Frankenstein's Main Idea

For thousands of years, humanity has debated the question of how far scientific advancement should be allowed to go, as well as the dangerous ethical and mForal implications of certain scientific achievements. These questions are thoroughly addressed in the book Frankenstein written by Mary Shelley, where the main character (Victor Frankenstein) uses the secret of life to bring a super-human monster to life. The monster escapes Victor and leaves behind him a trail of violence and destruction, threatening even more violence against Victor if a female companion is not made for him.

After refusing to give into his demands, the monster kills Victor’s best friend and later kills Victor’s wife on their wedding night. The story ends with the monster coming to visit Victor to ask for forgiveness, but finding him dead due to exhaustion.

The monster then vows to travel to Antarctica to dispose of his own life, in order to prevent himself from causing further harm to the world.

It is clear that the overlying message of Frankenstein is that humans should not advance science too far, because the book points out how advancing science too far causes one’s mind to go insane, brings about unthinkable moral and ethical implications that humans are not capable of foreseeing, and causes humans to neglect nature. One way that the overlying message of Frankenstein is that humans should not advance science too far is the fact that the book points out how advancing science too far causes one’s mind to go insane.

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Scientific advancements that go too far oftentimes cause people to push themselves over their moral boundaries, causing them to overlook the harm and destruction that they are creating.

The article “Discovering Literature: Romantics and Victorians”, written by Stephanie Forward, helps point this out when she writes “[i]n the third chapter Frankenstein refers to his scientific endeavours being driven by his imagination” (Forward 7). Frankenstein’s mad endeavours to create his monster were driven by his crazy mind which thought that the creation of the monster will somehow make the life of himself and everyone else better. However, this thought process was clearly a delusion of Victor’s deranged imagination, which can be seen in light of the reality that the monster brought nothing but harm upon Victor and humanity as a whole. Victor’s unhinged imagination caused him to not think about the danger and harm that the monster could do to ruin the lives of himself and his loved ones. The scientific advancement which was the creation of the monster caused Victor’s mind to stop at nothing to create the monster and not even take into account the fact that the monster will have its own emotions and desires.

Advancing science too far also brings about unthinkable moral and ethical implications that humans are not capable of foreseeing, as seen in light of the fact that when creating his monster, Victor never imagined that the monster would ruin the lives of himself and his family. Stephanie gives the reader a subtle hint to this when the writes “[s]he quotes from Coleridge’s Romantic poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (Forward 7). This is crucial because the poem Shelley is referencing is a poem where the short sightedness of a Mariner causes lots of death and destruction. In the poem, a Mariner who is part of a crew travelling to Antarctica decides to kill the bird that is leading the ship back to land because the bird is eating all of the nearby food. The Mariner and ship proceed to become stranded at sea for weeks on end until the Mariner is rescued by another ship, but by then all of the other crew members are dead.

In short, the implications of killing the bird that was leading their ship to land didn’t hit the sailor until it was too late. This relates to Frankenstein, so much because like the Mariner, Victor also doesn’t consider the moral and ethical considerations that his actions will have when creating an abominable creature that everyone finds abhorrent and ugly. Only after the completion of the monster does Victor recognize how stupid his mistake was, but by then it was to late. Victor’s inability to recognize the moral and ethical implications of creating monster that is hideous and that has no chance of ever being loved by another living thing causes everyone Victor loves to die, just like how all of the crew on the Mariner’s ship died when he killed the bird.

Lastly, the book Frankenstein reveals how advancing science too far causes humans to neglect nature. The sad truth is that when science advances too much, humans become dependent on technology and civilization, and forget the very thing which cause them to come into being. This forgetfulness of the wonders of the natural world causes people to not care about nature and to neglect it as a whole. Stephanie helps to prove this point when she writes “[t]he book raises worrying questions about the possibility of ‘regenerating’ mankind; but at several points the world of nature provides inspiration and solace” (Forward 7). This quote is very informative due to the fact that it helps point out that the whole novel of Frankenstein is based around the romantic principles that science debases humanity, while the natural world heals humanity. The creation of the monster, which is representative of scientific advancement gone too far, causes destruction and misery in Victor’s life while the comforting consolation of mother nature helped Victor retain the little happiness he head left and look at the positive in life.

People for thousands of years have taken sides on the issue of how far scientific discoveries should be allowed to advance. Whatever the reader may choose to believe, it is clear from an informed reading of the book Frankenstein the humans should not advance science too far. As a matter of fact, the main message contained within the book Frankenstein is that humans should not advance science too far because of the fact that advancing science too far causes one’s mind to go insane, brings about unthinkable moral and ethical implications that humans are not capable of foreseeing, and causes humans to neglect nature. With this being stated, it is important to recognize the scientific advancements of the today are growing at an exponential rate. While there are many great benefits to the scientific advancements and achievements of the modern age, it is always important to keep in mind Shelly’s warning to humanity about what happens when science is advanced too far that is contained within the pages of her book Frankenstein.