Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

TOPIC OF THE BLOG:-

This blog is a part of a thinking activity given by Yesha ma'am from The English Department, MKBU, Bhavnagar. Check out Yesha Bhatt's Blog (Click here) for more information and knowledge about Frankenstein, Mary Shelley and other works and writers. In this blog I am going to discuss The Frankenstein novel by Mary Shelley. 

MARY SHELLEY:- 

Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley was born on 30 August 1797 in London, England and died on 1 February 1851 in London, England. She is very famous, respected and one of the earliest female writers and romantic novelists of English literature. She is known for her best work Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus published in 1818. She married Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1816 after Shelley’s first wife had committed suicide. Mary has 4 children. She was the only daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft, the early feminist (one who works on behalf of women's rights) and author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. And her father William Godwin, the political writer and novelist, both of whom objected to the institution of marriage. Mary's mother died after ten days of giving birth to Mary. After her husband’s death in 1822, she returned to England and devoted herself to publicizing Shelley’s writings and to educating their only surviving child, Percy Florence Shelley. 

WORKS:-

• History of a Six Weeks’ Tour (1817)
• Falkner (1837)
• Frankenstein or modern Prometheus (1818)
• Lodore (1835)
• Selected letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley 
• The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck (1830)
• The Journals of Mary Shelley - 1814-1844
• The last man (1826)
• Valperga (1823)
• Mathilda (1959)
• The Mortal Immortal (1833)
• The Penny Dreadfuls: Tales of Horror: Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Picture of Dorian Gray (by Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, and Oscar Wilde)
• The Dream (1832)
• Maurice (1998)
• Dracula (1897)
• Rambles in Germany and Italy (1844)
• Proserpine & Midas (1922)
• Mary and Maria (by Mary Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft) 
• Mounseer Nongtongpaw (poem - 1808) and others...

QUESTIONS OF THE FRANKENSTEIN NOVEL:-

1:- WHO DECIDES WHAT BEAUTY IS? IS IT FOR REAL OR SUPERFICIAL?

🌸Beauty, this word has different meanings from person to person. But if you ask me what Beauty is? According to me I clearly can say there are so many meanings of beauty like inner beauty, outer beauty, beauty in nature, beauty in our sight, beauty in our thoughts and everything which delights our soul is beautiful. 

"Beauty is power, a smile is its sword."

- John Ray

"Let us live for the beauty of our own reality."

 - Charles Lamb

"Beauty is truth's smile when she Beholds her on face in a perfect mirror."

- Rabindranath Tagore 

"If the path be beautiful, lat us not ask where it leads."

- Anatole France

"Beauty awakens the soul to act."

- Dante Alighieri

"Things are beautiful if you love them."

- Jean Anouilh

"The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express. "

- Francis Bacon

"Personal beauty is a greatest recommendation than any letter of reference."

- Aristotle 

Through all these quotes by great writers, philosophers and others, we can clearly see how the standard of beauty and meaning of beauty changes from person to person. If we ask what is the outer beauty? Someone says that outer beauty means what we can see at first sight, like personality, how they wear their clothes, how they behave, and how they look. And inner beauty deals with our inner personality. What we think and that's reflected in our behaviour. And directly inner beauty has a connection with love. 

In Frankenstein this theme of beauty is something important that reflects the true image of society. Creature made by victor is someone whose outer look decides how he is and he is good or not. He is really good hearted in the beginning of the novel but he becomes more and more crucial when people judge him by his outer look. Even Victor rejects him cause he is afraid when he sees his creature for the first time. So, how can we expect from others that they can accept the creature? 

So, the people of society decide what is beauty and what is not by their outer look according to this Novel. But we should note that inner beauty is more important than outer duty.

2:- WHAT MADE CREATURE MONSTER?

🌸 The centre of the novel or any work inspires by surrounding atmosphere or by our experience. Here is the same thing we can see clearly. If I want to say in a line that what made this creature a monster, I say that behaviour and rejection which this creature experienced by the people made him a monster. Even when he helped The DeLacey Family, he is treated as evil monster. Old person of the family is blind that's why he sees monster's heart not his outer look. But when his son come he beat the creature and get him out of the house. This is creatures bitterest experience that made him monster. First his own creator rejected him but he thinks that other people accept him but he proves wrong. Even writing, thinking and speaking learn by his own. If victor accepted him in never be the monster.

3:- VILLAIN IN FRANKENSTEIN.

🌸When we talk about villain or antagonist of the story we picturised that the perticular person is bad in deeds. They don't have any positive side and always doing wrong thing without any reason. But here is different meaning of villain that what brings so many deaths in this novel.  So, here Questions arrive who and how become villain in this novel.

• First let's look to Victor:-

Victor is a creator of the creature and that's why it's normal that creature expect from him that he take good care of him but it isn't happen. Victor reject his own creation so creature has no option and go out in the world to find a person who don't judge him and admire him. And cause of victor's rejection he go outside and face so many problems and cause of all what happened with him he became monster. So if we see from the point of you real villain is Victor. He should know that if he make something you should accepted it doesn't matter how it is. 

• Creature:-

If we see only outer meaning of the novel Creature of the victor consider as a villain of the novel but is he really a villain? According to me no he isn't and why so I have reason that in starting of the novel he is really like child who don't know anything and try to survive he actually has a good heart and we can see that when he helps this family in their work but what is the result?? That he got beaten up.  And the rejection from the everyone he feel very neglected and that is the reason he kill victor's loved ones to feel Victor the same rejection that he gave to monster. So I cannot consider creature as a real villain of the novel.

• Society:-

Society is the word from everyone can relate effectively. Society is the one who thinks that it has every rule and power to decide all peoples life. In this society made rule that, illogical rule I can say that who is not beautiful from outer side doesn't have any right to live in the society or between the society. It's not fault of ourselves but some particular person in the society who hammering this rules. Of course I say Victor is the villain of the novel in a sense but he do this experiment for people sake that no one will died in the future and if they died through experiment people can alive again. So this hungerness of life what him make do this experiment. So in the other sense he also is not a truly villain of the novel. But this society prove as real villain of the novel or our life. 

4:- WHY VICTOR WAS NOT ABLE TO ACCEPT HIS DREAM EXPERIMENT AND ITS RESULT?

🌸 If a person do something with so many hope he or she have vision for succession of his or her work. And if a person failed in there were they loose all his hopes. And that's one of the reason that particular person is not able to face result of their work. In this novel Victor is also face the same problem. He has so many hope that he can alive dead person. But after the succession of his creation. He really afraid and start to regret that what he done. It thinks that he can't accept his own creation how can others accept him. And if everyone knows that Victor means he made this creature everyone hates him. Victor cannot resist the ugliness of his creation and rejects him. And it's became a main reason with he is not able to accept his dream creation and it's result. 

 

5:- SEARCH FOR LIFE.

🌸 In this section of life searching Robert, Victor and creature are the central of this idea. Robert Robert set out to reach the tip of the North Pole and where he find Victor in ice. After Victor describe him that how creature kill his all loved ones and he is in his way to find creature and kill him. And creature is also in the way to kill Victor. These three person are has some call to complete. Of course for Robert is life's dream is to reach at the end of the north pole and that's why here is considered as a search for life for Robert. Victor and creature has only one girl to kill each other. However, After victors death creature regrets his thought to kill him. But for Victor there is only one thing to do now in his life to kill to creature. And for Victor research of life is to kill creature. At the same time creature has go to kill Victor and its become his search of life. According to me that's how they three are describing their search of life.

NOTE:- If you find any problem or question or suggestions please let me know ☺️ some of the information are collected from the different sources which I mentioned after the perticular lines. 

For the movie review of the Frankenstein (1994) Click here.