Essay 3 Rough Draft

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Amelia Willadsen

Cline

English 102

12 October 2011

Taking a Closer Look into Frankenstein

           

            The novel, “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley was a dark twisted story about the creation of a monster.  I thought the novel was interesting and it also includes quite a few themes and motifs.  One theme that continues throughout the whole book is monstrosity. The monster in this book is not accepted into society, right off the bat because of the way he looked.  Victor is the one who created the monster out of stolen body parts and uncommon chemicals.  Victor’s secrecy and amount of selfishness secludes him from human society.  This leads me into the second theme which it secrecy.  Victor uses secrecy with his obsession in creating life.  He finds pleasure in bringing down the monster also is a complete secret until Walton finds out about what Victor is doing. Walton ends up being the person who successfully solves the monster and Victor’s severe relationship. He starts writing letters to help resolve their relationship because he confesses everything in them. The monster is happy that Walton is involved because he

                                                                                                                                                
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feels like someone will finally understand him. I believe her purpose in writing “Frankenstein” was her reflecting on her life but gave it a little twist. She added more details and characters to make it more appealing to read. 

            I chose to read, “Possessing Nature: The Female in Frankenstein” by Anne K. Mellor in the back of the book.  The reason I think she wrote this about her life is because this article explains how Mary Shelley and all women were expected to do. This article talks all about how it was way harder for women to get recognized and given a chance at something. “…portrays the consequences of a social construction of gender that values the male above the female” (Mellor 274).  I can see what she’s talking about because it’s even like that nowadays and I can only imagine how much worse it was back then. She also states, “Inside the home, women are either kept as a kind of pet; or they work as house wives, childcare providers, and nurses, or as servants” (Mellor 275).  I, being a woman, reading this is very saddening to me because it isn’t fair to us. This world is dominated by the male species just because they’re naturally stronger and faster than women. An example of this is that men sports get way more attention than women sports and I think that is absolutely ridiculous because women work just as hard as them if not harder. Women should be respected and noticed for how hard-working and great of species they are.

                                                                                                                                                 Willadsen 3         I started reading the article, “Frankenstein and Radical Science” by Marilyn Butler to learn about the history of the book.  As I started, I learned that the novel had its ups and downs.  When “Frankenstein” was released and the characters and plot first became public property, the people were shocked about what the actual meaning signifies. “Readers, filmgoers, people who are neither, take the very word Frankenstein to convey an awful warning: Don’t usurp God’s prerogative in the Creation-game, or don’t get too clever with technology” (Butler 302).  When people heard the word “Frankenstein”, they automatically had negative thoughts about it.  They way I interpreted the second half of the quote was that if God didn’t create what was put on this Earth, then we shouldn’t be using technology to try to create something more clever.  “Frankenstein” seems to be disobeying God’s Creation-game.  This article also talks about how this novel had trouble with the media.  “ The 1818 “Frankenstein”, which had drawn nourishment, energy, importance from lectures and journals, had lived by the media, and after 1819 might well have died by the media” (Butler 303).  At the beginning of “Frankenstein” in 1818, it was popular among the literature world.  When 1819 rolled around, that’s when people started looking closer into what “Frankenstein”

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truly meant. This novel started off strong in the media but eventually by the end, critics stated how it’s basically dead.

            There have been many positive things coming from this novel.  “Frankenstein, the True Story; or, Rousseau Judges Jean- Jacques”, by Lawrence Lipking talks all about all the success coming out of this novel.  “In the past few decades, a period in which Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” has been received into the canon of English literature-to judge from the number of editions, books, essays, and course adoptions- a remarkable critical consensus has grown up around it” (Lipking 313).  This tells me how much this novel has been used as a resource and how much it has impacted English literature.  Even I have heard many great things about “Frankenstein” before I was required to purchase it. Readers have many different interpretations of this novel and most don’t know the real meaning.  Lipking states, “To begin with, everybody misunderstands it; or more accurately, hundreds of millions of people who have never read the book think that they know what it is about, from seeing or hearing about a movie, and most people do not have a clue” (Lipking 314). I agree with him just because people comprehend what they read differently and sometimes it is hard for the reader to figure out what the author is trying to get across within their book.  In conclusion, “Frankenstein” was an excellent

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choice to use because there are so many different opinions about this novel. In my opinion, this book was interesting and I wouldn’t choose to read this if I was the one that got to choose it. On the other hand, I enjoyed reading the articles in the back of the book and learning about the history of “Frankenstein”.