TO EVALUATE MY ASSIGNMENT
Paper Name : ROMANTIC LITERATURE
Assignment Topic : Frankenstein
as gothic scientific fiction
Name: Solanki Pintu V
Sem : 2
Roll No : 31
Enrollment No: PG15101037
Submitted to :
M.K. BHAVNAGAR UNIVERSITY
Department Of English
vFrankenstein
as a Gothic Science Fiction
v About the author;
Ø Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley was a British novelist,
dramatist, short story writer, biographer, travel writer, essayist and editor
of the works of her husband, Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe
Shelley. She was the daughter of the political philosopher William
Godwin and the writer, philosopher, and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft.
Mary Shelley was taken
seriously as a writer in her own lifetime, though reviewers often missed the
political edge to her novels. After her death, however, she was chiefly
remembered only as the wife of Percy Bysshe Shelley and as the author
of Frankenstein.
It was not until 1989, when Emily Sunstein
published her prizewinning biography Mary Shelley: Romance and Reality,
that a full-length scholarly biography analyzing all of Shelley's letters,
journals, and works within their historical context was published.
v Introducing the Novel
"I busied myself to think of a story, .
. . One which would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature and awaken
thrilling horror".
—Mary Shelley
Frankenstein; or, The Modern
Prometheus is a novel written by the English author Shelley. she started
writing the story when she was 18, and the first edition of the novel was
published secretly in London in 1818, when she was 20. Shelley's name first
appeared on the second edition, published in France in 1823.
Frankenstien is a story with many
ideas. The main being scientists should not play god and judging by
appearances.
The author Mary Shelley brings these
ideas to light through a story about an ambitious inventor named Frankenstien
and his creation the monster. Frankenstien has spent many years trying to
create something better than human-angelic even but the outcome is not what he
expects when he creates what appears to be a monster.
After
being abandoned by his creator the monster goes in search of love and
friendship but soon finds out that life doesn’t work that way the story follows
his search for friendship and his downfall.
v Frankenstein
as a Science Fiction
Ø Definition
of Gothic fiction
Gothic fiction is a type of novel or
romance popular in the late 18th and early 19th c. The word ‘gothic’ had come
to mean ‘wild’, ‘barbarous’ and ‘crude’. The plots hinged on suspense and
mystery, involving the fantastic and the supernatural.
Gothic fiction (sometimes referred to as
Gothic horror) is a genre of literature that combines elements of both horror
and romance. As a genre, it is generally believed to have been invented by the
English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel The Castle of Ottranto.
Prominent features of Gothic fiction
include terror (both psychological and physical), mystery, the supernatural,
ghosts, darkness, death, decay, atmosphere of doom plots hinging on suspense and
mystery. In gothic fiction, characters are overcome with anger, sorrow and
terror.
Ø Science
Fiction :-
This is where it gets
interesting: Frankenstein is often considered the first work of
science fiction. What's key is that the science isn't just window-dressing: the
whole point of the novel is to explore heavy questions about What It All
Means, where "It" can be loosely translated as "science,
fate, free will, nature, and humanity."
Ø What are
some characteristics of gothic science fiction?
Gothic
literature has certain qualities the influence the story or paper. It
usually has a mystery involved, secrets, curses, murder, and the illusion
of ghosts or the supernatural.
The setting often entails components
such as castles, mansions, secluded streets, fog, chilly air, and remote
areas. Writers from the Victorian era began to include the dynamic of
psychologically confused or torn characters. Romantic undertones are also
present.
v Frankenstein
as a Gothic Science Fiction
Frankenstein is an example of a gothic
novel. In Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, the Romantic, Gothic and Science
Fiction elements are combined to create a mysterious and supernatural novel.
The
situation were Victor Frankenstein use body parts to create a monster gives a
sense of terror and the idea of creating life is just unbelievable and
terrifying. The way Victor develops this task with science and technology is a
new element for the readers at 1818, which adds to the story Science Fiction
and causes the public to question or give an opinion on Victor's use of death
for scientific experimentation and the creation of new life.
There is no logical or valid reason why Victor decides to create a monster other than ambition. This feeling is often being presented as wrong, and this is why it is represented by Frankenstein, a monster.
"Supremely frightful would be the effect of any human Endeavor to mock the stupendous mechanism of the creator of the world."
There is no logical or valid reason why Victor decides to create a monster other than ambition. This feeling is often being presented as wrong, and this is why it is represented by Frankenstein, a monster.
"Supremely frightful would be the effect of any human Endeavor to mock the stupendous mechanism of the creator of the world."
-Mary Shelley
Ø Creation of
monsters or supernatural beings
It is one of the themes of the gothic novel
and gothic fiction which is common to the two works of fiction. In
Frankenstein, the hero decides to invent a creature that will resemble a human
being. He says:
“I
resolved to make the being of a gigantic stature, that is to say, about
eight feet in height, and proportionally large.”
He starts assembling materials: “I
collected bones from charnel-houses and disturbed, with profane fingers, the
tremendous secrets of the human frame. The dissecting room and the
slaughter-house furnished many of my materials.”
The
reader witnesses the creation of the monster in chapter 5. The weather is
queer, it is raining, the narrator is anxious. The operation takes place in a
“dreary night”.
The
time is symbolic: “It was already one in the morning”.
The narrator describes the coming
into life of the monster: I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it
breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.
His
limbs were in proportion His yellow skin
scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a
lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriance only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that
seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were
set, his shriveled complexion and straight black lips.
Frankenstein also has a certain spiritualism and you could say that Mary Shelley wants to give the reader a kind of warning and teaching through the death of Victor's brother William and the tragic events that the Frankenstein family experience due to this fatal experiment: the monster, his own creation.
v Frankenstein
is Science fiction
Science fiction explores "the
marvels of discovery and achievement that may result from future developments
in science and technology". Mary Shelley used some of the most recent
technological finding of her time to create Frankenstein.
She has replaced the heavenly fire of the
Prometheus myth with the spark of newly discovered electricity. The concepts of
electricity and warmth led to the discovery of the galvanization process, which
was said to be the key to the animation of life. Indeed, it is this process
which animates Frankenstein's monster.
Frankenstein is science fiction: it
is a work of fiction in which science plays a major part. Victor Frankenstein
is a scientist, the events in the story occur as a result of his scientific
experimentation, and as such science becomes closely related to some of the
novel's themes.
The use of science in the novel is, of
course, much deeper than this simple description and shortly will be discussed
further, but this basic description is sufficient for the pure purpose of
establishing the novel as a work of science fiction.
v CONCLUSION:-
Frankenstein by Mary
Shelley is a Gothic Scientific Fiction novel in genre. And we prove this
thing with the help of this all the things. What
makes Frankenstein endure as an exemplary Gothic Scientific
Fiction is the fact that it takes on these characteristics and concerns that
are so central to romantic writing and challenges the common use and treatment
of them.
Frankenstein is an example of a
gothic novel. In Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, the Romantic, Gothic and Science
Fiction elements are combined to create a mysterious and supernatural novel.
TO EVALUATE MY ASSIGNMENT
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