1

Alekos Camino Garca, English Studies 2

nd
year 2013-14 (Group C). Teacher: Dr. Francisco J. Corts Vieco
Science and technology: Analysis of Victor Frankenstein as an overreacher.

The dreams of insanity are embodied in the strong and striking language of the insane,
and the author, notwithstanding the rationality of his preface, often leaves us in doubt
whether he is not as mad as his hero
1

This harsh review published in the Quarterly Review by John Croker; make us aware of
the initial rejection towards Mary Shelleys novel: Frankenstein; or, The Modern
Prometheus.
With a first unpopular edition in 1818 were fewer than 500 copies were sold, it became
well known by the 1820s due to numerous engaging stage plays. Was this change
produced by the acceptance of new moral and social limits?, indubitable yes, the
changes through the period turned on new ways of thinking, the expansion of
technology all over Europe was reflected in literature and Frankenstein is, in my
consideration, one of the many examples. I decided to approach the analysis on this
novel attending to the idea of scientific transgression we perceive in the novel.

Briefly presented within the title we find the central theme: the passion towards the
scientific, the idea of creating/ imbue life, the consequences of surpassing human
natural limitations. The idea presented in three parts, correspond not only to the
introduction, climax, and denouement of the novel; but also to the myth of Prometheus,
as expressed in the title. In Greek mythology, a Titan (race of powerful deities,
descendants of Gaia and Uranus) who created humankind to populate earth, he also
stole fire from the Olympic gods for the human race in order to make them progress and
create a civilization, and due to this theft, he is punished by Zeus, who chained him on a
cliff where each day an eagle was sent to feed at his liver. The resemblance is clear: the
desire of progress leads his pursuer to an action of transgression which will bring
punishment and tragedy.

1
Mary Shelley, Friankenstein (Second Edition) (Norton Critical Editions) (W. W. Norton & Company,
2011), 198.
2

To better understand Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley intention in the novel we should start
by analysing the bound between his fiction and the reality of that time. One of the issues
I would like to emphasize is the death of her mother at her birth, Victors desires of
becoming a master of life and death come from the death of his mother, after which he
obsesses in study sciences. Moreover, this heads Mary to an emotional chaos which
fixed her youth; as her birth that should have brought happiness to her parents caused
the death of her mother. In the case of Victor, we see that he repents of giving life to his
creature, as we have said before, the scientific desire of progress without respecting
moral or social codes (as he takes human body parts of copses) leads to an awful result:
I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had
finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my
heart
2

About the influence of society, we realise that Mary decided that the story took place
during the 19the century, so the ideas are contemporary to the time and therefore there
is an easier approach to the reader. She was twenty years old when she published the
fiction novel, married to Percy Shelley, after the suicide of her pregnant wife. There is a
direct influence of his husband in the topic of discussion (science and technology); one
example of this is the prologue in her Authors Introduction (1831), in which she
affirms that the Preface was entirely written by Percy. We can read in this preface:
"The event on which this fiction is founded has been supposed, by Dr. Darwin, and
some of the physiological writers of Germany, as not of impossible occurrence
3


2
M. H. Abrams, ed., The Norton anthology of English literature, 7th ed (New York; London: Norton,
2000), 935.
3
Ibid., 907.
3

This is one clear reference to the scientific research in which is based the novel. Also,
The description in the novel of Victor Frankenstein's medical studies at the University
of Ingolstadt has been recognized as an idealized version of Percy Shelley's scientific
education
4
. I will now temp to explain how Mary possibly came up with the idea of
creating life from dead drown from the current debate in society at that time, that is, the
discussion of the principle of life.
The doctrine of Vitalism will be the starting point, which claimed that a principle of
life is present in all living things over and above the metabolic functions accessible to
the physiologist
5
This idea may have been brought to Mary by Percy, who before
fleeing to England with her, was visiting his physician (for both socially and medical
reasons) Dr. William Lawrence, fierce critic of the Vitalisim, who who among his
other patients was treating Samuel Taylor Coleridge (17721834) for his addiction to
laudanum
6

Due to the electrical experiments of Luigi Galvani (1737-98), Vitalisim vas a viable
doctrine in the previous century, unfortunately, it was rapidly rejected proved to be
wrong by Alessandro Volta (1745-1837), who will became famous thanks to his
invention of the voltaic pile (the battery). Later on, numerous experiments were carried
out with the induction of electrical power and due to their success (e.g. electrolysis as a
way to isolate elements, carried out by Humphry Davy in 1808) Scientits conclude in
the idea that life was electric.
Dr. Lawrence, as we have said before, rejected the idea of a mysterious Life Principle,
however he was not able to understand how to make inert things into living beings.

4
Christopher Goulding, The real Doctor Frankenstein?, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 95, n.
o

5 (mayo de 2002): 257-59.
5
Edward T. Oakes SJ, Lab Life: Vitalism, Promethean Science, and Mary Shelleys Frankenstein, Logos:
A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture 16, n.
o
4 (2013): 5 (61), doi:10.1353/log.2013.0036.
6
Ibid., 7 (61).
4

While serving as Shelleys physician, he took him into several works of experimental,
materialist medicine. As a result, His views had considerable influence on both Mary
and Percy Shelley (...) strongly represented in the first edition of Frankenstein
7
. In the
novel Victor succeeds over Galvini, creating life by applying electricity to assembled
parts of dead bodies, nevertheless there are no details of the process, in my opinion, due
to the numerous theories and the lack of a clear idea, Mary decided not to invent an
explanation or supporting one of the sides.
It is not uncommon that science is divided in two sides, the conservative (as Dr.
Lawrence) and the ones that try to go beyond all limits. The Science evolutes, and goes
in between the real of reality and imagination sometimes, it has an infinite capacity, and
make us not only need it, but also fear it. The character of the medicine or the scientific
(Victor) who wield in their hands the relief of physical pain, recovery of illnesses or the
live and dead is, therefore, greatly respected but also feared. As we can see in the novel:
is the scientific power, not always controlled, or able to control, what makes the risk a
reality (e.g. Victor obsessed with the idea of going further beyond the limits of the
scientific knowledge of his time develops a way of reviving, but it creates a horrible
monster).

We find here the idea of Victor as an overreacher, on one hand he is conscious of the
limitations of science, as we can see from the very beginning in manifestation of his
professor of natural philosophy M. Kempe, who considered a waste of time the studied
he had had at that moment, and the speech of his professor M.Waldman:

7
Joachim Schummer, Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent, y Brigitte van Tiggelen, The Public Image of
Chemistry (World Scientific, 2007), 15.
5

"The ancient teachers of this science," said he, "promised impossibilities, and performed
nothing. The modern masters promise very little (...). But these philosophers, (...) have
indeed performed miracles. They penetrate into the recesses of nature, and show how
she works in her hiding places. They ascend into the heavens: they have discovered how
the blood circulates, and the nature of the air we breathe (...) and even mock the
invisible world with its own shadows."
8

Even though he is conscious of these limits, on the one hand physical: After days and
nights of incredible labour and fatigue
9
, and on the other hand he is also ready to break
with any ethic rule because of his thirst for knowledge in the subject of physics,
chemistry and natural science. As we have said before, as cholera breaks out in
Ingolstadt (were Victor resides) the morgues are full of corpses. And so, he decided to
mutilate corpses without any scruple to obtain the body parts for his experiment to
create a living human being. Afterwards, he brings his creation into being with the help
of a lightning, succeeding at his first try. A terrible decision.
We can compare Victor with Dr. Faustus, the protagonist of Christopher Marlows
play. He, also carried by the passion for discovering and knowledge, finds moral and
physiological limitations, nonetheless he decides to overcome these by having a deal
with the devil, to which he sells his soul, once again a terrible decision.
Both of them experiment the solitude, due to their necessity of abstractions to
concentrate in order to achieve their goals, at the beginning both started as new
representation of Prometheus myth, challenging the God or the laws of Nature,
unfortunately they also received a bitter end to their lives.


8
Shelley, Frankenstein (Second Edition) (Norton Critical Editions), 927.
9
Ibid., 932.
6

Finally, what intended to be a ghost story to compete with Lord Byron and the rest of
the guests in his Swiss chalet, become a beautiful gothic novel, source of inspiration for
future generations and full of motives and emotion. Frankenstein, becomes the
precursor, of a proto-science fiction, like the novella The Time machine of H. G. Wells.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, based on the ideas of science and technology of her
surrounding society explores the ethics of creating artificial life: Mary Shelley would
eventually draw directly on the published text of Davys famous Introductory
Discourse, in which he spoke of those future experiments in which man would
interrogate Nature with Power . . . as a master, active, with his own instruments.
10

This is actually a debate nowadays, as we still face the polarity of opinions on genetic
engineering. In sum, Frankenstein regarded from the theme of science and technology
results as an example of the limits of human condition.

10
Richard Holmes, The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror
of Science (Vintage Books, 2010), 325-6.
7

Bibliographical Reference:


PRIMARY SOURCE:

Abrams, M. H., ed. The Norton anthology of English literature. 7th ed. New York; London:
Norton, 2000.



SECONDARY SOURCES (magazine articles):

Hindle, Maurice. Review of Frankensteins Science: Experimentation and Discovery in
Romantic Culture, 17801830 by Christa Knellwolf; Jane Goodall. The Modern
Language Review 104, n.
o
4 (1 de octubre de 2009): 1118-19.

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein (Second Edition) (Norton Critical Editions). W. W. Norton &
Company, 2011.

SJ, Edward T. Oakes. Lab Life: Vitalism, Promethean Science, and Mary Shelleys
Frankenstein. Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture 16, n.
o
4 (2013): 56-
77. doi:10.1353/log.2013.0036.

Thompson, Terry W. Shelleys FRANKENSTEIN. The Explicator 64, n.
o
2 (2006): 81-84.



INTERNET RESOURCES:

Julia Flores. The Impatience of Reason. Accedido 8 de mayo de 2014.
http://ucm.summon.serialssolutions.com/document/show?id=FETCHMERGED-
proquest_abstracts_613359601&s.cmd=previousPage%28%29&s.fvf=ContentType%2
CJournal+Article%2Cf&s.light=t&s.pn=3&s.q=Frankenstein+ciencia.

Goulding, Christopher. The real Doctor Frankenstein? Journal of the Royal Society of
Medicine 95, n.
o
5 (mayo de 2002): 257-59.

Schummer, Joachim, Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent, y Brigitte van Tiggelen. The Public
Image of Chemistry. World Scientific, 2007.

Holmes, Richard. The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty
and Terror of Science. Vintage Books, 2010.