Frankenstein

I’ve just finished chapter 7 of The Modern Prometheus (Frankenstein’s more pretentious title) and I must say that despite how my reading of the book is entirely colored by my recent obsession with Promethean I see a huge deal of allegory in the book that fascinates and excites me, and I very much enjoy the moralizing done by Shelley (she was the kick-ass daughter of a kick-ass feminist)

From what I can tell, the book is a huge conceit about modernization and industrialization, and is meant to be a warning about it. Shelley even has Victor muse about how it is best for one to pursue only that which will keep one at peace, and that any other pursuit, even an academic one, which upsets tranquility is not something to be followed. She has Victor learn of alchemy and science, and apply science to create his own creature. And he says it himself, that it wasn’t science that led to his ultimate destruction, but rather his ambitions toward the philosopher’s stone and the elixir of life that did it. This, and how during the year that he labored over the creation of his monster he ignores the beauty of the land around him, says that it is not inherently the pursuit of knowledge or the betterment of mankind that creates the huge destructive consequences of the industrialization of the world, but rather the too grandiose ambitions of those who have lost sight of nature and reality that does so.

The monster is then of course an embodiment of the consequences of industrialization. First he sees the effects of modernization in his own home (among his laboratory and his apparatus that his friend must remove,) and he shuns it. He falls ill, and with his friend he begins to observe the world around him again and, attaching himself back to reality, recovers. Then when the monster kills his brother and he sees it out in the woods in a thunderstorm, this represents being able to see the effects of technology that challenges the world too much affecting nature itself. Even the way that his old servant is being blamed for his brother’s death is part of the allegory. Not able to see that (literally being unaware of, in the case of Victor’s family) that the poor effects on the world (the death of Victor’s brother [Henry? I think?]) are caused by the over-ambition of industrialization (Frankenstein’s monster,) those in power (those accusing the servant) blame the poor/immoral (the servant, who is not actually immoral, but is perceived to be such.)

So I’m really enjoying this book basically. It gets my horror RPG nerves stimulated. Much more engaging than Dracula was 🙂