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Essay / Rays of personal glory, selfishness and persecution for immortality
The desire to write history to discover what remains to be discovered, or to know what remains unknown is a timeless human goal. Although many have failed to realize this dream, very few have succeeded in achieving it. The immortality granted to these privileged few has, of course, only served to encourage those who come after. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's Frankenstein is a literary meditation on this intensely human desire, exemplified here by the title character's quest for personal glory through scientific discovery. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on 'Why violent video games should not be banned'? Get the original essay Victor Frankenstein and Arctic explorer Robert Walton, whose letters open the novel, possess an insatiable thirst for knowledge privileged over those things which are unknown. to the common man. Shelley presents their stories as somehow parallel to each other: each is a failure and each suffers from the same fatal flaw. Walton, a traveler, explores the secrets of the natural earth, along with a crew of men on a mission. Victor works in solitude to penetrate secrets of a metaphysical nature: namely the principle of life. Although they explore completely different fields, Walton and Victor are both linked by a common cause. Everyone aspires to deepen the knowledge of humanity and to glorify their own name. The reader is invited to put themselves in the place of Mrs. Seville, Walton's sister and the recipient of his letters. The selfishness of Walton's ambition is not immediately apparent; this only becomes clear when the reader considers the subtleties of Walton's point of view (Walling 35). In his opening letter, Walton attempts to assure his sister that he is safe and to remind her of the reason for his trip: he wishes to confer an " inestimable benefit " to all humanity. The reader may at first perceive this wish as sincere, but this is not precisely the case. Walton craves fame above all else, and he presents his desire as altruistic only to inspire the admiration of his beloved sister. She, for her part, had anticipated her trip with “bad feelings”. In his subsequent letters he speaks of his intrepid crew, first briefly introducing his lieutenant, whom he describes as "crazy hungry for glory." It's clear that Walton assumes that his crew has the same passion for this journey as he does; he thinks they would willingly sacrifice their lives for this cause. Walton's assumption is spectacularly wrong and reveals him to be completely insensitive to the true motivations of his crew. Walton goes on to say that one man's life would be "a small price to pay" for the success of the expedition and the advancement of the entire race. Walton's "cause", however, is nothing other than his thirst for fame. edifying for humanity as a whole. Walton's self-esteem becomes evident as he never asks about his sister's well-being, despite the fact that he has not seen her in several years. He believes she wants him and spends every moment waiting for her to return. In each of the letters, Walton reveals the disproportionate nature of his ambition through his redundant references to "glory", "admiration" and "triumph". Victor Frankenstein desires to acquire knowledge hidden from the eyes of the common man. He speaks of ridding the world of disease as a means of making man immortal. Although his altruism seems genuine, the personal glory that his discovery would bring him dominates his thoughts. He aspires to the absolute and unlimited powers of a god and considers himself a genius, with a natural propensityto discover the secret of life itself. He tells Walton that men of his extraordinary intelligence “even if misdirected” (28) almost always bring new benefits to humanity. The danger of pride and selfishness is one of the central themes of the novel.(Kiely 166). Significantly, Victor begins his narrative with the story of Beaufort, a man whose pride leads to his own demise, leaving his daughter orphaned. It is from the union of this girl with the elder Frankenstein that Victor is born. The decision to adopt Elizabeth Lavenza ends Victor's days as an only child. If the dangers of pride and selfishness are part of the novel's foundations, then the horrors of isolation constitute one of its pillars. Shelley seems to suggest that loneliness breeds pride and self-love; intimate companionship is therefore an absolute necessity for living a moral life. It is significant that, in Victor's mind, Elizabeth joins the family not as an equal member but as a "gift" to him; it's as if his parents recognize the dangers his loneliness presents and are trying to save him from it. Even after Elizabeth joined the family and a second child was subsequently born, Victor chose to be alone, avoiding crowds and having only one close friend. He seems almost proud of his introversion: he considers it an emblem of his individuality, of his elevation above the ordinary man. The novel reflects Wollstonecraft Shelley's own philosophical views. She alludes to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, philosopher of the French Enlightenment, whose theories interested her greatly. Rousseau held that humanity was inherently good; only the influence of society has led to the corruption of man. He also argued, somewhat contradictorily, that humans are weak and innocent at birth and therefore need guidance and proper education. Without this guidance, the nature of the isolated man would be irremediably degraded by society. Rousseau maintained that “a man left entirely to himself from birth would be the most deformed of creatures” (Stevenson 110). This notion is absolutely crucial for Frankenstein: if it undoubtedly applies to Victor, it finds its most direct and literal illustration in the character of the monster. Frankenstein's research, as well as the desire for glory that drives him, fascinates him so much that he neglects them. his family and friends. He works in solitude; thus isolated, he becomes unable to resist his obsession. The obsessive quality of his work is apparent in his description of himself through words such as "relentless", "dedicated", "tortured", "resisted", "frantic" and "committed". He admits that he had become “pale from study”, “emaciated by confinement”; he was so focused on his efforts that he "lost all soul or feeling without this one pursuit." Frankenstein was written during the period of the First Industrial Revolution and contributed to the development of some of the ideas of the time. The novel (like the Marxist theory that it could be said to prefigure) implies that men are incarnated through their creations (Wolff 153). Wollstonecraft Shelley extends this idea to suggest that a creation can only be an enlarged image of its creator. Many critics have argued that Frankenstein lacks complex characterization, in that Victor and his monster have the same personality. The confusion of the name of the creator with that of his monster (who is voluntarily given no name) is only one example of the results of this misreading. These critics fail to recognize the philosophical implications inherent in Victor reflecting his monster and vice versa. Just as man has., 1998.