Frankenstein Essay, Research Paper

I do not agree with the statement:

?Students in the twenty first century have little to learn from Frankenstein.?

Mary Shelley?s novel demonstrates the type of language and intricate structure rarely found in novels today from which students in the twenty first century can learn much from. Mary Shelley puts forward timeless lessons of one?s confrontation with one?s self taking responsibility for your own actions, the result of being shunned from society and the dangers of tampering with nature. The novel foreshadows our very real fears of the double-sided nature of scientific ?progress? making it relevant today and proving the statement:

?Students in the twenty first century have little to learn from Frankenstein.?

very wrong.

Shelley puts forward the issue of one?s confrontation with one?s self due to Victor?s power of creation entailing this. Victor symbolises modern man; Victor?s is the predicament involving the moral and intellectual conflict between the values of self and the values of society:

?Natural philosophy is the genius that has regulated my fate.? (p87)

Unfortunately, through Frankenstein?s arrogance he puts his personal interest above that of society and so is the cause of his own destruction.

This is an important lesson for the youth of the twenty first century to learn.

Shelley uses emotive language and an intricate structure from which students can learn to support a novel full of moral lessons. Shelley?s language creates pictures in her reader?s mind which intensify the atmosphere:

?The sun is forever visible, it?s broad disk just skirting the horizon and diffusing a perpetual splendour.? (p11)

The structure of the novel subconsciously gives the reader the feeling of loose ends to which we must apply or imagination, just as science is uncertain and full of loose ends. The technique of layering the novel that Shelley uses adds a sense of unravelling a mysterious myth. Students studying Frankenstein in the twenty first century can learn a lot from the structure techniques and layering that Shelley uses in the novel

A value drilled into the youth of the twenty first century is to take responsibility for your actions. This lesson is demonstrated when Victor Frankenstein, displaying a lack of moral forethought, rejects his creation leaving it to fend for itself both physically and mentally. Victor?s attempts to make excuses for his lack of responsibility prove futile and he pays the ultimate price:

?My feelings are profound, but I possessed a coolness of judgment that fitted me for illustrious achievements. But this thought, which supported me in the commencement of my career, now serves only to plunge me lower into the dust.? P238

Frankenstein?s family is destroyed is destroyed and he dies a spiritually broken man. Shelley wanted all who read her novel to learn from Victors situation:

?Learn my miseries and do not seek to increase your own.? (p253)

Physical and psychological suffering as a result of being shunned from society is an important issue that all youth should understand and the situation regarding this issue put forward in Frankenstein is one to be learned from. Shelley considered the creature to be the natural pure state of a human being; she then used it to display the effects of corruption by society:

?The feelings of kindness and gentleness which I had entertained but a few moments before gave place to a hellish rage and gnashing of teeth. Inflamed by pain, I vowed eternal hatred and vengeance to all mankind.? (p158)

Shelley aimed to teach that ugliness on the outside doesn?t reflect what is on the inside, and that ugliness on the inside is often provoked by society.

Shelley strongly emphasises the issue that nature is not to be tampered with by forcing Frankenstein to pay the price with the vengeance that is exacted upon him. It is also in this way that Shelley tries to rectify the moral balance of the novel. This lesson is particularly relevant to the youth of the twenty-first century as it displays disturbing parallels to tampering with nuclear energy. Just as the consequences of Frankenstein?s creation reverberated throughout Europe and the creature murdered Frankenstein?s family and caused havoc in every town it entered, any nuclear accident will cause havoc as it spreads like a disease to all surrounding countries.

Frankenstein teaches the youth of the twenty-first century valuable lessons. There is something to be learned from every event that takes place in the novel. All the moral issues in Frankenstein tie in with undoubtedly the most important and timeless lesson, If you don?t take responsibility for your actions you with pay the price. And as the novel ends with the words ?darkness and distance?, so to is the modern reader left all to aware of the darkness in society today; surrounded as we are by the reminders of our scientific advancement, we still have no idea where we stand and where we are headed. Should we remain blind to the consequences of our actions we will pay the price.