On Frankenstein

Love of Knowledge and Frankenstein

A young man had been caught up by the thread of curiosity: he had found the world and his immediate surrounding fascinating: things around him invoked a sense of curiosity in him. Wanting to know more about the things around him meant a thorough research into their `thingness`. Without knowing what the exact objects of the thought are, the readers are carried into a world of wonders.

The protagonist considers science as a journey and expresses his feelings as such: “as I proceeded, my spirits and hopes arose. I ardently desired the acquisition of knowledge.” The protagonist considers the only solution to the problem of his curiosity to be a rigorous scientific study. It is the dedication offered by the scientific method with which he could find meaning in the world around him. 

While he reader is not told which single discipline among all academic fields would be the path he (or she) chooses, we are drawn into his emotional world through the narrative he so frankly shares. He presumes that the satisfaction of his desire to know lies on the outside: it is only through the study of the external world which `knowledge` would be his. This understanding of knowledge overlooks self-knowledge, as it focuses on the verification of definitions of identities of things of the world which are, almost always, external to the self. Is it information which he is seeking? Or a certitude with which exact definitions about the world would envelop the world? He offers us no definitions as to the meaning of the world for him. He refers to one academic discipline and refuses to be specific about his desired area of research. He tells us of his friend M. Krempé, whom the narrator`s voice defines as a `professor of natural philosophy`. It is a field which spans over a broad array of fields. Due to its diversity, natural philosophy might be intimidating for a novice, one might think. But the desire he has on the inside pushes him to understand and know the outside with such a strong impulse that the courage necessary for embarking upon such a quest is cast aside. 

The bewilderment of a crazy scientist who is on the margins of the social norms offers him a home in the world in science. “Exploded systems and useless names” as his friend M. Krempé calls them, would be out of his sight and out of his mind. It is on my in the old books of a dusty library which these systems existed. The scientist as a mind directed at knowledge, and Victor as a human, were to step above a restraining type of static knowledge. Thanks to his area of interest, he would be able to link the past and the future: through his act of practice of scientific method; the hopelessness of the used up ideas would lead the way toward the future. A better future; according to him, in which he would have contributed to humanity as a WHOLE: the most absolute end of all human life would be reverted by his efforts. He was to go against death itself. He aspires for eradicating disease from human life, but his understanding of an illness is overly medical- he overlooks the psychological and political challenges which individuals or collectivities might be facing.

He challenges the common human teleological endpoint but does not set himself up for eradicating one illness among others. It is the darkness of the unknown which he wishes to destroy altogether; the very sense of destruction of human life itself. Would the new men and women of the brave new world live forever in an ill state? Would that life be actually enjoyable? The discussions of the right to euthanasia in the 21^st century offers a dystopic view of truly living forever. Our scientist is not so much after an elixir of immortality, but a new human form all together.

Religions have spared immortality for prophets only; and that was through a metaphysical shift of dimensions on which they existed. The superhuman qualities which the protagonist, now turned the scientist, would offer us do not make somebody enjoy this world mire and in health: he understands the peak of health to be the avoidance of death all together. He did not aim for the cure for badly playing the piano; or getting stuck in negative feelings: the scope of the world which he experienced enabled him to set up a given target.

Contemplating about the mountains and the geographical beauty of Switzerland, the scientist aims for fame. The aesthetic value of the language overrides the possible suffering laying underneath the surface of the creation; the perception of the reader is imbued with the eloquence of the narrator. The expression of feelings is so elegant that it is difficult to blame the scientist for any monstrosity of his own. 

The absence of the process of thinking about his own identity and the directing of the mind toward the outside paves the way for aspiring for a big change- a change which would encompass every living being. The universalistic scope of annihilating any cause for death from the history of mankind is the path for fame. Without thinking about the superficial constraints which may be imposed on him as somebody famous, the person (then turned the scientist) dedicates himself to the cause of scientific discovery.

There is something which the reader is not directly informed about: the shift between different characters in the novel happen so fast that she might be left with a feeling of suspicion… Is it the scientist speaking; the man in search of the knowledge of thigs, or is it the creature already? A contemporary philosophical approach which embraces social science would bring the very concept of `knowledge` into question: is it empirical therefore verifiable? Or is the knowledge which so deserves the dedication of an entire lifetime of men and woman more like a method, a know-how?

After the creature speaks for himself, the emotional void of lack of self-love becomes more evident. The intentionality of wanting to create on behalf of the scientist, and the arbitrariness of existence on the part of the creature together present an absurdity to tackle with. While one seeks love and compassion similar to a paternal bond, the other merely seeks refuge in another level of apathy- an apathy which allows him only to perceive the creature as a being devoid of physically aesthetic values to please him. In this sense, the scientist was not so much seeking perfection through eradication of disease, but only grappling with his own insecurities. Only in the voice of a long and elaborate soliloquy.

The use of the first person singular voice occupies the mind of the reader as the receptor: one wonders whether a Kafkaesque process of Metamorphosis might be underway. A free interpretation of the narrator`s voice allows us to think of a young person giving himself up to the pursuit of knowledge so ardently that he (or she) forgets some of the fundamental parts of being. He forgets to be in this world but seeks to create an artificial sense of perfection within which persons would not suffer under the dark cloak of not being anymore. The negation of existence was not to haunt the human psyche. 

Another ambivalence I have felt about the identity of the narrator is its gender: the sensitivity of the voice is a reminder of a woman, while the ethical negligence caused by uncontrolled desire to power feels to be a more masculine characteristic. The characters surrounding the narrator appear only briefly and lack the profundity which only scientific research can offer. Even his parents do not hear from Victor, or the scientist.

The good aspects as well as the bad aspects of being alive escapes the narrative. He doesn’t think of health as a system with political and economic connotations; does not mention economic class as a worldly means of attaining better health and living a better life in this world. He aspires to eradicate an aggravated form of biological pathology in order to succeed in this self-appointed mission of serving humanity.