FRANKENSTEIN

FRANENSTEIN AS A SCIENCE FICTION

Frankenstein is a novel by Mary Shelley (1797-1851). Shelley started writing the story when she

was 18, and the first edition of the novel was published anonymously in London on 1 January

1818, when she was 20. Her name first appeared on the second edition, published in 1823.

Frankenstein is infused with elements of the Gothic novel and the Romantic movement. At the

same time, it is an early example of science fiction. Brian Aldiss has argued that it should be

considered the first true science fiction story because, in contrast to previous stories with

fantastical elements resembling those of later science fiction, the central character "makes a

deliberate decision" and "turns to modern experiments in the laboratory" to achieve fantastic

results. It has had a considerable influence in literature and popular culture and spawned a

complete genre of horror stories, films and plays.

Since the novel's publication, the name "Frankenstein" has often been used to refer to the

monster itself. This usage is considered erroneous, but some commentators regard it as well-

established and acceptable. In the novel, Frankenstein's creation is identified by words such as

"creature", "monster", "daemon", "wretch", "abortion", "fiend" and "it". Speaking to Victor

Frankenstein, the monster says "I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel" (which

ties to Lucifer in Paradise Lost, which the monster reads, and which relates to the disobedience

of Prometheus in the book's subtitle).

Shelley’s Frankenstein has been put in a lot of genres of the years, but mainly it has been called

out to be a combination of a gothic, sci-fi and a romantic novel. Mainly, Frankenstein is

considered as a science fiction because it paved the way of science fiction writing. The idea of

science fiction also became popular because the eighteenth century was the time of industrial

revolution and people were excited to find to what technology could do related with science.

The novel explores larger questions about “science, fate, free will, nature, and humanity.” The

novel has been further described as “the origin of species in science fiction”. The novel, very

simply negotiates the relations of negotiation and discretion between the concerns of science and

politics in its language and plot. It is true that the technology found in the novel is not critical to

the novel’s narrative itself, but also to social criticism. The larger impact of Frankenstein is

because of the fact that Shelley combines the gothic genre with an investigation into the

transgressions of a scientific inquiry.

The reason Mary made poor Victor Frankenstein a scientist, therefore, had nothing to do with a

desire to comment on science as an endeavor. It was simply the result of wanting to do

something different from the Gothic novels of supernatural horror which had already become

tedious and passé. The preface to the first edition, which was probably written by Percy Shelley

on his wife's behalf, treads a delicate argumentative line in speaking of such matters.

'I am by no means indifferent to the manner in which whatever moral tendencies exist in the

sentiments or characters it contains shall affect the reader',

'Mary' says,

'yet my chief concern in this respect has been limited to avoiding the enervating effects of the

novels of the present day and to the exhibition of the amiableness of domestic affection, and the

excellence of universal virtue.' 'She' further insists that 'the opinions which naturally spring from

the character and situation of the hero are by no means to be conceived as existing always in my
own conviction; nor is any inference justly to be drawn from the following pages as prejudicing

any philosophical doctrine of whatever kind'.

Science fiction is the only literature capable of exploring the macro history of our species, and of

placing our history, and even our daily lives, in a cosmic context. Science fiction (often

shortened to SF or sci-fi) is a genre of speculative fiction, typically dealing

with imaginative concepts such as advanced science and technology, spaceflight, time travel,

and extraterrestrial life. Science fiction often explores the potential consequences of scientific

and other innovations, and has been called a “literature of ideas”. 

Isaac Asimov said: “Science fiction can be defined as that branch of literature which deals with

the reaction of human beings to changes in science and technology”

The idea of science fiction comes in when Victor addresses his will to go to a university to study

science, where he starts practicing different experiments surprising his peers and teachers.

Finally, through galvanism and performing an experiment on a dead body by bringing it back to

life and thus creating a monster in real life. A lot of academic interpretations about the monster

came up, the most ingenious of all being how the plot suggest that from this point onwards

much, if not all, of what happens is a hallucination of Victor's and that the monster which

subsequently appears to him is a projection of his own personality, his own doppelgänger.

Although this is superficially the most bizarre of the academic reinterpretations, its adherents

rightly point out that it does make rather more sense than the literal interpretation of the puzzling

events which follow.

There is certainly some self-protective rationalization here - the author of the preface is shrewdly

anticipating and trying cleverly to deflect the charge that the book promotes atheism - but 'she' is
not trying nearly so hard to do that as she was later to attempt in the 1831 introduction, and it

must be noted that 'any philosophical doctrine whatsoever' includes science as well as religion.

What happens in the latter novel makes little sense - rationally or morally - precisely because the

horror of that moment can never be undermined or reduced, and thus can never undergo any kind

of imaginative transformation, no matter how hard the unfortunate monster tries to find a

solution. The machinery of the plot remains the inescapable condition of the key characters, no

matter how they may regret it. Victor and the monster are sealed within it and united by it, all

possible avenues of escape being ruled out by the fact that this is, essentially and definitively, a

horror story. It is only to be expected that the narrative expansion of the crucial moments should

seem to some readers to be akin to a hallucination - especially to the kind of hallucination which

allegedly packs a lifetime into the space of a single incident.

Thus, while the long prelude which precedes and sets up the visionary moment invents - more or

less by accident - the modern genre of science fiction, the long coda which follows and expands

upon it constitutes - again, more or less by accident - a giant leap for the not-so-modern genre of

delusional fantasy which had recently been invented by E. T. A. Hoffman. This double triumph

assured that the book would become a landmark in the evolution of modern imaginative fiction

as well as a popular success. It is a landmark, because rather than in spite of its inherent internal

contradictions; because of its struggle to be something other than it is. It is a great book precisely

because its author could not and would not settle for writing an ordinary book, which would

hang together by reproducing some familiar pattern of clichés.

BIBLOGRAPHY:

1. http://knarf.english.upenn.edu

2. https://prezi.com

3. http://frankensteinmirandahousecollege.blogspot.com

4. https://en.wikipedia.org

SUBMITTED BY:

RUPAL ARORA

BA (HONS) ENGLISH

II YEAR, IV SEMESTER

#1404