Mary Shelley's Frankenstein - REVIEW

[CactusSmasher]

Finally, after years of owning this book and never once opening it, I've read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. And it is as good as its everlasting legacy would lead you to believe. It all starts here: mad science, ability vs. morality, the ethics of life, and the creator destroying the created. All themes that would be explored in latter day science fiction. Indeed, though the actual mechanics of the Creature's creation are glossed over, Victor Frankenstein's hubristic rejection of the alchemists of old and the embracing of science is a shocking and thoroughly modern concept that could not have existed without the great scientific strides that inspired Mary Shelley to write her novel. But what surprised me the most about this novel is that it's ambitions are far less Gothic horror and far more of an intimate, tragic nature. The focus of the book is entirely the relationship between the doctor and his creation. Deprived of love due to his monstrous appearance, the Creature only lashes out when the whole world has rejected him, including his own "father". And Frankenstein's refusal to take responsibility for his creation, as well as his refusal to see his creation as a man, fully formed and with thoughts and feelings just as powerful as his own, leads to both of their downfalls. Constant stimulating questions abound: Is it right to play God? Can a creature in the shape of a man, with human feelings and a human's intellect truly be considered a man? Are there limits to how far we should take science? Shelley writes of these events with an incredible amount of intelligence and compassion for her characters. The Creature is not a monstrous villain and Frankenstein is not a heartless mad scientist. Both are living, breathing people, and indeed, this powerful novel shows us that love, that mysterious emotion that the Creature craves and the Doctor withholds, is the only thing that could have saved them both.

(Yes, I know, I've never read Frankenstein before, don't give me that look! )

[gali]

Duplicated topic

Frankenstein