Metaphysical Intersections in Frankenstein: Mary Shelley's Thesitic Investigation of Scientific Materialism and Transgressive Autonomy

Christianity and Literature, 2011

Självständigt arbete på grundnivå (kandidatexamen), 15 hp, 2017

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley and the characters within, tell a prominent story of the posthuman condition in a society where humanist thought is the only conception of subjectivity. The use of not only posthuman studies, but more specifically studies including subjectivity was needed, in order to analyse the relationship between the humanist and the posthuman subjects. Theories of posthuman subjectivity and subjectivity by Rosi Braidotti and Michel Foucault were used in order to examine the posthuman condition of “Frankenstein’s monster” and the role of humanist vs. posthuman subjectivity between Victor Frankenstein and the monster. The tension between Victor and the monster was analysed in order to investigate the monster’s struggle at acquiring subjectivity in a posthuman state, which revealed why it is impossible for the humanist and posthuman subject to peacefully coexist.

SMART MOVES JOURNAL IJELLH

In Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein (1818), we find several dichotomies: culture/nature, self/other, ego/id, male/female et cetera. In the novel, Victor is a scientist who wants to inject life into inanimate objects and thereby become a creator, a god. As science is an element of culture, Victor is associated with culture. But he represents the darker side of culture: scientism misused as fantasy. On the other hand, the creature is associated with nature. Though Victor infuses life into the monster through a scientific experiment, the monster is still a nature’s child as he is brought up in the midst of wild natural landscape. In the novel, we find that ‘male’ science (as a part of culture), in the person of Victor, penetrates “into the recesses of nature” (Shelley, 1818).

Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Science, 2018

All human beings have a desire to be alive and wish to survive or stick on to the environment they belong to. It is actually applicable to all living things in the world. The existence of a species is not solely dependent on the organism, but the habitat, proper living conditions and social relations also plays a pivotal role. In the novel Frankenstein, the creature had a quest for creating a meaning for its existence. We can consider it as a partial human being; it successfully acquires a space for itself in the living conditions of human society. The monster customizes itself and adopts the characteristic traits of human beings for its survival. But the society was not ready to accept the monster as a part of its social set up. Existential philosopher Albert Camus states that "I rebel; therefore I exist" (The Rebel, 15). Most human beings try to create a meaning for their existence in different stages of their life, starting from initial stages of life to till their end, and thinking, accept, and contradict with the worldly powers and ideas. As a result of this continuous evolution, each and every human being find own way and meaning for their existence. This paper tries to dismantle the psyche of the monster with a social as well as existentialistic perspective and attempts to signify the importance of habitat, peer groups and a society which are the integral components of existence.

2016

According to Freud, disavowal implies the denial of a frightening reality, a defense mechanism that is triggered in the initial phase of psychosis. The term may also imply, like in the fiction I propose to analyze, a refusal to assume responsibility for the consequences of one’s deeds and, as such, it certainly leads to disastrous consequences. If Mary Shelley’s novel was intended as a critique of Romantic self-indulgence and as a vision of the destructive implications of a creative mind, it is no less certain that the authoress intended to point out the inevitability of such a fate for the visionary who disconnects himself from reality in order to pursue the fantasy of omnipotence. In my paper, I intend to link several psychoanalytical concepts – such as the uncanny or the theme of the double – to the development of Gothic fiction as a subgenre of Romanticism, while attempting a psychoanalytical re-reading of Victor Frankenstein’s actions and their terrible results.

Critical Review, 35, 1995

A discussion of the creative origins of Shelley's novel, and her guilty presumption at writing it.

IJELLH, Vol 7 No 9 (2019): Volume 7, Issue 9, September 2019, 2019

In Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein (1818), we find several dichotomies: culture/nature, self/other, ego/id, male/female et cetera. In the novel, Victor is a scientist who wants to inject life into inanimate objects and thereby become a creator, a god. As science is an element of culture, Victor is associated with culture. But he represents the darker side of culture: scientism misused as fantasy. On the other hand, the creature is associated with nature. Though Victor infuses life into the monster through a scientific experiment, the monster is still a nature's child as he is brought up in the midst of wild natural landscape. In the novel, we find that 'male' science (as a part of culture), in the person of Victor, penetrates "into the recesses of nature" (Shelley, 1818).

Examining a product of art with regard to the era it was created in would lead one to the most illuminating clues as motives, tensions and reflections for an interpretation in depth. Thus corresponding to the Victorian Era, Frankenstein (1818), which was written by Mary Shelley in England, embraces a range of historical, philosophical and cultural content. One content could be considered to emphasize the ideas of Enlightenment Era which sets up one of the basic narratives of the book: men’s desire to “create” and the power of controlling “the death” which are directly associated with the secularization of science (Dupre, 2004). The other content would possess the identical basis where Freud had formed his ideas about two main instincts, aggression and sexuality, from a psychoanalytic perspective. This paper will attempt to reveal the links between the ideas of Enlightenment Age and Freud’s psychoanalytic approach while interpreting the symbols and motives in Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, basically giving references to three important critiques in a casebook of Frankenstein edited by Fred Botting (1995): What is a Monster? (According to Frankenstein) by Peter Brooks, Frankenstein with Kant: A Theory of Monstrosity or the Monstrosity of Theory by Barbara Claire Freeman, and Otherness in Frankenstein: The Confinement/Autonomy of Fabrication by Jerrold E. Hogle.