FRANKENSTEIN- Mary SHELLEY

After a long break, I am back, hello! I hope everything is going well with you. Unfortunately, we all go through a difficult process globally. Hundreds of people die, and it is not clear when these days will end. Therefore, it is necessary to pay attention to hygiene and social distance these days. We should not go out unless it is compulsory, we need to make use of our time well at home. For Turkey, education continues online. As we all know, only online education is not enough, there is a lot to improve ourselves in these days when we stay at home. Moreover, this doesn't have to be just a subject related to school. There are thousands of different types of online courses available from all over the world. Many of them are free so everyone can reach them. I will mention a book comment in this post, who knows, maybe I will contribute someone to read😌.

19th-Century Literature and The Importance of the Family in Frankenstein 

  It is a 19th-century novel written by English writer Mary Shelley between the ages of 18 and 19, considered one of the first works of the science-fiction and gothic genre. His full name is "Frankenstein or, the Modern Prometheus". On the other hand, it is the book that is a perfect representative of the romantic literary movement. Coincidence, characters, stopping the flow of events, and constantly entering nature descriptions and city narratives and also the creature support this. It offers a good example of the romantic literary movement based on coincidences for example; the creature reaches directly from Ingolstadt to Genoa, killing William as soon as he arrives and hiding his miniature into Justine’s dress, the story of an Arabian girl, books he found in the woods, etc. Our characters are virtuous, self-sacrificing, gentleman, literary, compassionate, and even our “creature” is very nice at first. The romantic period writers are in an effort to resist robotics, excessive scientific advances, and analytics, as the industrial revolution also emerges during the romantic period and reveals a scientific study, production, and mechanization. Besides, with its gloomy, depressing structure, scary decors, and chilling and endless corridors, we encounter an old mansion or castle; a place likely to appear in typical gothic literary works. Of course, the big halls, the creaking stairs, the sinister shapes on the dark walls lit by the candlelight, the indispensable elements of these genres, the uncertain moans, the humming and the scary cry that cuts the silence of the night like a knife is perhaps the most important element of the horror stories. Its surroundings are not very pleasant. The devil definition, ghosts, witches, evil spirits and various monsters, which emerged as a result of the overwhelming religious pressure of the medieval age, triggered the emergence of this new species.  

    

  Frankenstein; although it is passed down from generation to generation as a horror classic, there is no direct reference to fear in the story. Frankenstein is an over-ambitious and curious about science. As a result of very long studies, he collected bones from charnel-houses and disturbed, with profane fingers, the tremendous secrets of the human frame, but escaped with disgust for what he did and created at that moment. Whereas what he created seems like a monster, he was born with a baby mind, and in need of care and love. Referred to as the "creature" because a creator has not even been given a name, this creature learns to survive, look after, speak and read alone, but in all this process needs love and friend. He is very lonely and it tears his heart apart. This poor creature, constantly humiliated by people for its physical properties, only requires love. Inevitably, someone who has never seen any love from anyone and has been humiliated throughout his life will eventually become a tyrant. In fact, although the creature seems to hate its creator, this creature, which also killed itself after the creator's death, has shown how much it loves its creator and to be accepted by it. Frankenstein's ambition, the horrible consequence of trying to use science for humanity, and his lessons from this ambition and questioning his secret to anyone, questions the scientific developments of the time. Despite the fact that Frankenstein's monster is full of goodness, people do not give him any chance, even try to kill him when he does good, and eventually, the creature turns into a villain because of the suffering he suffers.  

  Mary Shelley described the relationship between God and man or family and son in the novel. A man comes to the world clean without sin, but family, people, the environment and events can make him an evil creature. A family can significantly change a person. In this society, most people who grow up in a normal and healthy family will have a good personality, kindness, and happiness such as Victor Frankenstein. With the lack of a female lead character, Mary Shelley is making a point at how women’s roles are incorporated into the family dynamic. Almost every family mentioned in the novel was either incomplete or was dysfunctional. Frankenstein’s family, in particular, was missing a female role. The Frankenstein family had no mother, but they did have Elizabeth who was the only female in the house and she was adopted when she was just a child. If we look at the relationships in the family, maybe it can be said that there is an incest relationship between Victor Frankenstein and Elizabeth. Elizabeth was from a noble family from Milan, her mother died while giving birth to her, and her father died in the war of independence so she was given adoption to another family. She adopted by Victor's mother, Caroline Beaufort, from where she was adopted. Victor and Elizabeth called each other friendly, cousins. However, Victor saw Elizabeth as his gift more than his sister until he died. The hopes of the whole family were on the marriage of Elizabeth and Victor. When Caroline died: "My children," she said, "my most hopeful happiness for the future was about your marriage one day. Elizabeth, my dear, for your little cousins, you must fill the gap I left.” As we can infer from these sentences, Elizabeth will replace the mother figure throughout the novel. If we look at the relationship of Caroline Beaufort and Alphonse Frankenstein, we can say that there is an age difference between them because Caroline is the daughter of Alphonse's best friend. More importantly, when Beaufort died, Alphonse made himself look like a guardian angel and took Caroline under his protection. Two years later, he married Caroline. After the examination of the family structures, we can continue with the emphasis on the importance of the family. Victor states how happy and beautiful his childhood was with these words: “no youth could have passed more happily than this.” The Frankenstein family has been noble and comprised of senior government officials for generations. In this family, we see that children are loved and there is given importance to education. When victor turns 17, his father sends Victor to Ingolstadt University in Germany, as he believes that the traditions of other countries must be seen in order to complete his education. This is evidence of the importance given to education. On the other hand, there is Henry Clerval, the son of a merchant father, Victor's friend. Henry also wants to go with Victor, but in terms of family, he is not as lucky as Victor. He felt deeply the misfortune of being deprived of free education. When he explained this situation to his father, his father was looking at Henry's ambitions as idleness and ruin. When Victor left for school and started to pursue his independent studies, he was so consumed in this work of his that he completely stopped talking to the people who had raised and loved him all those years and played a huge role in making him the person that he is. It all started here.   

    

  Victor succumbs to his extreme ambition and creates a creature by putting himself in the place of "God" and says "now I know what it's like to be God!" He saw life and death as the perfect border surrounding the being, and he wanted to pierce it. Victor wanted a new species to bless him as his creator and owe their existence to him. a horrible creature comes out, and Victor can't tell anyone. The creature didn't know anything at first. There was no difference between the newborn baby and the creature. There were no people around to interact with. He feels loneliness deep inside his heart. Since human is a social being by nature, the creature's need for sociality and communication increases more and more. The creature finds a family. He observes them and learns the human language, just like a baby, chatting with the family's blind grandfather. The creature hope and desire family happiness. The De Lacey family noticed the creature and they were also tried to kill the monster just like everybody. After that, the creature could not forget the human’s malevolent. Loneliness makes him crazy, begs Victor; the monster asks him to create opposite sex of his own kind but his request was not accepted. Unfortunately, the creature was never able to find a group of people that would accept him as a family member because of his outward appearance. Victor also gets sick. He has no one to talk about the serious events he has experienced. He cannot talk to his family, because he is far away. They both felt some type of suffering from not having anyone to openly talk to about what they were going through.   

  Moreover, there are many similarities between the author's life story and the work. She was born into an intellectual family. Unfortunately for Shelley, it was not possible to truly recognize her mother, who died shortly after her birth. His father, William Godwin, had to take care of Shelley and his half-sister Fanny Imlay alone just like in the Frankenstein family. In 1814, Mary began to experience love by meeting the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Mary and Percy Shelley toured Europe for a while. They struggled with economic difficulties and suffered a huge shock in the death of their first child in 1815. Later that year, Mary suffered the second devastation due to her half-sister who committed suicide.  

  As a result, I believe that we all have the potential to become Frankenstein within ourselves. Human beings can sometimes overstep the bounds with arrogance, with revenge, ambition but no doubt the family is the first to think of us when something happens. Even before a child is born, s/he establishes her/his bonds with the world through the family. DNA, umbilical cord is the evidence of this. Interestingly enough that s/he always carries the traces of them for life (navel, physical appearance, etc.) Later on, the environment is added to it and it expands for life. Love is the milestone of all beauties and it starts from family.

See you soon

STAY AT HOME and STAY SAFE !!!