Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein"

Study Guides and Teaching Notes

• Human irresponsibility 

• Junk/pseudoscience

• inhumanity/human rights

• Isolation/Despair

• Inequality/ Difference/ Inclusion

• Knowledge/scientific development as dangerous

• Sexism/Feminism

• Gender/Sexuality/Race. 

• Environment/ Nature/ Ecological changes/natural disasters

• Technology as alienation from from nature 

• Technology as a disruptive force

• Science/Technology

• Science vs. Humanity

• Standards of Beauty/ Appearances

• Human Rights

• Nature vs Science

• Poverty/ food security

• Prejudice/Injustice

• Race/"Otherness"

• Social/Political tensions/conflicts

• Psychology/Perspective

• Migration/Displacement

• Physical, psychological and social development; transitions; mental health and well-being

Geographical Borders and Boundaries

• At the time of Shelley’s writing, national borders were also threatened by the increasingly interdependent, global economy and the destabilization of the British Empire as slave colonies revolted and demanded independence. Frankenstein reflects these tumultuous concerns in its portrayal of family relationships, which are complicated by extrafamilial sexual and emotional ties, and in the creation of a monster who represents a sexualized, racial fear. National borders were threatened by the increasingly interdependent, global economy and the destabilization of the British Empire as slave colonies revolted and demanded independence.

Isolation/Despair/Racism

• Frankenstein is full of characters who suffer physical or emotional isolation. Shelley deliberately chose settings that would emphasize this, such as the remote vastness of the Arctic Circle, where the story begins and ends. 

• The creature is a victim of isolation. However, unlike Walton and Victor, it does not bring this upon itself. Indeed, it tries early on to make contact with humans and connect with them, but is always abused, leading to self-imposed isolation in the hovel next to the De Laceys’ cottage.

Sexism/Feminism/Racism

• Frankenstein is strikingly devoid of strong female characters. Why? If the author was female?

• Throughout his narrative, Victor portrays women as weak, suffering, subservient beings who live for and depend on the men in their lives. This has not changed for many non-western cultures today

Gender/Sexuality/Race.  

Resource

Environment/ Nature/Racism

Resource: Climate Change. The Lense of Climate Change.  The Birth of a monster

Sustainability is impossible when human beings threaten the environment

• Ecological changes need to be addressed

Science/Technology

• Rapid development of technology disrupts our ecosystem and humanity. 

• Transhumanism: the systematic attempts to transcend human embodiment technologically.

• Human cloning and engineering threatens individuality and freedom

• Natural disasters are eminent and pose a direct threat to humanity

• Through their bio-technological industries such companies still act firmly in accordance with the ‘Promethean’ ethos of modern science, intent on using scientific knowledge to ‘command’ the earth

• The Romantics argued against the dehumanizing effects of the industrial revolution and Shelley wondered what unintended disasters could develop from scientific experiments.  You can discuss topics like climate change, internet addiction, designer genetics, and the like. The debate over the consequences of technological development surrounds us.  

Science vs. Humanity

• This is a cautionary tale warning about the threat to a diminished humanity posed by Science.  Both Walton, the narrator and Frankenstein are challenging the frontiers of human knowledge and will suffer for it.  Shelley parallels Walton's spatial explorations and Frankenstein's forays into unknown knowledge, as both men seek to “pioneer a new way,” to make progress beyond established limits.

Standards of Beauty/ Appearances

• We may feel like humans’ shallow focus on beauty is something new, but hasn’t this always been the case?  Shelley both accepts and rejects the importance of beauty in Frankenstein.  The beauty of characters like Elizabeth and Justine are outward expressions of their virtue and value.  On the other hand, the creature could have been of noble character if not for the reactions to his appearance.

Human Rights

• Frankenstein is a cautionary tale in which Shelley argues for human relationships, with her own absence of them being the underlying impulse for her value of them .She believes that the absence of them is a threat to humanity. 

Nature vs Science

• Which of Frankenstein’s personality traits is responsible for his demise? His extreme scientific ambition? His misguided, pseudo-scientific education? His insensitivity to nature? His rejection of human community? Or something else? 

Prejudice/Injustice

• Prejudice = intolerance, isolation, hatred and revenge 

• Prejudice, or judging people with little or no evidence, is a recurring theme throughout Frankenstein. The first major incidence of it comes when Victor abandons his creature. 

• Shelley makes us question how we treat those who appear monstrous when we may be monsters ourselves. Victor also suffers prejudice, in parallel with the Monster, when he is washed up in Scotland and treated with immediate suspicion and anger, called a ‘villain’, and accused of a murder he did not commit.

Slavery/Race/"Otherness"

• RESOURCE: SLAVERY AND RACE

• The monster is described as scary and ugly because he does not fit into the norm of the European’s ideals of what they think is beautiful. This is why he is considered “other”. 

•  From the beginning of the story, the monster’s creator, Victor, labels his as “other” due to him not liking what he created. Through the description of the narrator, the monster is known to possess human qualities, yet he is still something other than human

Social/Political tensions/conflicts

• The inherent instability of the institutions of family and race : The  four relational trajectories which define the relationships depicted in the novel: familial, homosocial, sexual, and racial. These four levels of human interconnectedness reveal the inherent instability of the institutions of family and race that society sought so determinedly to establish as stable and immutable in the nineteenth century.

• As Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, a series of slave rebellions and revolutions were rocking the foundations of the British Empire.

Psychology/Perspective

• Powers and creation

• The irresponsibilty of people's actions

Pathetic fallacy in Gothic literature - how nature controls the narrative

Dangerous Ambition and Fallability

Revenge/Vengeance 

Idealism 

• Rebellion

• Compassion

• Appearances

• Playing God

• Personality development

• Hubris / excessive pride

• Nature

• Science / industry

• Justice

• Knowledge / discovery

• Revenge

• Fate

• Guilt

• Isolation

• Companionship

• Parenthood

• Ambition

• Evil