Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, is a story about a man named Victor Frankenstein who seeks to create life and a new species using science. The story is told partly through letters, and as Victor creates his creature using the pieces of corpses, he is disgusted by the appearance of the creature he has created, and chooses to abandon it despite how he is the equivalent of a parent to his creature, and due to how scary and monstrous his creature looks, the monster is forced to murder and kill to get revenge upon his creator. Frankenstein is a classic piece of gothic literature that has many of the essential elements. It has the themes of responsibility to your own creations, such as a parents to their child, human nature, how people tend to try and hate and abandon creatures that look scary or monstrous due to it being an innate trait, and finally the manipulation of science for our own personal gain, rather than using our knowledge to help all people of society.
We must always try and take responsibility for our mistakes and actions, because if we do not, horrible consequences would arise. Our parents have a responsibility to us as our creator, so they have to try and give us a good, well-lived life as they are our parents. In Frankenstein, Victor has a responsibility to the creature as he was the person who created it, so he had to take care of it. The monster never asked to be created, however it did ask for companionship or a friend, which Victor was not and never provided. Victor may not have had the qualifications to really help and be the creator of the monster, but as our parents do not need qualifications to take care of us, Victor still had the responsibility to take care of the monster even though he didn’t want to. He was wrong in completely abandoning it. When we shirk away from our duties and attempt to try and skip out on our necessary work, disastrous consequences will occur due to our lack of taking responsibility. Our responsibilities are our job and it’s our duty to work with them and attempt to take care of all of them, or else we will have to face severe problems.
Human nature has many different aspects, and it can be beneficial to others in some circumstances but also harmful to people in others. As an example, human nature can incline some people to be more helpful towards only kinder, well-looking people, rather than all people including those whose appearances may be more monstrous. In Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein’s monster wanted to seek companionship and learn, but he was shunned and feared by everyone who saw him because of how horrendous he looked, and even when the monster saw its own face on the reflection of water, he understood how creepy and scary he looked. This knowledge still carried to the monster even as he was brought to life with Victor, showing some of the underlying aspects of human nature, how we tend to abandon and fear creatures that look more fearsome. Human nature may have some beneficial parts that make us try and help others the best we can, but it’s still normally inclined to be prejudiced and fear people that are more ugly. We have to try our best to suppress some of the worst aspects of our natures in order to try and create a more equal and balanced world.
Often, science is used in order to help people gain and get an unfair advantage, but it’s part of the spirit of scientists to try and gain new knowledge that can be beneficial. In many stories, such as The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and the Hound of the Baskervilles, science is used to determine and understand many things, but sometimes with consequences. In Frankenstein, Victor created his monster because of his natural inclination to discover and try to create new things. He was curious and ambitious and sought to do something people hadn’t done before. Sadly, science has some dark aspects and parts that can be harmful towards others, and it can be damaging and hurtful, when it is wrongly used and manipulated. Victor manipulated and used it for a horrible goal, since life is not meant to be toyed and manipulated with. Science is for benefiting everyone that is part of society, not just a few people or for personal benefits, which is because of how beneficial science can be and how useful it is. We need to try and make sure that everyone gets the same benefits based on their effort so that we can build a more equal society that utilizes science to create benefits for all.
Frankenstein is an amazing piece of gothic literature and it teaches many important lessons such as the fact of how responsibility is incredibly important due to how it can cause enormous consequences if it is not taken, how human nature is inclined to be worse towards scarier looking people, and how science can be manipulated but often to result in dire consequences. Responsibility helps divvy out work and make it so that everyone is only responsible for their own problems and don’t need to rely or to take on another burden by working more and taking more responsibility. Human nature can be severely inclined to be negative and this can end up hurting minorities and also end up being severely damaging to those whose appearance is less appealing. Finally, science has many advantages, but it can be used mainly for personal gain and causes people to gain an unfair advantage, despite how it is supposed to be used to benefit everyone that is a functioning and contributing part of society. Frankenstein is a great book and I recommend it for all ages.
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