Mary Shelley - Dr.Frankenstein
Themes:
Frankenstein is, to this day, considered the greatest gotic myth of all time. Written by Mary Shelley, it is an epistolary novel which deal with the ethic of the scientific progress that England was experiencing throughout the Industrial Revolution. Progress in the branches of chemistry, electricity and evolutionism had, in fact, led to a progressive coldness and incoherence towards human society.
Aided by the uses of three different male narrators, likely to hide the fact that she was a woman, she aims to tackle the themes of Prometheism and the overreacher, existing in the two figures of Dr.Frankenstein and Robert Walton, both trying to subvert nature rules of life and death (Interestingly enough, their share of desires and sufferences makes one the double of the other); the theme of social prejudices, through the figure of the Monster as an outcast, amounting to the concept of sublime, something so extraordinary to be considered frightful; the themes of the penetration of nature secrets and the neverending quest for forbidden knowledge, recourring throughout the novel; and lastly but not least the theme of the usurpation of the female role in the creation of new human beings, as the monster was given birth to without any intercourse but solely relying on science.
Although the novel conveyed a lot from her literary reminiscences, most notably Rousseau's man of nature and Percy Shelley's faith in the creative powers of mankind, her originality resides in the demonstration of the point to which the latter can push if set free in a scientific context. In fact the tension she felt between the fear of revolution and the interest in revolutionary ideas is portrayed in an empathy with the Monster alternated to the fear of the consequences of his actions. Lastly, Dr.Frankenstein therefore represents the embodiment of the ethic behind science and its responsabilities.