The Evolution of Science, Fear and the Popular Monster: Frankenstein’s Creature
“Science is a way of life. Science is a perspective. Science is the process that takes us from confusion to understanding in a manner that’s precise, predictive and reliable — a transformation, for those lucky enough to experience it, that is empowering and emotional.”
- Brian Greene, Theoretical Physicist
As humans, we have an innate tendency to seek thrills in fearful situations. Whether it is through story, film or adventure, we actively create and participate in entertainment and activities that elicit an adrenaline rush. We also have a natural tendency to fear something that what we do not fully understand the functioning or origins of. As we have grown as not only a society but a species, a correlation has developed between our capacity for handling fear and our curiosity of the sciences. Perhaps this is a direct influence of our growing knowledge base of the sciences over time which has taught us to discern between what is a realistic monster and what what is not. Over this time period, early science-fiction monsters that were once feared and misunderstood by many have become widely accepted. By examining how these characters have been mainstreamed over time through popular culture depictions, we can observe how our curiosity and thirst for knowledge of the world around us has increased capacity for fear. Exploring how our growing knowledge of the world around us has lead to a lack of fear of fictional creatures, such as the creature from Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, can help us understand how we have developed not only biologically and intellectually, but culturally across many contexts. Also, by exploring how those once feared characters have been mainstreamed by society in popular culture, we can observe the sense of empowerment that scientific knowledge has given us over the monsters that rattled our Victorian Era ancestors.
Following the Victorian era, many advances in science and technology have been made. Advocacy for education of all people, regardless of background or socioeconomic status, has lead to the availability of this increasing knowledge base for all. This education of all people has allowed for the discernation between what is real and what is fake from a young age in the common person. A person in today’s is able to read and comprehend a fictitious story, using basic scientific knowledge, as one that was written to entertain or teach a moral lesson, using characters or beings that one will never encounter in real life. The average person today is able to do this because, unlike most common folk of Victorian era, a basic knowledge base of human and non-human or rather what is science fact versus science fiction, is present from early childhood. This is not to say that an average man of the Victorian age was uneducated and ignorant to the world around him in any way, but rather, the expanse and availability of scientific fact was not present in his society to the extent that it is today. Also, in this time period, education and knowledge into the sciences was allocated to the more those of more affluent and privileged social classes. Education of the common people of lower social classes in Victorian Britain was focused more on the reduction illiteracy in the lower classes, sparking the creation of educational institutions for the general population.
After reading the Frankenstein novel, the common Victorian man, woman or child may have felt a genuine fear of the creature because the science of his impossible creation was unknown to them. After all in their eyes, Doctor Frankenstein was a highly educated doctor, a position held with high esteem even today, who dedicated his life to the creation of the creature that was fashioned out of deceased limbs. Mary Shelley also depicts the creature in a way that the reader is able relate to and sympathize with him. The creature displays emotion, needs and thought processes that make him similar to the common person. The creatures attempted assimilation into society is scorned by his appearance and his actions, showing the Victorian reader where to draw the line with relation to the creature, but not yet fully removing him from possible reality in their world. The creatures disappearance into the darkness of night made the Victorian reader feel uneasy as the sun settled every day. The absence of spiritual forces in the Frankenstein novel may have made the Victorian reader feel as if the creature was a true and tangible being that may appear in the night rather than an apparition of folklore and mythology.
In the post Victorian time, as a social body, we have made great progress in understanding the biology of the human body. Our advances and research into the realm of science have made us more aware of why Frankenstein’s creature would not work. When we realize that science of his origination could not make him a real, physical being that could do us harm in the darkness of night, we, as a cultural body, no longer fear that character. Once the preconceived notion that something or some being is not tangible or harmful to a society, it is further customized for our pleasure. We begin to understand them as a character that we can further mold using our own imaginations and self perceptions. We internalize our fantastical ideas of fear, love, science and even comedy into the creature. It is particularly interesting that even the creator of the now commonly fantastical, Dr. Frankenstein, is either forgotten in our new, knowledge based depictions or recreated as an odd, deranged man simply referred to as a mad scientist and the creature referred to in his name
If those who lived during the Victorian Era were around today, they may question why we have popularized the feared monsters that once shook them to the core. They may question to reason for the creation of films such as Bride of Frankenstein or even the comedy skit remake of Frankenstein, Funkenstein, done by the popular television show, MAD TV. They may question why we allow children to dress as the creature for play and holiday when this very creature in their view from Shelley’s novel, has killed a child. Unequipped with our present knowledge base, the common Victorian simply could not comprehend contemporary recreations and re-depictions of the creature’s persona since the novel’s first publication.
When contemporary society no longer fears a monster due to their understanding of him and his story, they begin to customize him for their entertainment. Contemporary society ceases the opportunity to rediscover the character in these new depictions. Mary Shelley’s original moral implications and themes of love, belonging, and rejection are echoed in these new films, novels and depictions. The creature has been filtered through the realms music, art, comedy and so on, then further watered down to meet the entertainment needs of those of all ages. There is no doubt that in American culture, Frankenstein has become a household name. The creature has been so far removed from his original context that, without prior knowledge of Shelley’s original story, the common man refers to the creature by Victor Frankenstein’s own last name.
Explorations into the science of us and our physical world has created a more critical society of what should be feared. Our perceptions of real-life monsters have grown more personal, and relatable in not only demeanor and personality, but physical appearance. The actions of our more personal monsters, such as murder, remain the same as those of our imaginary monsters. Movie depictions of intangible monsters today have shown how the imaginary monster’s appearance must be more grotesque than that of Frankenstein’s creature in order to shake us to the core, and even when this reaction is created in the viewer, it is only temporary. Science has helped to extinguish our fears of what cannot actually harm us. Science has given us a way to contain that monster that Jeffrey Cohen told us in his Monster Culture (Seven Thesis), will always escape. Science has given the common man a basic framework to redefine our ancestors feared monsters within the contemporary cultural body, making that creature that once yearned for acceptance in his own context acceptable in the contemporary context. Cohen states in his seventh thesis The Monster Stands at the Threshold of Becoming:
“Monsters are our children…they bring not just a fuller knowledge of our place in history and the history of knowing our place, but they bear self-knowledge, human knowledge….These monsters ask us how we perceive the world, and how we have misrepresented what we have attempted to place.”
-Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, Monster Thesis