how Shelley questions this idea. The roles of the judgmental society and prejudice is discussed by Denise Gigante in her article named: “Facing the Ugly: The case of //Frankenstein//”. In her work she explains what ugly represents in the novel and how the meaning behind it helps us to understand the way our own society judges and treats people. Overall, two important themes in the novel // Frankenstein // are the "search for knowledge" and the "judgmental society". Victor's commitment to creating something new is extreme and reflects how this search is strongly present in the XIX century. The monster's misplacement in a judgmental society seems to be a warning of the possible negative consequences brought about by a naive search for knowledge. In //Frankenstein//, Victor represents the obsession with the pursuit of knowledge, and, to understand that, we have to understand the historical context of the novel. Mary Shelley writes what is considered by many critics the first work of science fiction in the history of literature(. ) This happens because of the environment in which the novel is placed, both in time and space. //Frankenstein// was written in 1818, when the European people were being able to get more and more information and explanations about scientific theories and discoveries about the human body and other important subjects that were before unknown. That is why //Frankenstein// is surrounded by the scientific world: Mary Shelley creates a character, Victor Frankenstein, to represent this obsession with knowledge and to criticize this social moment of the society in which she lived in, because the consequences of the development of science can be verydangerous ( instead of dangerous thing). We can even say (It is possible to see that) the main character in this novel is science itself, for if science was not there to guide Victor he would never be able to create the monster, and the story would have never happened. Victor is so obsessed with knowledge that he wants to reach a point that has never been achieved before: the generation of life. When the creation of life starts to appear in the novel we see how Shelley starts to criticize science. The problem begins when ethics is ignored and knowledge starts to blind Victor, for he cannot see the meaning behind what he is trying to make, and he is not aware of the consequences of his actions. Victor himself admits his obsession for knowledge as we can see in the passage below:

“I ardently desired the acquisition of knowledge. I had often, when at home, thought it hard to remain during my youth cooped up in one place and had longed to enter the world and take my station among other human beings. Now my desires were complied with, and it would, indeed, have been folly to repent.” ( SHELLEY, p. 42) Another interesting passage from the book that shows Victor's obsession is this one: “From this day natural philosophy, and particularly chemistry, in the most comprehensive sense of the term, became nearly my sole occupation.” (SHELLEY, p. 49). It is possible to see (instead of we see) that he is not only studying something because he wants to know more, but he is searching for something that was not found before. He does not want to only repeat knowledge, he wanted to create it; he spends almost every day of his college life working on something that would be new and that was never discovered before. All the time and effort he puts in the search for knowledge are the perfect evidence that he was more than obsessed. Victor suddenly turns into a villain when he decides to ignore the ethics of science by trying to create life. //Frankenstein,// as a novel of science fiction, brings science as the main character, and sometimes, also as the villain of the story. By showing Victor to the world, Shelley is trying to warn people how knowledge can be dangerous if not treated with integrity and ethics. Victor recognizes that science would be the worst part of his life, for when he is telling his story to Walton and he comments about the words he heard from professor M. Waldman that had impacted him so much, Victor says: “such were the professor’s words—rather let me say such the words of the fate—enounced to destroy me.” (SHELLEY, p. 46) He recognizes that his pursuit for science is something evil, but only after the damage was done ( instead of everything happened). While he is creating the monster he ignores everything that should be considered scientifically correct and acceptable, and, of course, trying to create life is not something that science should be trying to do. Ethics here works as a way to protect people from the dangerous consequencesthat science can have. The young Victor ignores these limits and this is what makes him so evil and hated by the readers. Victor is blinded by science and he cannot distinguish right from wrong anymore, the only thing that he seems to be worried about is his ( instead of can see is) ambition. Victor also turns into a lonely person, for his obsession with science ends up isolating him from their loved ones, and in the end the result of his work is not shared with society. There are a lot of passages in the book that illustrates how Victor isolates himself during the process of creation of the Creature, one that shows it perfectly is this one is this one:

The summer months passed while I was thus engaged, heart and soul, in one pursuit. It was a most beautiful season; never did the fields bestow a more plentiful harvest or the vines yield a more luxuriant vintage, but my eyes were insensible to the charms of nature. And the same feelings which made me neglect the scenes around me caused me also to forget those friends who were so many miles absent, and whom I had not seen for so long a time. I knew my silence disquieted them ... I knew well therefore what would be my father’s feelings, but I could not tear my thoughts from my employment, loathsome in itself, but which had taken an irresistible hold of my imagination. I wished, as it were, to procrastinate all that related to my feelings of affection until the great object, which swallowed up every habit of my nature, should be completed. (SHELLEY, p. 32-33) It can be noticed ( instead of We see) that Victor wanted to forget about his feelings and his loved ones while searching for the answer of how life is created; he was totally out of reach and isolated from other people, because he believed that he should only be preoccupied with his work. Science and knowledge, then, are a synonymous of loneliness and isolation. Victor believes that the contact with the ones he loves would distract him from his main objective and he could not allow it to happen, for his desire to create life was so immense that he could not think about nothing else, including feelings. He, then, locks himself in his laboratory and work entirely alone, never letting anyone approach the experiment. It is ironical to see Victor's reaction when he finally finishes the work he was so committed to complete. He is so afraid of what he did that he simply left the Creature and goes for a walk, he does not want to think about the consequences of his action and he just runs away from it. After spending so much time and effort doing something, he simply runs away from it and does not want to deal with it ( instead of know about it) anymore. This fact proves that Victor was working only to satisfy himself, once his creation had no purpose to society like the majority of relevant scientific work often have. Victor isolates himself to create something that will end up being rejected by himself. The problem is that not only Victor will reject it, but the whole society. Victor's uncontrolled obsession ends up causing him to create a monster that will suffer consequences that he could never imagine.

When Victor decided to create life with his own hands, his idea was to use beautiful features from corpses and dead animals to make something pleasing to be seen.However, when he put the parts together, the combined form came out differently from what he expected: it did not only become an ugly being, but it was also extremely scary. While Frankenstein was combining the parts, his creation did not seem to be proportional, but it did not bother him until the creature came to life (GIGANTE, p. 566). Nevertheless, from the very first moment he saw the creature alive he was “catching and fearing each sound as if it were to announce the approach of the demoniacal corpse to which I [Frankenstein] had so miserably given life” (SHELLEY, p. 60). From this excerpt of the book it is possible to see that the creature suffers prejudice from the moment he starts breathing, and still, from his own creator. Victor Frankenstein did not know, however, that this would be the natural reaction of all human beings that had some kind of contact with the Creature. One of the passages containing prejudice against the monster is when he saves a young girl from falling into a dangerous river. When he held the girl, avoiding the tragedy, a man who was accompanying her took a gun out of his pocket and shot the creature.

Another passage that shows the creature having contact with humans is when he finds a small cottage in the middle of the woods. He was wandering alone for a very long time in the forest when he bumped into the cottage. There lived a family constituted of a blind man, known as old De Lacy, and his daughter Agatha and his son Felix. The creature observed them for several months until he decided to approach them, for they seemed to be very amiable and respectful to other people. The creature thought that if they knew about the admiration he had for them, they would accept him as for what he was, and they would not mind about his terrible appearance (SHELLEY, p. 155). Knowing he would be feared by the children, who could see, he waited until they left the cottage to come inside and to talk to the blind man. As he imagined, the blind man, who did not judge him by his appearance, treated him very respectably and listened carefully to what he had to say. On the other hand, when Agatha and Felix, accompanied by a friend, Safie, came back, their reactions were the worst when they looked at him: Agatha fainted, Safie rushed out of the cottage, and Felix hit the monster with a stick.

It is possible to see through these two passages that the humans did not even give the creature a chance to explain himself, for either his appearance was too ugly to be faced or his terrible looking body made him look like a dangerous monster whose intentions were only to hurt people - he would not be good enough to save them or to just be nice to them. Also, it can be noticed through the latter passage, as the creature talked to old De Lacy and he listened to him attentively, the monster could possibly be considered a normal human being if it was not by his appearance and by the method by which he was created, for he could speak, he could walk, and he also had feelings, just like any other human being.

In conclusion, what this essay wanted to show was how Victor’s Frankenstein’s search for knowledge and ambition leaded him to be concerned only about his experiments. In order to feel recognized in scientific field, he had the selfish idea of creating life using his own hands, though he did not measure the consequences this idea would influence in the life of his creature, who would suffer prejudice from the society of his time due to his unnatural appearance.