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Response Paper-IV

George V. Griffith’s Criticism about Frankenstein

In the reviewed article. The author George, considers Frankenstein as a novel that both
represents and goes beyond the ideas of the romantic era. The novel was published in 1816-
1818 and it contains some ideas from the romantic period such as the primacy of feelings, the
dangers of intellect, dismay over the human capacity to corrupt our natural goodness, solitary
hero and awesome power of sublime. When we read and research the novel, we can see that
these topics are covered.

In his article, George says about Frankenstein “His ‘sin’ is not solely in creating the monster,
but in abandoning him to orphanhood at his birth, The monster’ unnatural birth is the
product of what the romantic poet Wordsworth called humankind’s ‘meddling intellect’.
Childlike in his innocence the monster wants only to be loved, but he gets love from neither
his ‘father’ nor from any other in the human community. “ Every child is born sinless and
innocent, but if that child is not brought up with love, he can become a bad adult in the future.
When Frankenstein was first created, he only wanted love and attention. However, he was
ostracized by society also its creator and people's attitude towards Frankenstein made him a
scary creature. Also, in George’s criticism article, there is a quote said by Rousseau “Man is
born free and everywhere in chains. “ We can replace the person here with Frankenstein.
Frankenstein was alienated because of his looks and frightening, so he was seen as out of this
world by those around him. George gave a very good example of this situation in the
continuation of his article. He said; “The monster not evil; he is transformed into evil by a
human injustice.“

Frankenstein novel also reflects the experiences of its author, Mary Shelley. For example, we
can see the birth and death events in the author's life in the novel. The effect of these events
experienced by the author had an impact on the novel. In his article, the writer George said
about Mary Shelley “Her own mother died only days after she was born, and Mary’s
firstborn died the year before she began to novel. Later, she referred to the book as ‘my
hideous progeny’. More recent feminist interpretations, such as that by Gilbert and Gubar
noting that the novel is about motherless orphan, similarly point to Mary’s youth and remind
us that books and children and birth and death are so mixed in both Shelley’s life and in the
novel that one cannot be understood without the other. “

All in all, we can notice from George's criticism article that the Mary Shelley’s some
experiences were influential in the Frankenstein novel and the novel includes prominent
topics such as the dangers of intellect, dismay over the human capacity to corrupt our natural
goodness, solitary hero and awesome power of sublime in the romantic period.