What the Monster really stood for
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a story about a scientist who generates another human made from mangled parts and the knowledge of science. This novel provides its readers with a strong message, that the influence of science on nature has consequences. This novel serves almost as a warning to the future, saying that science and society are going to ruin the pureness of nature in its entirety. When Dr. Frankenstein created the monster, the tone of the novel changed. As soon as the human race came into contact with the creation, they shunned him and were disgusted. This ignited a series of murders and the monster’s rage. The monster is a product of science and technology. Because the monster went ballistic and caused harm to many people, this metaphor proves that not only the advancements in the scientific world, but industrialization as a whole, are bringing down the righteousness of the world and the simplicity of nature. Through an understanding and realization of Shelley's warning, this generation is making great strides to reverse the effects of industrialization and push for a healthy, green movement.
Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, a romantic novel, at a time when the world was amid the turmoil of change and progress. Frankenstein reflects fear of the scientific revolution and symbolizes many aspects of the revolutionary spirit of the era. Being a traditionally romantic author, Shelley recognized the danger of l the time she was living in. As a kind of warning to society, she created the character of the monster in his scary story to be used as a symbol for industrialization. The negative side effects of creating the monster in the novel serve as a parallel to the effects of the revolution on nature.
In his corrupting pursuit for knowledge Victor Frankenstein is compared to Prometheus, as the novel's subtitle "The Modern Prometheus" suggests. In Greek and Roman mythology, the Titan Prometheus creates mankind as an image of the Gods. Later he steals the precious fire form Olympus and gives it to mankind. He is punished by Zeus, who has him chained to a rock, where day by day an eagle would eat out his liver, which would then grow back. It is a typical example of "hubris", where a character is doomed because he transgresses his limits and rises up against some sort of authority, in Greek mythology usually a divine authority. The mythological Prometheus rebelled against the Gods when he gave fire to humankind; Frankenstein is a rebel against nature when he tries not only to find the secret of life but also to remove life's defects. But even more so, in Victor Frankenstein both aspects of the Prometheus myth are embodied: the transgressive (hubris/rebellion against authority) and the creative (Prometheus also molded mankind from pieces of clay). Therefore Frankenstein is truly a drama of the romantic promethean hero who fails in his attempt to help mankind.
Feminist literary theory claims that Frankenstein's act of creation is not only a sin against God/nature. It is also an act against the "female principle", which includes natural procreation as one of its central aspects. The Monster, the result of male arrogance, is the enemy and destroyer of the eternal female principle. The Monster is the child of an unnatural act of procreation in which woman has become unnecessary. The male, who is the executive power in a patriarchal system, has deprived woman of her most natural function because he is now able to create children without female participation. The present discussion about genetic engineering and human cloning shows that this is not a far-fetched utopia. At least in his subconscious Frankenstein must have realized his crime against the "female principle", which becomes clear in the following symbolic dream. In the night after the reanimation of the Monster Victor has a nightmare in which he kills his mother and his fiancé.
Ultimately, the overwhelming fear of scientific advances and technological discoveries was the driving force for Shelley's writing of Frankenstein. The monster was a symbol of the detrimental damage that industrialization would have on society and nature.