English Literature: Novel Analysis

FRANKENSTEIN

 

Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein was published on January 1, 1818. The Gothic stories that were first emerging are for the ruined castles, castles, monasteries, and spirits hidden passages and vast dense forests in the majestic medieval atmosphere. Evil, intrigue, violence, incest and rape are common themes. Until  Marry Shelly  wrote the novel Frankstein.

The novel describes the tragic relationship between medical student Victor Frankenstein and the freak creature he created. "We must first apply to death to investigate the source of life," said Dr.. Frankenstein was able to “give life to inanimate beings” after long studies. “I had to cross the border between life and death and shed a flood of light in our dark world. Frankenstein discovered the secret of life as a result of her experiments and decided to use it by creating a superior person as a result of her experiments. It brings together the corpse pieces collected from graves and slaughterhouses. And in the end, he creates the freak that is anonymous in the novel. (Contrary to what is known, Frankenstein is the name of the creator, not the creature.) In this book, the main hero is not a woman, nor is there an important woman victim. However, it is very difficult to find another work written by a woman in the history of literature that can be examined by taking into account the gender of the author. Considered as the first example of the genre called science fiction today, the work is mostly evaluated as a criticism of the ideology of Enlightenment and fear of the results of scientific developments during the 19th century.

However, there are different readings. For example, according to some, Frankenstein is a "birth myth" written because the author herself is already a mother. It is useful to know some important parts of Mary Shelley's life to read Frankenstein as myth of birth. Living her first pregnancy at the age of 16, Mary Shelley is almost always pregnant for the next five years; however, she is an unmarried mother who lost her babies a few months after birth. Under these conditions, the author begins to write Frankenstein. And it is a born monster.

It would make sense to look at the period Frankenstein was written to understand the relationship between women's literature and the experience of giving birth. In the 18th and 19th centuries (at least in the west), few important female writers had children, the majority were single or childless. Perhaps the more important reason was the difficulty of writing about women's experience at the time when women were not welcome to write. Mary Shelley was born in fiction with the story of a mad scientist who was a monster, who tried to create a human by locking himself in her laboratory, secretly and guilt, before all the writers, not with the realistic genre, but with the gothic genre.

The Romantic and Gothic tradition is the literature of heroes that go far beyond the boundaries: superpeople who go beyond normal human restrictions to resist the rules of society or violate God's rules. The heroine of Mary Shelley is different. Dr. Frankenstein's desire to go beyond the prohibited limits of science is not to prolong his own life, but to create a new person.

He stands for mortality not by living forever, but by creating a new person. This indicates a change that has not been seen from the ancient myths up to that time. Since its publication, literary critics have made numerous comments about Frankenstein, and many filmmakers, playwrights have been influenced by the novel. Despite the novel's idea and anonymity, its creature, named after the main character's name, was almost a phrase used to describe the dangers of scientific knowledge. It was also seen as an existential novel that tells the division between mind and emotion, an attack on traditions, a novel in which racist prejudices are criticized.

 

I think that a novel written 200 years ago is still in the focus of such lively discussions and open to countless comments can only be explained by the author's extraordinary intelligence and talent. Moreover, if we consider intelligent robots, cloned creatures and artificial intelligence discussions, it seems that it will continue to talk and write about Frankenstein for a longer time.

 

 

TWO MAIN CHARACTERS

VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN

Frankenstein was born in a wealthy family and grew up in love with his half-sister. He is intelligent, sensitive and obsessed with the secrets of life. The University of Ingoldstadt operates natural sciences. Professor M. Waldman encourages him to do his experiments in extraordinary science. Victor also works to create a body of necessary parts from the cemeteries. After long studies, he creates a creature and kidnaps it.

When he hears the story of the beast and the threat of killing him, he agrees to make him a female wife, provided that they live far from people. However, if he thinks there may be worse, it will break the body. He blames himself for the consequences of the monster's behavior, but he does not understand the monster's revenge and cannot take responsibility.

Although he learns of the beast's help to people in the hut, he is worried that the beast will harm others. Probe shows selfishness by asking Waldon's crew to continue their journey to kill the Monster without thinking about them.

Although Victor is selfish, he's not his family. They adopted an orphan girl. Victor does not undertake the responsibility of the Monster he created, and he does not admit his guilt that he knows that Justine does not commit the murder. Elizabeth, however, defends Justine without knowing the incident.

 

MONSTER

It is so ugly that it was created by Victor Frankenstein and is a mixture of parts of the human body that his creator could not look at the gall face. He was very sensitive initially and not selfish like Victor. However, thanks to the society, it gets worse over time. He tells that if he does not make a wife before Victor, he will harm his family, and if Victor does not, he will kill Victor's family. Then Victor goes to the North in pain when he dies, because his creator is also dead, he is now lonely. It gets worse because it feels lonely and excluded.