Frankenstein Notes


“I hate to be that guy, but technically Frankenstein is the name of my creator, and I’m Frankenstein’s monster.”

“For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts”         —Mark: 7-21

            Frankenstein’s subtitle is “A Modern Prometheus” which alludes to the Greek myth cycle of Prometheus, and to Percy Shelley’s (Mary’s husband) verse play (lyrical drama) Prometheus Unbound.  His play is based on the eponymous play that was part of a lost cycle of plays written by Aeschylus, of which only Prometheus Bound still exists. (Note: "Kratos" is equivalent to "Power" which is a concept personified in this play.)
Prometheus, if you recall, was the Titan who created humans, imperfectly, but in the image of the gods, and brought them fire and other creative godly powers in defiance of the Olympian deities, mainly Zeus.  In the Greek creation myth-cycle, there is a generational succession, as the original earth parents  Uranus and Gaia are displaced by Cronos and the other Titans, and then the younger Olympian gods, led by Zeus, takes power and replaces the older generation. So too, it would seem, that humans would one day replace the Olympian gods in power, and this is what Zeus fears. He chains Prometheus to a rock and each day a vulture comes to eat out his liver.  For Prometheus, although his liver grows back, the torture continues each day. A human being, Heracles, is the one who will release Prometheus from his chains, and humanity is set to displace the power of the gods. (But to what end?) 
Mary Shelley's amazing novel presages the most feared of modern technologies: the recreation of a monstrous human cyborg that would ultimately destroy us. (The knowledge of electricity causing muscle spasms (Galvanism) had been discovered.) However, has this idea always been with us as a fear? As human strive to achieve omnipotence, omniscience and immortality -- the powers of God (See Genesis) -- do we also ensnare ourselves in our own worst nightmare, and assure our own destruction? Mary Shelley's book is the forerunner of science fiction through the 20th and 21st centuries -- and perhaps with the onset of genetic engineering, scientific fact as well. 

Frankenstein Motifs:

  • Nature depicted as more powerful than humans, but different from a judgmental god: “Creator and Destroyer” and existing as benignly indifferent to humans. 
  • The Creature as a manifestation of human nature, and Victor as an example of a bad parent. 
  • The Creature as an “other” or outsider – abused, violent,  in search of identity and in search of a voice.
  • Examine how the three frames: Walton’s story, Victor’s story, the Creature’s story, and even Safi and Justine's stories --  all reveal the theme of this novel in various ways. The story within a story within a story is sometimes described as a “Chinese box” plot – I prefer “matryoshka plot”.
  • Gender bias: Role of females and Victor's own fears. 
  • Human nature: motivated by the desire to achieve power over nature, but not benign: vengeful, fearful, lonely. Fear of "other" and need to control the creature that is more powerful. Abolitionist movement. 
  • Imperfect knowledge leads to creation, which leads to destruction: Language as a force of knowledge.
  • Can we supersede nature? Can we conquer the passions within us? 
2002 AP Prompt: Morally ambiguous characters—characters whose behavior discourages readers from identifying them as purely evil or purely good—are at the heart of many works of literature. Choose a novel or play in which a morally ambiguous character plays a pivotal role. Then write an essay in which you explain how the character can be viewed as morally ambiguous and why his or her moral ambiguity is significant to the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.

 Frankenstein E-Book 
Independent Reading Assignment for Frankenstein
Journey to Your Future: Dream Vision Assignment

 Videos for the Text



Videos for the Assignment

Sophia the Citizen Robot who Wants a Baby
 How CRISPR/Cas9 Works
Geoffrey Hinton: NPR Interview on Deep Learning


Articles and Thematic Connections

Wiki Article on the Northwest Passage: Note: Mary Shelley presages the worst of these adventures in her novel, which was first published in 1818. By the second publication in 1831, her insight would be proven true. 
Leaded Gasoline and Chloroflurocarbons: One Inventor
 Why We Need Monsters and Why Frankenstein is Important Today
How Science Fiction Can Teach Ethical Technology
Frankenstein in Baghdad, by Ahmed Saadawi, Book review
The Singularity of Vernor Vinge
Lightning, Phosphorus, and the Creation of Life
Electricity and Cloning
Using Stem Cells to Grow New Body Parts
Alan Turing: The Imitation Game
Ada Lovelace: Universal Computing
The Uncanny Valley: Masahiro Mori
Love in the Time of Robots** From Wired Magazine
Ava in Ex Machina is Just Sci-Fi -- For Now
The Philosophy of "Her" by Spike Jonze
Scientists Seek Ban on CRISPR Technology: Check for updates on this! 
Genetic Engineering and Gattaca, by David A. Kirby
Virtual Influencers Are Here
Caring for Our Monsters
Robots and Sex
Violence against Robots
Is Technology Destroying Our Empathy -- Or Not?
Bias is Diminishing
The Morality of Improving Intelligence to Cure Alzheimer's
AI Used to Stop Sex Traffickers
Designer Babies Are Coming
Workers Take a Stand Against Autonomous Weapons
Why We Need to Ban Killer Robots
How Robots Will Change Us
What Interactions with Robots Reveal About Ourselves
Are Relationships with Robots Good for Us?
Human - Robot Interaction
Robopsychology
How Do Machines Learn?
Can a Machine Learn to Write?
Human Brain Organoids in Space
Robots to Care for Our Elders
Tell the Woebot: AI Therapists


Fiction
M3GAN: Trailer
Other Works and People Referenced in Frankenstein
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner: by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, originally published in 1798 and republished with glosses in 1834.
The Victor of Wakefield, by Oliver Goldsmith
Cornelius Agrippa
Albertus Magnus
Paracelsus
Ruins of Empires
Paradise Lost
The Sorrows of Young Werther
Plutarch's Lives

Yale New-Haven Teachers Institute Curriculum Unit



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