The Role of Science in "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley

How Is Science Portrayed in Frankenstein?

Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein examines the pursuit of knowledge within the context of the Industrial Age, shining a spotlight on the ethical, moral, and religious implications of science. Though terms like "knowledge," "possibility," and "progress," so often associated with science, almost exclusively carry positive connotations, it is important to remember that they are not inherently good things—something which Shelley's novel helps us remember.

The tragic example of Victor Frankenstein serves to generally highlight the danger of man’s unbridled thirst for knowledge and science that lacks morality. The scientist grows obsessive as he learns how to reanimate non-living material, and pursues his project at all costs, often neglecting all other aspects of his life. After such dedication to his work, Frankenstein is horrified by his reanimated man and runs from it upon its awakening.

By abandoning the monster, Frankenstein instills hatred and a thirst for vengeance in his creation's heart, an act which has led many readers to question the scientist's morality. This leads the monster to strangle his youngest brother William and frame the Frankensteins' young servant Justine for the act, which leads to her execution:

During the whole of this wretched mockery of justice I suffered living torture. It was to be decided, whether the result of my curiosity and lawless devices would cause the death of two of my fellow-beings: one a smiling babe, full of innocence and joy; the other far more dreadfully murdered, with every aggravation of infamy that could make the murder memorable in horror. Justine also was a girl of merit, and possessed qualities which promised to render her life happy: now all was to be obliterated in an ignominious grave; and I the cause!

This sort of language pervades the second half of the novel, in which Victor Frankenstein wallows about in the wake and wreckage of his terrible machinations. He is bowed down constantly and "torn by remorse, horror, and despair" because he did not properly evaluate the moral implications and real-world consequences of his reanimation project.

While this is certainly a major aspect of Shelley's novel and a common interpretation of the fallout of Frankenstein's monster, deeper consideration of the novel’s text reveals a subtle contradiction to such an interpretation.

While Shelley exemplifies the disastrous effect of the unmitigated desire to possess the secrets of the earth, she employs a subtext filled with contradictory language, which implies that such curiosity is innate to mankind and virtually inextricable from the human condition.

Perversion of the Natural Order

The creation of Frankenstein's monster is presented as an unsurpassed feat of scientific discovery, yet one that brings only sorrow, terror, and devastation to his maker. In a sense, the creation of the monster is a punishment inflicted upon Frankenstein for his unbridled pursuit of knowledge. This reflects themes presented in Christopher Marlowe's Dr. Faustus, in which Faustus is condemned to hell for his overreaching ambition.

The ambitions of Faustus and Frankenstein appear to be beyond the range of information available to mortals and are, in fact, infringing upon knowledge meant only for the Divine. In the case of Frankenstein, he has usurped the power of God by creating life without the union of male and female.

Deconstructing the Speech of Victor

Just one paragraph after the revelation of Victor's discovery, one that appears to defy the natural order concerning life and death, Victor delivers a warning regarding the thirst for knowledge that he himself has fallen victim to: "Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge…." Yet this statement is fraught with contradiction.

Victor first commands his listener to "learn" from him and then paradoxically warns of the danger of knowledge. Knowledge is inextricably linked with learning; by nature, one leads to the other. Victor could have easily inserted a similar phrase such as "Listen to me." Because he has not, the clause "how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge" directly contradicts the command, implying that the listener ought not to heed his advice.

Victor goes on to assert that the man "who believes his native town to be the world" is "happier" than one imbued with the thirst for knowledge. While it appears that Victor is endeavoring to glorify a simpler, more provincial life, there is a condescending tone at work.

The use of the word "believes" implies ignorance; it insinuates that such a man holds an opinion that is not based on fact or empirical evidence. The use of the word "native" also implies a primitive person, since in Shelley's time, the word would have had far deeper implications of ignorance than the manner in which it is used today.

While the word appears synonymous with "hometown," the effect on the nineteenth-century listener is to evoke images of a primitive, largely uneducated man, perhaps only a few degrees removed from the "savages" of distant regions. Subtly implied through such subtext is the notion that it is, in fact, the ambitious man that is held in higher esteem and that it is far superior to thirst for knowledge than to languish in ignorance.

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Curiosity and Discovery

Victor's speech is grandiose in scale as he purports to speak for a vast section of humanity. Victor effectively becomes a representative of mankind, who is supposed to eschew knowledge beyond "what nature will allow." Yet, in reality, he finds this quest for knowledge irresistible. In this language of double meanings, Victor, and perhaps even Shelley through him, is making a statement that the fundamental nature of human experience may indeed be to push beyond and surpass the natural limits that have been created.

In Shelley's time, with the advent of such spectacular scientific breakthroughs as electricity by figures like André Marie Ampère and Michael Faraday, there is certainly much evidence for this mode of thought. Though Victor warns against unbridled curiosity, he also serves as a harbinger of the discoveries to come, discoveries made possible through the inability of mankind to accept its natural limitations.

Shelley's Literary Context

In terms of her literary era, Shelley's subtle explication of a fundamental human need to exceed boundaries is not isolated to her novel. Indeed, she was the wife of the famous English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and the two of them were part of a larger movement in art and thought known as the Romantic Movement.

One hallmark of Romantic poetry was that it sought the realization of an inward image or a private vision that was not available to the generalized person and that was wholly unnatural because it did not exist "out there" in the world of nature but only in the mind of the poet.

This idea was famously described by James Joyce's alter-ego Stephen Dedalus in The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, who said that the image was "apprehended as one thing...self-bounded and self-contained upon the immeasurable background of space or time which it is not," and that only the artist whose mind is seized by "a luminous stasis of esthetic pleasure" apprehends its complete essence.

So, it is possible that Frankenstein's subtly contradictory language which points to a necessary inability to accept limitation is yet another reformulation of the centrality of the image in the Romantic literary tradition. But, this is, of course, only one abstract and somewhat psychological way of interpreting the language of Shelley's novel.

The Future of Science

Shelley wrote Frankenstein during an age when scientific advances were exploding rapidly. The discovery of such concepts as electricity had the power to effectively shake the foundations of previously established constructs and truths about the natural world.

What is interesting to note, however, is that these issues, considered very "modern" in Shelley's day, continue to resound within our present age. Our society currently wrestles with such issues as artificial intelligence, cloning, DNA, genetics, neuroscience, and stem cells, which ultimately leads to controversy regarding the roles, uses, and limitations of science.

The book exists not as a static representation of a period in history but as continued fodder for timeless questions on the role of science in human progress, technology, and evolution.

Robert Oppenheimer: A Real-World Frankenstein

Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer can be thought of as a sort of real-world Victor Frankenstein, in that he used science to push the boundaries of what was possible for humans.