Cultural Studies in ‘Frankenstein’

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Topic: Cultural Studies in ‘Frankenstein’

                   

Name:  Hariyani Kishan R.

Semester:  2

Paper No:  8: Cultural studies

Roll No :  21

Enrollment No:  PG15101021

Email ID:  kishanhariyani1992@gamil.com

Submitted To: Department of English Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University

Year:  2016

Cultural Studies in : ‘Frankenstein’

·     Introduction

          Mary Shelley’s Sci-Fi adventure, thriller and dramatize the novel in that one can do the thing which challenging the God’s creation, the cultural sign and its major aspects. In this novel we come across with mythical story or we can say culture tale like “Prometheus”, “Narcissus” and “Paradise lost”. Mary Shelley has presented very fruitfully and with appropriate facts. Her novel has morphed into countless forms in both height brow and popular culture. Her creation teaches us not to underestimate the power of youth culture. It is truly captivating powerful novel that analyzes ‘Monstrosity’ with regard to ‘humanity’. However without a sound understanding of the context, in which the text was written one couldn’t completely comprehend the themes, ideas and references did not present nor can the apparent link between monstrosity and humanity be completely fathomed.

          In the novel Victor Frankenstein is the first character, who makes a cultural discourse and who occupies our attention, a character for whom his desire to create life is everything while to accept that life is not important. For him the creation ‘Monster’ is not his child and responsibility now.

Ø Frankenstein, Innocent child or Monster?

Firstly we cannot say clearly but by the further reading its shows the harsh face of society and its look towards the “new born baby” by that the situation starts that also shows the other facts and the influenced by the Romantic period, the scientific inquiry of her time, and her own life that’s also examination point here. By investigating the novels scientific and philosophical context one can discern the reason behind Mary Shelley depicting the creature’s creation and development in the manner she chose to researching into the literary context provides one with superior appreciation of inter- textual references, the style in which the novel has been written and the novel’s secondary title ‘The Modern Prometheus’. Similarly an understanding of the historical context grants one the ability to identify the allegory of the industrial revolution.

The creation was made of human parts. It was in essence human can on judge this as being monstrous. Bearing in mind that the historical context and allegory of the industrial revolution. Electricity was Victor Frankenstein can be seen as the modern Prometheus. Again, with greater knowledge of the context the “spark of being” is further clarified. Shelley ideally represents electricity as the modern heavy fire”. The main influence on Frankenstein avoid had been through the presentation of the Promethean legend. The individual and his quest can be interpreted as Frankenstein or the creature whose journey to achieve revenge. But after all majority people see a monster looks on Frankenstein.   

Ø The Modern facts:

What is today’s generation see towards this creation? The answer is maybe an irony and power. With regard to the text “historical context”, Frankenstein is interpreted as allegorical of the industrial revolution. Hence, from the knowledge of the novels scientific context one experiences a greater understanding of firstly where the text predominant idea had its origin, and also elucidates the creation. As it was human influence that converted the creature into an “evil” being. Some negative aspects can be seen as monstrous if they resulted from humans from the texts scientific context one can see that victor Frankenstein achievement was the objective for many scientists of that time. Actually some facts we can find that Mary Shelley presented her views that can be a matter but how she think of writing a novel like this?  According to me, I can say that her time is the substance here. Or the facts of cultural aspects and society’s dark side or one can say a evilness that shown. The novel starts with letters and in which we observe that Mary Shelley is outsider of the novel. The novel itself begins with a series of letters from the explorer Robert Walton to his sister, Margaret Saville. Walton, a well-to-do Englishman with a passion for seafaring, is the captain of a ship headed on a dangerous voyage to the North Pole. In the first letter, he tells his sister of the preparations leading up to his departure and of the desire burning in him to accomplish “some great purpose” discovering a northern passage to the Pacific, revealing the source of the Earth’s magnetism, or simply setting foot on undiscovered territory.

Ø Revolutionary Births:

Hardly a day goes by without our seeing an image or illusion to Frankenstein, from CNN descriptions of Saddam Hussein as an “American-created Frankenstein.” Born like its creator in an age of revolution, Frankenstein challenged accepted ideas of its day. As it has become increasingly co modified by modern consumer culture, one wonders whether its original revolutionary spirit and its critique of scientific, philosophical, and political and gender issues have become obscured instead its continuing transformation attests to its essential oppositional nature. Hardly a day goes by without out seeing an image or allusion to magazine articles that warn of genetically engineered “Frankenstein”, test-tube babies, and cloning.

Ø The creature as proletarian:

                       

            We recall from earlier chapters that Mary Shelly lived during times of great upheaval in Britain, not only was her own family full of radical thinkers but she also met many others such as Thomas Paine and William Blake, P.B.Shelley was thought of as a dangerous radical bent on labor reform and was spied upon by the government. Shelly also met many others such as Thomas Paine and William Blake. Mary Shelly’s Creature and moral paradox, both an innocent and cold-blooded murderer. Not only are the eternal questions about the ways of God and man in Paradise Lost relevant to the Creature’s predicament, but in Milton’s epic poem, as Timothy Morton puts it, as a “seminal work of republicanism and sublime that inspired many of the Romantics.” We can take help of the example from Milton’s “paradise lost”. In this epic God governed Satan. He thought it is better to rule in hell rather than heaven.

Ø From Natural Philosophy to Cyber:

Today in the age of genetic engineering, biotechnology and cloning, the most far-reaching industrialization of life forms to date. Frankenstein is more relevant than ever. Developments in science were increasingly critical to society during the Romantic period when a paradigm shift occurred from science as natural philosophy to science as biology, a crucial distinction in “Frankenstein”. Mary Shelley attended public demonstrations of the effect of electricity on animal and human bodies, living and dead. Has science gone too far? According to cultural critic Laura Kranzler, Victor’s creation of life and modern sperm banks and artificial wombs show a “masculine desire to claim female productivity”

‘Luigi Galvani's frog leg experiments’

Actually today we are constantly confronted with new developments in fertility science and new philosophical conundrums that result from genetic engineering, in vitro fertilization, cloning and the prolongation of life by artificial means. Couples taking fertility treatments sometimes have to face the difficult choice of “selective reduction” or the possible adverse results of multiple premature births. People wonder, has science gone too far? According to cultural critic, victor’s creation of life and modern sperm banks and artificial wombs show a masculine to claim female reproductively”. “Frankenstein” and its warnings about the hubris of science will be with us in the future as science continues to question the borders between life and death, between viability and selective reduction between living and life support. We can take example of a doctor who lives in Anand. He knows about the surrogate mother.

Ø Archetype of Frankenstein in popular culture:

Timothy Morton uses the term Frankenstein, drawn from sonic elements of language, as used in structural linguistics and visual elements as “elements of culture that are derived from “Frankenstein”. We end with a quick look at someof the thousands of retelling, parodies and other selected Frankenphemes as they have appeared in popular fiction, drama, film and television. 

Ø Fiction:

           Frankenstein’s fictions peter Haining, editor of the indispensable Frankenstein omnibus has called Frankenstein “the single greatest horror story novel ever written and the most widely influential in its genre”. The first story about a female monster is French author Villiers de Lisle Adam’s “the future Eve”, an 188 novelette not translated into English until fifty years later, in which an American inventor modes on Thomas Edison makes an artificial woman for his friend. Jack London’s early story, “A thousand Deaths” (189), is a gruesome science fiction tale of a scientist who stays at sea on his laboratory ship, repeatedly killing then reviving his son, until the son has enough and kills his father.

·       Conclusion :

In short in this novel we can find out some cultural elements and each and every literary work always coming with cultural elements in this way it provide some glimpse of culture of that era as wel as society represents in which it satisfied our curiosity about culture of victorian society and dealing with reality of life and greediness of human.

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