IMS 103 Assignment Blog

“In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the monster is rejected by everyone and so hides away in a shed where he watches the Delaceys. His situation is almost like the passive viewer of a movie who sees the lives of others but cannot participate in them. By watching, he learns language, and then also to read and write. How do these technologies — movies, language, writing — affect his feelings? Do they make him more violent, and, if so, why?”

“I [the monster] looked upon them [the Delaceys] as superior beings who would be the arbiters of my future destiny. I formed in my imagination a thousand pictures of presenting myself to them, and their reception of me. I imagined that they would be disgusted, until, by my gentle demeanour and conciliating words, I should first win their favour and afterwards their love. (95)”

I believe that the technologies the monster witnesses and learns about do indirectly lead him to become more violent. Human civilization considers a person to be civilized if they can read and write and speak (for the most part), and the monster sees that as he watches the Delaceys. He is led to believe that if he is gentle of voice and manner, he will be more likely to be accepted, as illustrated in the above quote. Yet, he also realizes that he is not a man, and is of a different nature than man. The monster says, “I cannot describe to you the agony that these reflections inflicted upon me; I tried to dispel them, but sorrow only increased with knowledge. Oh, that I had forever remained in my native wood, nor known nor felt beyond the sensations of hungry, thirst, and heat! (101)” Here we see the monster regretting his knowledge, because it shows him just how different he is from those around him; and perhaps a realization that maybe he never will be accepted, expressed in his desire to return to the unlearned creature that he once was.

The monster also says in his narrative, “For a long time I could not conceive how one man could go forth to murder his fellow, or even why there were laws and government; but when I heard details of vice and bloodshed, my wonder ceased and I turned away with disgust and loathing (100).” The monster, in his beginning innocence, cannot understand why men do evil, yet he himself is driven to become one of the most evil of people – a murderer – in order to get sufficient revenge on his creator. What drives him to that point? His denial from the society of man. Whenever the monster tries to do something good – like when he saves the drowning girl and is shot – he learns that doing good will only hurt him. He blames his grotesque appearance for his reception by others, and thus blames Victor for making him something no man would ever accept. Yet, if he hadn’t become a learned monster, he probably never would have made the connection between his appearance and other peoples’ reaction to him.

I’m not exactly sure what Shelley is trying to tell her reader with this situation, but I believe it may be something like, “Even though man may be born a blank slate, and his experiences and education shape him, man must still be a figure of man – not a parody of parts stitched together – in order to fit into society.”

“In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Walton is trying to find the northwest passage — it would revolutionize world trade, and make him very famous and rich. Upon first talking with Walton about Walton’s pursuits, Victor Frankenstein exclaims, “Unhappy man! Do you share my madness?” Examine his motives carefully as he describes them in his first letter to his sister Margaret (pp. 2-3 Signet edition), and compare them to Victor’s motives as he describes them, especially in Chapter 4 (pp. 35-41 Signet). What is the author trying to tell us about their motives? Do similar motives drive our technology magnates such as Bill Gates?”

Walton is a man who wants to be recognized and known. His motive to be famous is what drives his search for the Northwest Passage and leads him to undertake the dangerous expedition the search requires. In his letter to his sister, he writes, “My life might have been passed in ease and luxury, but I preferred glory to every enticement that wealth placed in my path (3)”. Walton describes his self-education, and how he wanted to be an illustrious literary figure like Homer or Shakespeare; but he reminds his sister of his failure to become prominent in the literary scene. Walton is similar to Victor’s friend Clerval in the sense of wanting to become famous; and like Clerval, he serves as a friend and confidant to Frankenstein.

Victor’s motive is to be imbued with knowledge. He believes science is the only real route to knowledge – he says, “In other studies you go as far as others have gone before you, and there is nothing more to know; but in a scientific pursuit there is a continual food for discovery and wonder (36)”. He applies himself and rises quickly to the top of his academic community, and within two years feels that he knows all of what can be taught to him at Ingolstadt, until he sees his chance to discover something no one else knows. I also believe that a less important motive of his is to show Krempe that his time spent reading Agrippa and Paracelsus weren’t a loss of his time, but rather, a stepping stone to something great. The alchemists wrote about things like the Philosopher’s Stone and the Elixir of Life, both of which deal with extending life. Victor, in his search to animate the inanimate acts very much like an alchemist; he doesn’t tell anyone else about what he’s doing and spends all of his time in his pursuit.

Victor’s important words to Walton – “Unhappy man! Do you share my madness? (13)” introduce what Shelley is trying to tell her reader about the motives of Walton and Victor. The motives that drive Frankenstein drive him too far into the unknown, where unseen consequences await; while Walton’s motives haven’t driven him as far into madness, but the threat is there – he’s placing himself and his crew in an ocean full of ice. In fact, they find Frankenstein while their ship is trapped on all sides by dangerous ice. Walton is very similar to Victor before he becomes completely obsessed with knowledge, and thus he makes a good confidant for Victor, as he understands where he is coming from. Walton probably won’t judge Victor as harshly as someone who doesn’t understand how far motives can drive a person. I believe Shelley is trying to tell her audience that motives are good, to an extent; they start Walton on his journey to find something that could be beneficial to a lot of people, but Frankenstein’s motives have gone too far to be of assistance and have crossed the line into causing possible harm to people. A similar example would be Aylmer in Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark” – his motive is to make his wife perfect by removing her birthmark, but he is harming her instead of doing good. His motive, like Frankenstein’s, went too far.

I feel that technology is comparable to Victor’s description of science, “in a scientific pursuit, there is a continual food for discovery and wonder (36)”. We haven’t yet reached the limits of technology; new things are being discovered every day, and many of them were thought to be impossible even 5 years ago. I feel that Bill Gates is driven by motives that are in-between those of Walton and Frankenstein – he wants to help people, but he also wants Microsoft to be the dominant operating system in the world. I think a lot of big technology companies are the same; their original motive was to try to help people, but now their motive is to be the biggest and richest in the world. This is somewhat advantageous, as a corporation with lots of resources can generally do more than a business without that capital; but it can also be limiting because upstart companies trying to introduce a new technology have a harder time. A lot of the above is my own opinion; but motives do factor heavily into technology. Technology keeps advancing because someone has the motive to learn about something new.

“Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “The Birthmark” as well as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein are about over-reaching scientists — scientists who play “God.” Do you feel it is necessary to limit what scientists ought to be allowed to do (think of genetic engineering, for instance), and why or why not? Does Hawthorne think scientists should be limited? Does Shelley? Why, or why not, according to their texts? Do their texts warn us about something, the way that the storyteller’s story warned him about killer cats? If so, what?”

Deciding how to limit scientists is a difficult question. Forbidding a type of research could potentially close doors on finding a cure for a medical condition. Is it ethically right to tell researchers and experimenters, “No, you can’t do X because it against religion Y,” while person Z will die without X? Do you try to appease a group of people or do what’s best for an individual?

Personally, I believe the only limit that should be placed on scientific experimenting and research is “do no harm.” Of course, this limit is wide open and has plenty of room for controversy, but I think that “do no harm” is a good overall constraint. I believe that if a current debatable scientific topic, such as cloning, were to be banned, there will be a scientist who would still do it anyway. That scientist would probably be caught, prosecuted, and banned from the field; while what he was working on could have saved lives. A somewhat extreme example, but I think it’s a plausible one, especially with today’s technological advances.

After reading “The Birthmark” I have the opinion that Hawthorne believes scientists should be limited, at least to an extent. Even though Aylmer is incredibly knowledgeable and well versed in many different scientific disciplines, he inevitably kills his wife. And I believe he was intelligent and talented despite Georgiana’s death. Throughout the course of the story Aylmer becomes a man obsessed with fixing his wife. I think that Aylmer’s belief that Georgiana’s birthmark was an imperfection on her otherwise perfect body is Hawthorne’s way of saying, “Do no harm.” Georgiana’s birthmark is not harming her in any way; there isn’t a pressing need to remove it – some people even believe it is a sign of luck. I feel Hawthorne is trying to make clear to his audience to not mess with something that is better left alone (again, the birthmark isn’t a danger to Georgiana).

In my opinion, Hawthorne is trying to say, “Concentrate on what matters. Do not become obsessed with something that isn’t harmful. Use science to improve what needs fixed, not what is already practically perfect.” For when Georgiana becomes perfect, when Aylmer succeeds in removing the hand from her cheek, she dies. Her death delivers the author’s final message, “Life cannot be without flaws, and science cannot fix everything.”