Discussion Topic

Symbolism in Frankenstein

Summary:

In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, the creature symbolizes various themes and societal critiques. It represents the concept of "tabula rasa," suggesting that individuals are shaped by their environment, as seen in the creature's transformation due to societal rejection. The creature also symbolizes the dangers of unchecked scientific ambition, reflecting Victor Frankenstein's hubris and its destructive consequences. Additionally, recurring symbols like light and fire illustrate the pursuit and danger of forbidden knowledge, emphasizing the novel's caution against overstepping human limits.

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What does the monster symbolize in Frankenstein?

The creature is symbolic of the human being born as a blank slate, Voltaire's "tabula rasa," ready to receive input from the society in which it is born.  The creature was "born good" but was turned to evil to rejection from society as a whole, but especially by his creator.

Voltaire's premise was significant in the field of education.  He was explicit in stating that society has a responsibility for teaching the child to "be good."  The creature also demonstrates that accountability for evil is in society, not in the individual, who he did not believe was born with the traditional notion of original sin.  Sin is from the outside, never from within.

However, Shelley is ambiguous in this area.  While the creature is a product of his rejecting environment, Victor turned "evil" despite a loving family and opportunities not granted to many people of his time.  With age, Shelley...

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backed away from the humanist notion of the tabula rasa, especially after her husband Percy's death.

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I agree with all of the above, and I might add that in the human nature, we tend to judge too much.  We judge others by the color of their skin, their weight, if they have acne or not, if they dress stylishly, etc.  The creature is a loving creation who only wants to be loved and accepted.  However, because of his appearance, he is rejected everywhere he goes, and sometimes rather violently.  It is a sad commentary on our society.

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The creature (much better word than monster) represents a range of ideas and concerns in the novel. Consider the following:

It may be a symbol of science - the novel repeatedly posits science as an alternative way of understanding the world to that offered by religion - the creature represents this in both its power and its deformities (both physical and moral) -

It may be a symbol of Viktor's and society's mysogyny - it is created without the natural loving process of a sexual relationship - the creature's initial creation keeps Frankenstein from being with Elizabeth, as does the murder on his wedding night - highly symbolic.

It may be a symbol of the parent child relationship: it grows up nameless unloved untutored and a moral lesson to parents about their obligations to their children. Recall Shelley's own tragedies losing mother and growing up most alone.

It may be a symbol of human nature, an argument against original sin: even untutored, the creature is initially good until maltreated by society around him, whereupon its rage took over. Notice however that the creature's rage is only directed at those connected to Frankenstein - or others who have hurt him - it is not a loose cannon!

It may be a symbol of the outcast from society: the weak the poor the dispossessed and a comment on the way that society treats them.

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What symbolism is present in Frankenstein?

Lightning or fire becomes a powerful symbol in the novel. Victor's passion for science is sparked by the sight of lightning when he is fifteen years old. He says,

As I stood at the door, on a sudden I beheld a stream of fire issue from an old and beautiful oak which stood about twenty yards from our house; and so soon as the dazzling light vanished, the oak had disappeared, and nothing remained but a blasted stump.

Nothing remained of the tree except "thin ribbons" of wood: it had been "utterly destroyed" by the lightning's power. It is later implied that Victor uses galvanism, electrical current to stimulate muscle activity, in order to bring his creation to life in the laboratory. He attempts to control something that he cannot ultimately control. He wants to be like Prometheus, the god who created humankind and gave us fire from the sun to protect us. However, Victor is no god, and the life he creates looks like an abomination, and Victor is not powerful enough to wield fire as the Titan did. His attempts to be like a god result in his own utter destruction. As he approaches death, he tells Captain Robert Walton,

I am a blasted tree; the bolt has entered my soul; and I felt then that I should survive to exhibit what I shall soon cease to be—a miserable spectacle of wrecked humanity, pitiable to others and intolerable to myself.

Just like that tree, Victor has been destroyed. In his great hubris, he tried to be like a god—to control life and nature—and found himself incapable. As the lightning (or fire) literally destroyed the tree, so it figuratively destroys the man.

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To me one of the most powerful examples of symbolism is the way that Frankenstein is shown to 'birth' the creature in his act of creation. There is a sense in which Frankenstein, in giving life, is desiring to become God in the same way that God made Adam and Eve. It is interesting that in the Brannagh version of the film, this is explicitly highlighted, with amniotic fluid being a key ingredient necessary to create life.

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What are some important symbols in Frankenstein?

Nature is an important symbol of the power that Frankenstein wishes to harness in order to create his race of monsters. Like the good Romantic he is, Victor is positively mesmerized by the forces of nature, as can be seen in the remarkable passage where he goes into raptures over the play of lightning on the summit of Mont Blanc. For the Romantics, nature was not just something pretty to look at; it was a powerful life-force in its own right.

As well as providing an endless source of wonder, the natural world managed to combine both beauty and terror, invoking a feeling of the sublime deep within the Romantic soul. That's precisely what Victor feels when he beholds the astonishing scene on Mont Blanc. And it's that same feeling that he wishes to evoke in others through his creation of a new race. He wants the whole of humanity to be as overawed by him and his creatures as he is by the play of lightning about the mountaintop.

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There are a couple important symbols in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

Light

Light is a symbol which represents knowledge. For the two main characters in the text, Victor and the creature, knowledge is of the utmost importance. Both desire to shed light upon their lives. Victor's search for Forbidden Knowledge will shed light on the scientific community regarding death and reanimation. As for the creature, his desire for knowledge revolves around his need to find his identity. At the same time, light tends to hurt the eyes of the creature (in the same way his knowledge of his birth hurts him).

Fire

The symbol of fire is important for the creature. When cold, fire is able to warm a person. When the creature first discovers fire, he places his hand within the flame and is burned. This is ironic, given he needs to fire to stay warm. At the same time, this symbol mirrors the symbol of light: what the creature desires harms him.

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How does a specific symbol in Frankenstein reveal about the characters or themes?

There are numerous symbols in Mary Shelley's Romantic novel Frankenstein. Many of the symbols are representative of either a specific character or theme presented in the novel.

First, a symbol in a text attaches meaning deeper than the face value of the image. Symbols tend to allow figurative "threads" to wind throughout a text, bringing more meaning to the image, character, or symbol than initially thought.

One important symbol in the novel is light. Typically in literature, light functions as a symbol of knowledge. This specific symbol is important, given that many of the characters in the text are on a quest for knowledge. Light for Victor represents his unraveling of scientific mystery surrounding life and death. Over the course of the novel, as Victor sheds more and more light upon life and death, the mystery surrounding life and death diminishes. Unfortunately for Victor, this knowledge leads to his downfall and destruction.

For the Creature, light works a little differently. First, upon waking, the Creature feels intense pain. He closes his eyes, and the pain subsides. It seems that, for the Creature, light (or knowledge) is something that he must avoid. After realizing that light from the sun hurts his eyes, he travels at night. Lured by the small light of a fire, the Creature finds that light physically hurts him again. Yet, this time, he learns how to use the light of the fire to roast nuts (making them taste better). Later, the Creature is enlightened further when he looks into a pool of water. He is horrified by his reflection, something he has never seen. This new knowledge saddens the Creature. For the Creature, avoiding light (knowledge) may have been better.

Robert Walton, the narrator of the novel and Victor's last friend, also illustrates the symbolism associated with light. He is on a course to discover the "seat of magnetism." He wishes to focus light (knowledge) on new paths to the North. During his voyage, he is willing to give everything up to find success. In the end, Victor intervenes, telling Walton of the error of his own ways, in order to veer Walton off the same destructive path.

In regards to how the symbolism of light affects or illuminates the theme of the novel, one of the themes is the search for forbidden knowledge. Figuratively, forbidden knowledge is the knowledge that man should not interfere with. It is the knowledge kept in a figurative darkness, only to be illuminated when someone discovers the light needed to shine upon it. Throughout the novel, as forbidden knowledge is brought out of figurative darkness, each of the characters involved puts himself on a path to destruction.

Therefore, the novel and its author are offering readers a warning against interfering with nature and the things which are off-limits to mankind. By keeping mankind in darkness, nature is able to keep ultimate control of the world.

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What are some recurring symbols in Frankenstein?

A recurring idea in Frankenstein is the abuse of human knowledge. Knowledge, particularly scientific knowledge, can be used for the benefit of humanity. (Think of all the ways that science has improved our lives: clean water, modern medicine, the eradication of deadly diseases.) But it can also be used for dangerous ends (such as the manufacture of nuclear weapons.)

Victor Frankenstein's crazy experiments definitely fall into the latter category. When he created his monster, he wasn't thinking about benefiting humanity; he was thinking only of himself. He wanted to create a race of creatures who would bow down before him like a god.

But Victor's plans go disastrously wrong right from the off as his monster breaks his programming and starts going around killing people. He also defies his master and makes increasingly shrill demands of him. Almost everything bad that happens in the story is an example of the misuse of science, one of the most important recurring ideas in the book.

In the story, the monster begins to identify with Adam, our original ancestor according to the Genesis creation myth. The monster as Adam symbolizes both creation and the dual nature of man. Adam was created as an innocent creature but then defied God by eating of the Tree of Knowledge, thus introducing sin and death into the world.

The monster, too, was innocent when created but quickly lapsed into sin when he started killing people. Although the monster is a hideous creature that frightens everyone who lays eyes on him, in his dual nature he strongly resembles Adam and every subsequent human being.

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What is the significance of the monster in Frankenstein?

The monster is crucial in Frankenstein for several reasons:

  • He symbolizes the scientific achievements of Frankenstein. Victor Frankenstein has a brilliant mind and spends about two years in scientific quests to achieve this great vision he's generated. And he's successful—and then immediately regrets his work. Once he truly sees the monster come to life, he finds it hideous. Frankenstein desires to prove that he can pass the limits of scientific knowledge yet fails to consider the consequences of doing so. The monster is a walking, living reminder of his regret.
  • The monster is Frankenstein's primary source of conflict. Because he is abandoned, he longs for company and tries unsuccessfully to get Frankenstein to interact with him. Later he tries to get Frankenstein to create a second monster, a female companion for him. When Frankenstein agrees and then rips this creation to pieces right in front of the monster, a new vengeance settles upon the monster; he vows revenge and particularly on Frankenstein's wedding night. Consider all the people who die as a result of the monster's anger toward Frankenstein.
  • Although the book was written about 200 years ago, the monster represents many failings and conflicts of our modern society. In some ways, we can see the effects of failing to give children adequate nurturing in their early years. We can see the effects of failing to consider the full implications of advancing scientific knowledge. We can see the effects of totally ostracizing people for circumstances (such as physical deformities) beyond their control. The monster therefore makes us reconsider these conflicts because of the devastation of both the monster and his creator.
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