3 Lessons From The Novel Frankenstein

Roosh

Cardinal
Orthodox
Originally posted on RooshV.com

mad-scientist-1024x583.jpg



Frankenstein is the early 19th century novel by Mary Shelley, daughter of pioneering feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, who died after giving birth to Shelley. Shelley had a turbulent life due to being raised by an anarchist father. Before writing Frankenstein, she had an affair with one of her father’s married friends. He went on to remain with Shelley and leave his wife, who became so distraught she later committed suicide. Frankenstein was written after the first child Shelley had with him out of wedlock was born prematurely and died. It doesn’t take a skilled psychologist to see this novel as a projection of her turbulent life, with the fictional monster representing the bad fruits of her non-traditional choices in an era that was still rather rooted in tradition and Christianity.

Here are three timeless truths that the book shares…

1. Don’t try to become a god without God​


The following quotes are said by Frankenstein, the mad scientist who created the monster (it is a common mistake for the monster itself to be called Frankenstein)…

…I entered with the greatest diligence into the search of the philosopher’s stone and the elixir of life; but the latter soon obtained my undivided attention. Wealth was an inferior object, but what glory would attend the discovery if I could banish disease from the human frame and render man invulnerable to any but a violent death!

Nor were these my only visions. The raising of ghosts or devils was a promise liberally accorded by my favourite authors, the fulfilment of which I most eagerly sought; and if my incantations were always unsuccessful, I attributed the failure rather to my own inexperience and mistake than to a want of skill or fidelity in my instructors.

[…]

The sun does not more certainly shine in the heavens than that which I now affirm is true. Some miracle might have produced it, yet the stages of the discovery were distinct and probable. After days and nights of incredible labour and fatigue, I succeeded in discovering the cause of generation and life; nay, more, I became myself capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter.

[…]

What had been the study and desire of the wisest men since the creation of the world was now within my grasp.

[…]

I was like the Arabian who had been buried with the dead and found a passage to life, aided only be one glimmering and seemingly ineffectual light.

Frankenstein dives wholeheartedly into his effort to create life, to be like a god, and insists on stopping at nothing to achieve his goal. I compare him to the Silicon Valley geeks of today who promote transhumanism and want to create AI and neurochips to make man “better,” and when they use that word, they mean to make men better subject to their own control to trivially sate man’s obsession with comfort and convenience.

Note the pride that coincides with the desire to be god-like. In his delusion, Frankenstein really believed that he possessed the powers of God.

2. You will become angry at the “creator” of your apostasy from the true God​


The monster went on to have a wretched life, because he was formed from the pride of man instead of the love of God…

“Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust? God, in pity, made man beautiful and alluring, after his own image; but my form is a filthy type of yours, more horrid even from the every resemblance. Satan had his companions, fellow devils, to admire and encourage him, but I am solitary and abhorred.”

[…]

“Unfeeling, heartless creator! You had endowed me with perceptions and passions and then cast me abroad an object for the scorn and horror of mankind. But on you only had I any claim for pity and redress, and from you I determined to seek that justice which I vainly attempted to gain from any other being that wore the human form.”

Consider the useful idiots of the regime: pro-vax, pro-gay pride, pro-migrants, Antifa, Democrats, NeverTrumper, and the like. Do they seem happy at their worldly creators and enablers, who shaped their views and formed their behaviors from propaganda campaigns that promised material benefits? The Frankensteins of this age, however, are smarter than the mad doctor in the novel: they are concealed and never claim credit for their creations. They pretend their name is not really Frankenstein, and plea they don’t know who he is. So the monsters of our time lash out at innocent bystanders just like the monster in the novel, because of uncontrollable wrath that stems from not knowing where they came from and who they must truly serve for eternal rest.

Can you imagine those who are angry at God? You may have met a few of them and are familiar with the utter foolishness of their sentiment—to be mad at the Being who created them from the dust! I must conclude that being angry at God, murmuring against Him, shows a deadly lack of understanding of God combined with a desire to wallow in earthly feelings of anger and pride and the sins which the sufferer is decidedly attached to.

3. Creations will always turn on their human “creators”​


From the monster…

“Slave, I before reasoned with you, but you have proved yourself unworthy of my condescension. Remember that I have power; you believe yourself miserable, but I can make you so wretched that the light of day will be hateful to you. You are my creator, but I am your master; obey!”

Many times in history we have seen the pets of the elite turn against their masters. Dr. E Michael Jones’ book The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit provides numerous examples. African-Americans, a weapon harnessed by Jews to attack white Americans through so-called Civil Rights, now regularly attack Jews in major cities. Anti-corporate liberals, fed up with the greed of capitalism, attacked their masters with the Occupy Wall Street movement until they were placated with pornography and equality bucks. Recently, the Afghani army, which the United States spent decades training, put down their arms and humiliated their master in the face of the sandal-wearing Taliban. The lives of the Frankensteins of our day are constantly filled with schemes and plots to control their little pets. One question you must ask yourself is if you are a creation of a Frankenstein. If you are far from God, you must answer in the affirmative.

Conclusion

It is impressive that Shelley wrote this book at only 18 years of age. The idea was innovative for its time, but nonetheless the execution was lacking. There was an incredible amount of fluff strewn through every page, as if she was trying to hit a certain word count and turn what she was capable of doing (a short story) into what she was not (a full-length novel). The book reminded me of an American football match, where there is hardly any action for the long amount of attention it demands of you. Here is an example of her boring writers-workshop writing that infuriated me to the point where I was almost as angry as the monster in the novel:

In a thousand spots the traces of the winter avalanche may be perceived, where trees lie broken and strewed on the ground, some entirely destroyed, others bent, leaning upon the jutting rocks of the mountain or transversely upon other trees. The path, as you ascend higher, is intersected by ravines of snow, down which stones continually roll from above; one of them is particularly dangerous, as the slightest sound, such as even speaking in a loud voice, produces a concussion of air sufficient to draw destruction upon the head of the speaker. The pines are not tall or luxuriant, but they are somber and add an air of severity to the scene. I looked on the valley beneath; vast mists were rising from the rivers which ran through it and curling in thick wreaths around the opposite mountains, whose summits were hid in the uniform clouds, while rain poured from the dark sky and added to the melancholy impression I received from the objects around me.

This is the sort of writing a high school teacher with green hair tells you is good literature, and your ignorant self scratches your head, confused as to why it is good, but you want to get a high grade so you try to pay attention and convince yourself that it is good.

One other notable passage displays a hint of the leftist propaganda of her time. In the favored female character of Elizabeth, Shelley shares the laughable notion that republics (i.e. democracies) create more moral and refined citizens.

The republican institutions of our country have produced simpler and happier manners than those which prevail in the great monarchies that surround it. Hence there is less distinction between the several classes of its inhabitants; and the lower orders, being neither so poor nor so despised, their manners are more refined and moral.

When you look around to the lower classes of today’s democracies, do you find that their manners are “more refined and moral”? I see utterly base and subhuman behaviors, of which I participated. My guess is that she was merely spouting the beliefs of her anarchist father, whose ideas went on to win the day since chances are you are not ruled over by a king but through the votes of a grossly immoral and petulant mob.

Overall, Frankenstein was a poor novel with a great idea, refreshing for its time. I can’t recommend it unless you are a bibliophile who wants to grasp the history of the novel form.

Learn More: Frankenstein on Amazon
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wayfaringstranger

Kingfisher
Protestant
I believe legend has it that she came up with the idea during a stormy night when her, Shelly and I think Byron and his wife were gathered around the fireplace and had a parlor game of who could tell the scariest story.

Around this time the first experiments of running electric currents through dead animals that caused the muscles to move fascinated Europe.

It is impressive that Shelley wrote this book at only 18 years of age. The idea was innovative for its time, but nonetheless the execution was lacking.
I have never read it, only parts and quotes here and there, and it does seem lacking but a good analogy might be the development/progression of painting and sculpture in the early to high Renaissance.

The 'novel' was really in its infancy, let alone the science fiction novel.

Still for an 18 year old a remarkable bit of prudence considering the hubris of the time were stories like Prometheus Unbound - turning the most ancient myths on their heads to change the moral of the story - much like feminist/woke retellings of fairy tales now.

* I wonder if she was familiar with Jewish gollum tales which have the same turn on the master theme.
**I am sure other traditions have this theme, but I can think of any at the moment.
 

Mountaineer

 
Banned
Orthodox Catechumen
Gold Member
EMJ had his take on this, it's a good listen:
 

PineTreeFarmer

Kingfisher
Woman
Orthodox Inquirer
I read the novel over 30 years ago so my recollection is vague but it is quite a different story than the classic Universal Pictures version. As to the seemingly unnecessary rambling writing style, that was fairly common for the time period.
It was very common for the time period. I think it's a pretty well framed narrative given that she wrote it over a vacation with her man and his bestie in a writing contest. I think of the lettered framing as like, excerpts from emails and dms today. My friend who works in production has been really heavy on trying to figure out how to get through digital communication in a modern narrative.
 

PineTreeFarmer

Kingfisher
Woman
Orthodox Inquirer
If you think that has a lot of fluff, you should read A Vindication of the Rights of Women by her mother.
And ... There was a rich theatrical culture around Mrs. Wollstonecraft that people don't really talk about. My professor for works by female British authors wrote a book on Wollstonecraft, and was working on her final draft when I took the class. Like, Wollstonecraft was the antipodal feminist character irl for actresses in an era when women on stage in England were just finding their place in the acting world. Wollstonecraft was mercilessly picked on by her female acting peers, but studious in the way a man might be without taking on acting and performance that separated men and women in real public space.

Wollstonecraft was an advocate for women hunting and fishing and reading, for sure, though. And I think Mary Shelley does well execute the question "why have you made this character and given it life from animating found parts of dead men" without really getting a good answer.
 

PineTreeFarmer

Kingfisher
Woman
Orthodox Inquirer
And Mary Wollstonecraft didn't kill herself. She died of septicemia, giving birth to her daughter. Which is what I could very likely have died from giving birth if I hadn't had medical intervention. It used to be very common when a woman's water broke before she had contractions. It happened to both my mother and grandmother.
 

Philonous

Sparrow
Protestant
Well, where to begin.

I read Pet Semetery! That’s similar!

Well, actually, the year before I graduated high school “Re-Animator” came out. It didn’t much interest me, so I didn’t bother seeing it. Instead, I went to see “Prizzi’s Honor”, something I was thinking about just yesterday.

Then, the following year, I went to see “The Fly” with a friend who got into science stuff. It was sad and beyond grotesque—although I do remember that one line from the film, “Insects don’t have any politics”.

And then, well, Buckaroo Bonzai. “Why me, John Bigboote?”

Then, later, that other big-concept modern movie of men falling victim to their own science. Jurassic Park—a Michael Crichton novel.

Thing is, after Isaac Newton’s discoveries became published and popular in the late 17th/early 18th centuries, including his “Opticks” (1704), the Anglican minister Georg Berkeley published the first of his philosophical rebuttals against “godless empiricism”, “An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision”, 1709. Berkeley was—how old? 24 when he wrote that thing (and it’s masterful).

A year later Berkeley followed this up with “A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge”—then, 3 years later, rewrote it as a sort of debate in, “Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous”—dialogues between “matter” and “a lover of mind”.

And now you know where my pseudonym on this forum comes from.

A brief animated video based on the book:

Berkeley’s philosophy was rather straightforward: matter doesn’t really exist. Human souls and the consciousness of God; these are the only things are truly “real”, capable of standing up to arguments about intuition.

And so why doesn’t all the furniture of a living room vanish as soon as the occupant dies, and there’s no longer another human being to remember it? Because God is omnipresent, and He remembers it. Things can and do exist in the mind of God well outside the mind of man.

And about William Godwin’s anarchism.

Well, I won’t talk about him specifically, but I will talk about how I feel about baronies.

I believe in Matt 20:25-27.

There were no baronies among the 12 apostles. Christ, himself, was a lifelong celibate; he created no barony. If this model is to be taken seriously then tribal bloodlines which insist they create divinely-elected leaders are outside the model, outside Christ’s teachings and example.

Yet is it not conceivable God would bless a given autocrat to rule a nation for life?

That much is conceivable—but blessing a “bloodline” is an Old Testament concept, and nothing that appears in the NT.

All of the apostles were old enough at the time of their selection to make mature decisions for themselves. They were not children. They would each face possible death for following Christ even before the crucifixion. True enough, none were scholars or rhetoricians; yet they also weren’t young enough to merit any peculiar stares in traveling with a 30-year-old preacher.

I realize these are nothing like the arguments of William Godwin, a man whose writings are those of an agnostic. I’m not here to defend his agnosticism. But I’m also not here to defend the lineage-based inheriting of autocratic positions.

In our own system we have instabilities. The founding fathers of America went overboard on their skepticism—choosing a president every 4 years, and later putting a cap on 8 years is, in my mind, an error, and something of a miracle America endured despite this law. It encourages the public to elect blowhards, as well as settle too easily on “the lesser of two evils”. It’s the sort of thing done when you still believe your nation is basically “an experiment”, and not necessarily something destined to remain on the earth for any great while.

And so with that in mind I believe, ideally, America’s chief executive should be elected for life.

But notice I said “ideally”.

What has happened in this nation in at least the past 70 years has been a systematic and wholesale destruction of the people’s morality altogether. I think you know (((who))) are the primary parties responsible. Yet aside from that the damage is done, and now permeates so many different areas of pubic thought as to make the public themselves largely animal-like, governed by emotionalism and material comfort, by greed and ego.

And so this is going to eventuate in awful lot of small civil wars—at its height it will entail endless guerrilla skirmishes throughout a thousand different locales across what had once been a unified America. As it happens, expect real diseases—rather than some made-up covid nonsense—to spread like wildfire, taking far more human lives than the violence at even its worst.

This is inexorable. God will lessen it; He will not altogether suspend it. And this is because after so many pearls of wisdom have already been trod upon it’s time for America’s overgrown children to learn from their own mistakes.

An ominous thing to say right before Christmas. Yet as dark as things will get, I feel the mental darkness of the present is still worse—and I think Berkeley would agree with me.

But you know who you answer to. And you know the premium you rightfully put on answering to Him bests any other perceived gain in this life. Remain ever in that way.
 

Cavalier

Kingfisher
Orthodox
Well, where to begin.

I read Pet Semetery! That’s similar!

Well, actually, the year before I graduated high school “Re-Animator” came out. It didn’t much interest me, so I didn’t bother seeing it. Instead, I went to see “Prizzi’s Honor”, something I was thinking about just yesterday.

Then, the following year, I went to see “The Fly” with a friend who got into science stuff. It was sad and beyond grotesque—although I do remember that one line from the film, “Insects don’t have any politics”.

And then, well, Buckaroo Bonzai. “Why me, John Bigboote?”

Then, later, that other big-concept modern movie of men falling victim to their own science. Jurassic Park—a Michael Crichton novel.

Thing is, after Isaac Newton’s discoveries became published and popular in the late 17th/early 18th centuries, including his “Opticks” (1704), the Anglican minister Georg Berkeley published the first of his philosophical rebuttals against “godless empiricism”, “An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision”, 1709. Berkeley was—how old? 24 when he wrote that thing (and it’s masterful).

A year later Berkeley followed this up with “A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge”—then, 3 years later, rewrote it as a sort of debate in, “Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous”—dialogues between “matter” and “a lover of mind”.

And now you know where my pseudonym on this forum comes from.

A brief animated video based on the book:

Berkeley’s philosophy was rather straightforward: matter doesn’t really exist. Human souls and the consciousness of God; these are the only things are truly “real”, capable of standing up to arguments about intuition.

And so why doesn’t all the furniture of a living room vanish as soon as the occupant dies, and there’s no longer another human being to remember it? Because God is omnipresent, and He remembers it. Things can and do exist in the mind of God well outside the mind of man.

And about William Godwin’s anarchism.

Well, I won’t talk about him specifically, but I will talk about how I feel about baronies.

I believe in Matt 20:25-27.

There were no baronies among the 12 apostles. Christ, himself, was a lifelong celibate; he created no barony. If this model is to be taken seriously then tribal bloodlines which insist they create divinely-elected leaders are outside the model, outside Christ’s teachings and example.

Yet is it not conceivable God would bless a given autocrat to rule a nation for life?

That much is conceivable—but blessing a “bloodline” is an Old Testament concept, and nothing that appears in the NT.

All of the apostles were old enough at the time of their selection to make mature decisions for themselves. They were not children. They would each face possible death for following Christ even before the crucifixion. True enough, none were scholars or rhetoricians; yet they also weren’t young enough to merit any peculiar stares in traveling with a 30-year-old preacher.

I realize these are nothing like the arguments of William Godwin, a man whose writings are those of an agnostic. I’m not here to defend his agnosticism. But I’m also not here to defend the lineage-based inheriting of autocratic positions.

In our own system we have instabilities. The founding fathers of America went overboard on their skepticism—choosing a president every 4 years, and later putting a cap on 8 years is, in my mind, an error, and something of a miracle America endured despite this law. It encourages the public to elect blowhards, as well as settle too easily on “the lesser of two evils”. It’s the sort of thing done when you still believe your nation is basically “an experiment”, and not necessarily something destined to remain on the earth for any great while.

And so with that in mind I believe, ideally, America’s chief executive should be elected for life.

But notice I said “ideally”.

What has happened in this nation in at least the past 70 years has been a systematic and wholesale destruction of the people’s morality altogether. I think you know (((who))) are the primary parties responsible. Yet aside from that the damage is done, and now permeates so many different areas of pubic thought as to make the public themselves largely animal-like, governed by emotionalism and material comfort, by greed and ego.

And so this is going to eventuate in awful lot of small civil wars—at its height it will entail endless guerrilla skirmishes throughout a thousand different locales across what had once been a unified America. As it happens, expect real diseases—rather than some made-up covid nonsense—to spread like wildfire, taking far more human lives than the violence at even its worst.

This is inexorable. God will lessen it; He will not altogether suspend it. And this is because after so many pearls of wisdom have already been trod upon it’s time for America’s overgrown children to learn from their own mistakes.

An ominous thing to say right before Christmas. Yet as dark as things will get, I feel the mental darkness of the present is still worse—and I think Berkeley would agree with me.

But you know who you answer to. And you know the premium you rightfully put on answering to Him bests any other perceived gain in this life. Remain ever in that way.

I am not sure, so I mean no offense. Are you trying to be amusing imitating the early 19th Century rambling style of writing? In which case
 

Philonous

Sparrow
Protestant
I am not sure, so I mean no offense. Are you trying to be amusing imitating the early 19th Century rambling style of writing? In which case
No. Not at all. That’s just how I write whenever I’m not authoring something formal like an affidavit. It’s how I naturally speak to an audience of friends, albeit without the “uhms”, “ahs” and “let me rephrase that”.

In contrast, I’m generally not curt, brusque, or even all that direct in my exchanges with friends.

Even less so when talking about literature.
 

Vasily Martian

Sparrow
Orthodox
"but what glory would attend the discovery if I could banish disease from the human frame"

There's obviously a great intelligence behind the world, for if there wasn't, then the first sign of human intelligence should have meant that man could immediately overcome the problems of existence, like illness and death, and even create other and better universes. However, because this clearly hasn't happened, I not only repeat that there's a great intelligence behind the world, but point out that man's intelligence is quite inferior to it.

Until such time that a man is able to blink his eyes and come up with whole new worlds, his inferiority to the intelligence behind this world will always be. And because this inferiority is even there in the first place - again, as evidenced by the inability to blink new worlds into existence - he can NEVER rise above the Creator, owing to man's inferior intelligence never having a way to know, without the help of the superior intelligence, if he was on the right path or not.

In short, the best mankind's intelligence can do is to know about God and do His will. Failing that - as the 'great reset' mob seems intent on doing, not unlike Dr Frankenstein - then what on earth do people think they're doing if not building their houses on sand?
 

George Batton

Chicken
Orthodox
I was always under the impression that there was no actual monster in the novel and that is was Dr Frankenstein doing all of the killing and having internal dialogues with himself. Is it possible that Shelly was exploring her own demons regarding the people she hurt during her life?
 

Cavalier

Kingfisher
Orthodox
I was always under the impression that there was no actual monster in the novel and that is was Dr Frankenstein doing all of the killing and having internal dialogues with himself. Is it possible that Shelly was exploring her own demons regarding the people she hurt during her life?
Interesting idea but I am pretty sure there was an actual monster. Nothing in the novel suggested that it was all in Dr. Frankenstein’s imagination. Could you give concrete examples?
 

paternos

Pelican
Catholic
As a teen studying Greek I read the story Pygmalion out of the Metamorphoses by Ovid.

More recent I saw the musical My Fair Lady based on George Bernard Shaw's 1913 play Pygmalion.

What stands out for me is the hubris of the human creator, the obsession with his own thought and creation.

In the end this this is also the Tower of Babel.

Where god is the seed, the human keeps thinking that by changing the outer form the inside will change.
 

Amata

Chicken
Woman
Orthodox Inquirer
Interesting.

If you plan to do anymore classic literature book reviews, especially in the gothic genre, I think Dracula would be good as it has many relevant themes. The novel suffers some pacing issues however as it has a great first act, decent middle, but meanders a bit towards the end, so it is one of those stories which need to be re-read and considered to make a proper verdict.

Unfortunately, the majority of the academic literature on Dracula is full of Freudian psychoanalysis theories, feminism, Derrida, Foucault etc., which obscure the actual themes, morality and message of the novel. But it is understandable why a lot of academics influenced by those critical theories tend to misread Dracula, and effectively have contempt for it. Quite simply, the ideas and message Bram Stoker actually has to say in that novel are very counter to those progressive ideological agendas. This is why they tear it apart via arguments which characterise Stoker as all the "evil" things (I.e. sexist/patriachal/sexually repressed/misogynist/racist etc).

Ultimately, they are subverting the moral of the story, such that evil becomes good and good becomes evil, and the heroes are characterised as the "real villains" for "oppressing" women, and the true villain Dracula becomes some sort of misunderstood liberator. This distortion of the narrative is also seen in more modern cinematic depictions too. But, considering that within the story Dracula is literally an anti-christ, to repurpose this character as good is truly an inversion. Thus, academic articles and interpretation which do this are literally and figuratively satanic in the true sense.
 
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