The following is a guest post, written by Ramya Raju.
What makes an 1832 horror story, written in longhand and published anonymously important one hundred and seventy nine years later?
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is one such story and the reason it still makes sense is that human nature, and also the nature of human ambition, has not changed a great deal in two centuries.
The novel was written in a period when Europe saw multitudinous inventions in science, medicine and medical technology, explorations and so on; and there were more on the anvil. The book was the result of a bet between Mary and her husband Percy Shelley (the famous Romantic poet), his friend Lord Byron, and one other friend. The wager was to write the best horror novel.
The hero of Mary’s book is Victor Frankenstein, a young man inclined towards the sciences and encouraged to experiment. He goes to university to read chemistry and in the process of his experiments, discovers how to reanimate dead matter. He then decides to create a human out of dead tissue (the prototype of our clones today?).
However, he is only partially the master of his science, and is unable to create a regular human being with its complex, minute parts. Instead he creates a humongous, hideous monster and then falls sick in remorse and fear. The novel then takes the reader through the various twists and turns in the typical convoluted and dramatic literary style of that which appealed to the readership of that period. The ugly monster is seen wreaking havoc, leaving death and tragedy in his wake. He himself (he’s called the Creature, in the book) is human enough to need love and companionship but not attractive enough to command it. In the end, he has an uneasy relationship with his creator; Victor, who has not been able to kill the Creature (whom he often called a fiend or monster or simply ‘it’)even though he has destroyed everything in his life, including his beloved Elizabeth.
The book is written as a series of letters between Captain Robert Walton and his sister Margaret. Walton is a writer turned explorer, and he meets Victor and the Creature in the North Pole. Victor recognizes in Walton the same burning ambition that he once had and he wants to warn him against the pitfalls of such an ambition. He, therefore, recounts his own sad misadventures, which Walton chronicles in his letters to Margaret. Thus, the story of Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus that begins with Walton’s introductory narrative ends with his concluding narrative, sandwiching Victor’s story in between.
Frankenstein, the novel, may thus be read as a tale of adventure and grit with tragic overtones. One can completely lose oneself to the ‘fiend’ and revel in the horror of his creation and actions as well as enjoy the literary feast of the epistolary form.
The book was originally written in three volumes but is now available in an unabridged, paperback edition. There is some confusion about the number of pages, and guesstimates range from 199 to 280.
However, that is not significant. What is significant is its topicality. What inspires man to behave as God (for atheists, substitute God with ‘nature’)? And what are the consequences of this presumption? The reference to Prometheus is not incidental. Prometheus dared to steal fire from Olympus, the seat of Gods and carry it down to man; he was tied to a rock and had his liver eaten out by an eagle. This was ancient Greece. Frankenstein dared to create another human, and lived to face the retribution thereof. This was the nineteenth century. Technological conveniences replace humans. This is the twenty first century.
The horror lies in the similarity across ages. Has man learnt nothing? One can view the book from this angle – the universal human predicament.
“SUPREMELY frightful would be the effect of any human endeavor to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world.”
Thus spake Mary Shelly, the author!
Author bio
I’m Ramya Raju, a freelance writer/web designer from India. I write on varied topics like travel, photography, English Courses, SEO, Web Design, Mobile, Marketing etc., where I like travel blog writing compared to other niche. I have an experience of about 8 years in content writing and have worked for top blogs and websites. I’m generally an extrovert; I like photography, anthropology and traveling to different countries to learn the culture and living of the local inhabitants to do travelogues.
Contact:
Ramya Raju
E-mail id: ramyaraju896@gmail.com
Website: http://www.englishcourses.pro/