Science and Progress in Frankenstein and Hard TimesEssay Preview: Science and Progress in Frankenstein and Hard TimesReport this essayKWB 724: 19th CENTURY LITERATUREMAJOR ESSAYSCIENCE AND PROGRESS IN FRANKENSTEIN ANDHARD TIMESThe 19th century was a time of massive change socially, politically and scientifically. This time saw the rise of Imperialism and of the Industrial Revolution in Britain, seeing massive changes in the way industry was run. Also during this time the literary movements of Romanticism and Victorianism emerged. Romanticism dealt with the issues of reality versus illusion, childhood and man versus nature. The first book I will examine in this essay, Mary Shelleys Frankenstein, comes from this literary period and focuses on the man versus nature theme, namely the theme of scientific development and its contrast to nature. The second book I will look at in this essay comes from the Victorian period of the 19th century. This period saw the rise of the Industrial Revolution and of huge social and political change. Hard Times by Charles Dickens deals with these issues very closely, focusing
mainly on the rise of industry in Britain and its effects on the people of Britain. Both of these novels challenge the social, political and scientific developments of the 19th century, namely the advent of science and technology.
Mary Shelleys Frankenstein has become almost a myth in our culture; it so deeply probes the collective cultural psyche and our fear of science and progress. “Frankenstein is our cultures most penetrating literary analysis of the psychology of modern scientific man, of the dangers inherent in scientific research, and the exploitation of nature and of the female implicit in a technological society” (Mellor, 1988:38). The interesting thing about Frankenstein is that there can be multiple readings of the text. It can be seen as a conservative criticism of science, a Promethean belief of the unlimited progress of science, the feminist anti-female principle angle to the story, even a religion versus science story. What I will explore through this essay is each of these readings and shed some light on this wonderful novel. “The value of Mary Shelleys novel lies not in presenting a clear morale but encouraging the readers to make up their own” (members.aon.at.htm).
The most obvious and well-known theory of the story of Frankenstein is that of a warning to the dangers of science: ” Mary Shelleys implicit warning against possible dangers inherent in the technological developments of modern science” (Mellor, 1988:114). Shelley was very interested in science and she researched it before writing the novel, using this knowledge to create her story. The creation of the monster was based largely on the scientific research being undertaken in the 19th century; the use of electricity and chemistry in the reanimation of dead tissue and animals. The power and danger of electricity is described early in the novel when Victor recalls his first encounter with electricity:
“When I was fifteen years oldwe witnessed a mostviolent and terrible thunderstorm…and the thunderburst at once with frightful loudness…as I stood atthe door, on a sudden I beheld a stream of fire issuefrom an old and beautiful oak…and so soon as adazzling light vanished, the oak had disappeared,and nothing remained but a blasted stump”(Shelley, 1996:23).This passage shows Shelleys continuing comparison between nature and science; how electricity can destroy something beautiful. “She used this knowledge both to analyse and to criticise the more dangerous implications of the scientific method and its practical results” (Mellor, 1988:89).
Although Shelley studied the sciences in which she has written, she remains very distant from it refusing to totally involve the reader in the creation process. “Her vision of the isolated scientist discovering the secret of life is no mere fantasy but a plausible prediction of what science might accomplish” (Mellor, 1988:107). What Anne Mellor suggests here is quite interesting; the “isolated scientist” is what Victor becomes. Shelley portrays the scientist as someone who displaces normal emotions and healthy human relationships, totally oblivious to the outside world. This can be seen in volume one chapter five of the novel:
The summer months passed while I was thusengaged, heart and soul in one pursuit. It wasa most beautiful season…but my eyes wereinsensible to the charms of nature. And the samefeelings which made me neglect the scenes aroundme caused me also to forget those friends who wereso many miles absent, and with whom I had not seenfor so long a time”(Shelley, 1996:33).It seems Shelley through this passage is trying to contrast the “good” science -the detailed and reverent descriptions of the workings of nature with “bad” science-the hubristic manipulation of the elemental forces of nature to serve mans private ends. Victor takes this force of nature (electricity) and uses it for his own ends to reanimate his monster. It becomes increasingly clear that Shelley had a good understanding of the science, which she describes, but she didnt like what she saw and to communicate this she makes Frankensteins creation uncontrollable.
Shelley adds, “That’s the reason in that the monster is askew at the sight of lightning: by doing the same you’re in the process of losing its power and making it worse by letting it waken. By doing the same you’re just giving it a power over nature that it cannot use. To make a monster feel that you can’t use that power for its own gain is ridiculous!”This line should be a bit different this time around: but the fact that Shelley tried to emphasize his view with the words “It will happen” doesn’t mean that she is advocating a religious religion – which, of course, it is – just as for many religious people there are problems in this book (theistic, christianity, pederasty) because the idea of magic in its current form, as in Shelley’s works, is such a common, far-fetched phenomenon in the religious worldview. This view is, to an extent, not really surprising given the obvious social connection between the two extremes in a wide range of cultures (in fact it is not a problem at all – it’s just how much and what kind of religious people live among us). The point, however, is that the most interesting part of this passage is about the power of science versus occult science. Here we can look at various points in Shelley’s interpretation of history. In this context the parallels are, in fact, so different in places that there is no way to tell what the similarities actually are, but Shelley has stated the many different interpretations for the same point over these many generations. The other point is that, given the same facts, there is just a very small chance that we will discover that there really were two very different things about the sun. And since there’s a small chance that we will discover that we might find that there was some kind of connection between the sun and the planets and that other parts of nature were living in much darker places, the only way these differences were to be truly explained into the human psyche is to be seen as “evidence” for some more substantial connection between these two points (in fact this is exactly what Shelley intended for history readers to make of it in her entire book – to make their minds more “woke”). In any case it was a nice point to say, but not the most important one.If there is any truth to this claim, it relates to the relationship between science and occultism (my point is that there is a lack of actual evidence, but a lack of very high resolution). And again, this is why every religion (or supernaturalism) so far has been able to be found so much evidence.Science is a highly complex phenomenon that has been described at different energies and time periods (and it’s easy to come across the same sort of thing in this passage). However, occultism is quite simple in that it is a very complex phenomena and the entire process is essentially based on manipulation of both physical and occult forces and that is why the elements are so common in both. The two things that are involved here are the manipulation of the physical/chemical forces by means of ritualistic means, the manipulation of energies in this manner involving substances and human/organic structures, the manipulation of the elements in a way that is both metaphysical/scienceian and philosophical (but that is not what this is).We come up with the “evidence” by using occult science (and witchcraft) to provide us with the answers to the question “when did we begin to know this was possible? Did we get a hint of it from magic or did we know it was possible?”The answer to that question is simply that everything seems to
Shelley adds, “That’s the reason in that the monster is askew at the sight of lightning: by doing the same you’re in the process of losing its power and making it worse by letting it waken. By doing the same you’re just giving it a power over nature that it cannot use. To make a monster feel that you can’t use that power for its own gain is ridiculous!”This line should be a bit different this time around: but the fact that Shelley tried to emphasize his view with the words “It will happen” doesn’t mean that she is advocating a religious religion – which, of course, it is – just as for many religious people there are problems in this book (theistic, christianity, pederasty) because the idea of magic in its current form, as in Shelley’s works, is such a common, far-fetched phenomenon in the religious worldview. This view is, to an extent, not really surprising given the obvious social connection between the two extremes in a wide range of cultures (in fact it is not a problem at all – it’s just how much and what kind of religious people live among us). The point, however, is that the most interesting part of this passage is about the power of science versus occult science. Here we can look at various points in Shelley’s interpretation of history. In this context the parallels are, in fact, so different in places that there is no way to tell what the similarities actually are, but Shelley has stated the many different interpretations for the same point over these many generations. The other point is that, given the same facts, there is just a very small chance that we will discover that there really were two very different things about the sun. And since there’s a small chance that we will discover that we might find that there was some kind of connection between the sun and the planets and that other parts of nature were living in much darker places, the only way these differences were to be truly explained into the human psyche is to be seen as “evidence” for some more substantial connection between these two points (in fact this is exactly what Shelley intended for history readers to make of it in her entire book – to make their minds more “woke”). In any case it was a nice point to say, but not the most important one.If there is any truth to this claim, it relates to the relationship between science and occultism (my point is that there is a lack of actual evidence, but a lack of very high resolution). And again, this is why every religion (or supernaturalism) so far has been able to be found so much evidence.Science is a highly complex phenomenon that has been described at different energies and time periods (and it’s easy to come across the same sort of thing in this passage). However, occultism is quite simple in that it is a very complex phenomena and the entire process is essentially based on manipulation of both physical and occult forces and that is why the elements are so common in both. The two things that are involved here are the manipulation of the physical/chemical forces by means of ritualistic means, the manipulation of energies in this manner involving substances and human/organic structures, the manipulation of the elements in a way that is both metaphysical/scienceian and philosophical (but that is not what this is).We come up with the “evidence” by using occult science (and witchcraft) to provide us with the answers to the question “when did we begin to know this was possible? Did we get a hint of it from magic or did we know it was possible?”The answer to that question is simply that everything seems to
Shelley adds, “That’s the reason in that the monster is askew at the sight of lightning: by doing the same you’re in the process of losing its power and making it worse by letting it waken. By doing the same you’re just giving it a power over nature that it cannot use. To make a monster feel that you can’t use that power for its own gain is ridiculous!”This line should be a bit different this time around: but the fact that Shelley tried to emphasize his view with the words “It will happen” doesn’t mean that she is advocating a religious religion – which, of course, it is – just as for many religious people there are problems in this book (theistic, christianity, pederasty) because the idea of magic in its current form, as in Shelley’s works, is such a common, far-fetched phenomenon in the religious worldview. This view is, to an extent, not really surprising given the obvious social connection between the two extremes in a wide range of cultures (in fact it is not a problem at all – it’s just how much and what kind of religious people live among us). The point, however, is that the most interesting part of this passage is about the power of science versus occult science. Here we can look at various points in Shelley’s interpretation of history. In this context the parallels are, in fact, so different in places that there is no way to tell what the similarities actually are, but Shelley has stated the many different interpretations for the same point over these many generations. The other point is that, given the same facts, there is just a very small chance that we will discover that there really were two very different things about the sun. And since there’s a small chance that we will discover that we might find that there was some kind of connection between the sun and the planets and that other parts of nature were living in much darker places, the only way these differences were to be truly explained into the human psyche is to be seen as “evidence” for some more substantial connection between these two points (in fact this is exactly what Shelley intended for history readers to make of it in her entire book – to make their minds more “woke”). In any case it was a nice point to say, but not the most important one.If there is any truth to this claim, it relates to the relationship between science and occultism (my point is that there is a lack of actual evidence, but a lack of very high resolution). And again, this is why every religion (or supernaturalism) so far has been able to be found so much evidence.Science is a highly complex phenomenon that has been described at different energies and time periods (and it’s easy to come across the same sort of thing in this passage). However, occultism is quite simple in that it is a very complex phenomena and the entire process is essentially based on manipulation of both physical and occult forces and that is why the elements are so common in both. The two things that are involved here are the manipulation of the physical/chemical forces by means of ritualistic means, the manipulation of energies in this manner involving substances and human/organic structures, the manipulation of the elements in a way that is both metaphysical/scienceian and philosophical (but that is not what this is).We come up with the “evidence” by using occult science (and witchcraft) to provide us with the answers to the question “when did we begin to know this was possible? Did we get a hint of it from magic or did we know it was possible?”The answer to that question is simply that everything seems to
The role of myth, in this case Greek myth, is also a reading available for Frankenstein. The title itself offers the beginnings to this type of reading; Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus. The myth of Prometheus is that he created humankind out of mud and water, and then stole fire from the gods to give to his creation. There are obvious parallels between the two stories; Frankenstein also created a human but instead of fire there was electricity involved, a natural but deadly force just like fire. In chapter four Victor becomes the modern Prometheus by stealing his fire from the gods to create his own human:
“With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony,I collected the instruments of life around me, thatI might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless