The Elements and Nature
Shelley uses the
natural world to represent shifting emotions (pathetic fallacy; pathos from the
Greek meaning “suffering. Often the
elements externalise these emotions using images of sun, light, storm, wind and
cloud as well as features of the landscapes from the inhospitable polar regions
to the alpine terrain of Switzerland.
The 4 humours are important:
- Blood (optimist, extrovert, disorganised)
- Phlegm (relaxed, easy mannered, hard to motivate)
- Choler (quick tempered, organised, controlling)
- Black choler (melancholy) artistic, perfectionist, introverted)
These link to earth, air, fire and water. Ideally these should be in balance. The most compelling use of these elements
occurs when the humours are least in balance.
Find 3 parts of the
novel where rationality and balance are least in evidence. Look at Shelley’s use of the elements in
these places.
Pathetic fallacy
use of weather landscape
to reflect event or mood. Sometimes used
to foreshadow …
There are times when nature in its glory is admired and
relished by Frankenstein and when nature exerts a restorative effect on him.
Examine 3 moments in
the novel when nature is regenerating (for both Frankenstein and the monster)
and comment on Shelley’s technique.
Note that towards the end of the novel nature
loses its power to to offer succour and to diminish the mental and physical
decline of Victor. Elsewhere e nature is
presented as punitive such as the brutality of the sea and the hardship of the
Scottish isle. The enduring conditions
may be seen as retribution for his presumption (hubris) and his
foolishness. Remember the Prometheus
myth when the mortal challenges the gods.
Wordsworth believed that nature had a moral influence on the individual. He was a Pantheist who worshipped nature
believing that God exists in every small part of the natural world be a
daffodil or rock.
Consider particularly where
thunder storms occur and lightning strikes.
(we see a similar use of the thunder storm in Bronte’s Jane Eyre and
with a satirical effect in Austen’s Northanger Abbey) Ironically the power of the electric storm
makes possible the experiments with galvanism and the creation of the
monster. The destructive, all consuming
power of the storm represents the power of Frankenstein’s own desires.
Nature and Romanticism
Shelley had connections with
Romantic school (see husband Percy Shelley and their close friend, Lord Byron)
also Wordsworth and Coleridge with special application of his poem The Rime of
the Ancient Mariner to the text.
Romantics embraced natural world
with its abundance, wildness, creative excess and unpredictability. It was the perfect counterpoise to the
restrictions of balance, order, proportion and objectivity. In essence nature was the perfect foil to the
advances of science and the Enlightenment. Romanticism encompassed music, art
and literature and the main emphases were:
- Individual sensibility (responsiveness, awareness, feeling)
- the boundless (a rejection of limits and boundaries)
- The indefinite
- The visionary (see William Blake).
Other concepts include the
imaginative spontaneity (Wordsworth said poetry was the spontaneous over flow
of powerful imagination), visionary originality, wonder, emotional self-expression
over classical standards of order, restraint, proportion and objectivity. (often
associated with scientific principle)
Romanticism derives from romance,
the literary form where desires and dreams prevail over every day realities. Romantics warned of the damaging consequences
of “reason” (sometimes in the form of science) that could impede individual
expression at the very least. Wordsworth
called this “the meddling intellect” and lamented the stultifying effect it
could have maintaining that meaning was to be found in the human heart Man’s
compulsion to dissect the natural world, define and categorise was the negation
of poetry. We see the criticism of
science expressed through the Shelley’s narrative devices as we are reminded of
the dangers of pursuing knowledge for celebrity and personal pride (hubris)
In Germany philosophers Kant
encouraged Romantics to elevate nature (the reflection of the soul , the
sublime and divine. Whilst in France, Rousseau championed the rights of the
individual and the need for corporate responsibility. In England a similar attitude was adopted and
promulgated by political thinkers such as Thomas Carlyle. Of course Shelley was descended from 2 such
innovative political thinkers, William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft who
clearly shaped her views on the importance of individual expression. Such
political ideas prompted revolutions on both sides of the Atlantic.
Scientific discovery
At the end of the 18th
century and at the start of the nineteenth (Frankenstein 1818) scientific interest
was peaked notwithstanding the work of Luigi Galvani who conducted experiments
on frogs using electric charges to “recreate” life by generating what he called
“animal electricity”. These muscle convulsions
formed the basis for work on neurophysiology and neurology (galvanism-
electrical nature of nerve function).
Frankenstein is stimulated by the desire to animate dead matter as was
Galvani and the presence of atmospheric electricity and lightning in both men’s
work.
Although Shelley is never openly
condemning of Science, she offers warnings and caveats through her narrators. Her narrative method enables reflections on
the social anxieties pertaining to empirical science and its application of
rigid law and refutation of creative impulse.
Time and time again we see Victor consumed by this scientific passion
which has startling effects on his health, relationships, work. The consequences of a single minded pursuit
of this scientific knowledge are laid clear to Walton, though it is unclear
whether he learns from Victor’s experience. Interestingly Victor never
repudiates science and hopes that another will succeed where he has failed; he
will not make explicit the dangers to Walton if her continues to boldly go forth
instead suggesting science as an afflicting disease or “an intoxicating
draught” and asks him “Do you share my madness?”. The ambiguity at the end - (what is Walton’s
fate? Will he change his course? Does he
learn from Victor’s mistakes?) might underpin Shelley’s ambivalence
towards science.
At a basic level the monster is
the physical incarnation of the consequences of embarking on irresponsible, self-motivated
scientific experimentation. The monster
externalises the monstrous desires of unguarded, unchecked desire for knowledge
(and so power). We are reminded yet
again; exactly who is the monster in the novel? Perhaps Shelley is not objecting to scientific
experimentation but scientific experimentation that is self-serving and
motivated by arrogant pride.
Are there signs in the novel that
science is ennobling? (decent,
honourable, principled). Are Victor and
Walton committed at east in some small part to benefiting mankind? Is the guiding principle enough to excuse or
justify the horror that unfolds?
In class we found a series of articles that
promoted the contemporary value of scientific discovery from genetically
modified crops to gene technology that eradicates disease.
Science, Religion and
Taboos.(p27)
So much of the novel deals with
borders, threshold and brinks and nowhere is this concept more evident than
when science meets religion….
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