The limits of the human production: Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein"; when a man becomes a God

The limits of the human production: Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein"; when a man becomes a God

umanity tries always to overcome his limits in his production. We can see this in every field of knowledge, we can take many fields as science, philosophy , or more simply our physical limits (i.e. extreme sports). This particular and very important aspect of the human nature is told in Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein", that is for many aspects, how we are going to say later, more than a simply horror story. In fact this work can be read in many different ways: from a feminist critique to a modern essay about cloning, and also it can be read as an investigation on the human creation limits. Some people say "there is no limit to human creation"; but is it really so? Or man has to place a limit to his creation? May be he says in his mind: "okay, I have the possibility to do this but I have not the power of doing this, because I am neither god nor nature, and I cannot act like I was. Or not ?" Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" represent this eternal trouble that exist in the soul of every man. We are going to explain both the plot, and the interpretation of the novel. In order to simplify the analysis of the novel I have preferred to divide the analysis into three different parts.

7.1 Frankenstein's general plot

Victor Frankenstein, a brilliant scientist, discovers the secret of giving life to inanimate  matter, and so he decides to create a living being putting together parts of some corps. The so generated creature has a supernatural strength but also a brutal appearance. After a series of terrible adventures the monster Frankenstein changes his mind into a destructive and homicidal one, and, of course, he does not behave under his creator's control. At the end, he, lonely and without a female companion, kills his creator's brother, his friend Clevar and his bride Elizabeth. Dr. Frankenstein follows his creation to the Arctic to destroy it and, unfortunately, he finds his death.

7.2 Frankenstein's general stylistic connotations

It is structured as an epistolary novel. Moreover, as it happens in Coleridge's "the rime of the ancient Mariner", the narrator of the story is an external character, namely an explorer who met the scientist Frankenstein shortly before he dies. In Coleridge's manner, Frankenstein the doctor tells his sorry tale. At a certain point of the novel the point of view of the narrator split from the explorer one to Frankenstein the monster's one; in this way we can understand what happens in the monster's mind, and Mary Shelly does this in order to demonstrate how an innocent being can be corrupted by a society corrupted itself.

Interpretation

As I said, this novel can have a lot of interpretations, and his structure is made up in a way that is perfect for introducing every kind of speech about everything concerning human productivity and creation.

As for our speech about limits, it is important to remark the way Mary Shelley analyzes our subject.

The subtitle of the novel is "The modern Prometheus", referring to the ancient myth of Prometheus, who stoles fire from gods with the purpose of making men equal in power to them. This is an important information for our study, in fact, Frankenstein, giving life to an inanimate matter makes himself a god between men. In this way he can create, as God did with men, a world populated by animate beings that resemble their God, their father Frankenstein. It is the greatest power in the universe, but, as we can see in the novel, also the most dangerous: in fact, if you have the power of giving life, you have also the responsibility of the actions of your "creations". Interfering with nature is always dangerous, because only nature, or God, can have the power of creation; men are imperfect, and so also their creatures are imperfect and thus society too is imperfect, and often corrupted by every kind of sin;, the innocent (but imperfect) creature of the man, in a way similar to the novel one, is going to be corrupted by the society. Nevertheless this novel can be read as an interpretation of the woman capacity of giving life, but we can remark some important aspect about that: first of all the "creation" of a new life is a fruit of the love that can exist only between two persons; secondly, the conception is not something that you can make in a laboratory (in a better way: nowadays you can, but sometimes it is considered immoral or unromantic); thirdly, a man or a woman cannot create life without another man or woman.