The Reflection of the Romantic age in Frankenstein.

Topic: The Reflection of the Romantic age in Frankenstein.

Name: Baraiya Sonal Rameshbhai.

Class: M.A.Sem-2.

Subject: The Romantic Literature.

Guidence: Heenabe Zala.

Submitted To: Smt. S. B. Gardi

                              Department of English.

                              M.K.Bhavnagar University. 

                          

The Reflection of the Romantic age in Frankenstein.

Introduction of the writer:

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley:

Born: 30 August 1797.

Died: 1 February 1851.

      She was an English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus (1818). She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin, and her mother was the philosopher and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft.

        In 1816, the couple famously spent a summer with Lord Byron, John William Polidori, and Claire Clairmont near Geneva, Switzerland, where Mary conceived the idea for her novel Frankenstein. The last decade of her life was dogged by illness, probably caused by the brain tumour that was to kill her at the age of 53.

          Until the 1970s, Mary Shelley was known mainly for her efforts to publish P. B. Shelley’s works and for her novel Frankenstein, which remains widely read and has inspired many theatrical and film adaptations. Recent scholarship has yielded a more comprehensive view of Mary Shelley’s achievements. Scholars have shown increasing interest in her literary output, particularly in her novels, which include the historical novels Valperga (1823) and Perkin Warbeck (1830), the apocalyptic novel The Last Man (1826), and her final two novels, Lodor 1835 and Falkner (1837). Studies of her lesser known works such as the travel book Rambles in Germany and Italy (1844) and the biographical articles for Dionysius Lardner’s Cabinet Cyclopaedia (1829 – 46) support the growing view that Mary Shelley remained a political radical throughout her life. Mary shelley’s works often argue that cooperation and sympathy, particularly as practiced by women in the family, were the ways to reform civil society. This view was a direct challenge to the individualistic Romantic ethos promoted by P. B. Shelley and the Enlightenment political theories articulated by her father, William Godwin. Here many of the main ideas behind the literary movement of Romanticism can be seen in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Mary Shelley was deeply influenced by the romantics, and the reader of Frankenstein can certainly identify a number of characteristics of romanticism in this novel.

Introduction of the Romantic Age:

               The Romantic Age is believed to have started as a movement, which began in 1798 with publication of Lyrical Ballads. However it was not a sudden outburst but the result of long and gradual growth and development.

Definition of Romanticism:

    Romanticism it is process which is endless.

    It is an 18^th and 19^th century movement that is      frequently characterized by the following:

    A depiction of emotion and imagination.

    A depiction of the beauties of nature.

    Settings that are in exotic or remote locations. Old castles or mansions frequently play a big role.

    A hero or heroine who rebels against the social norms of his or her society.

    An intense in nature and its beauty and/or fierceness.

    An interest in the irrational realms of dreams, folk superstitions, legends, and ghosts.

    Language and characters that are frequently marked by emotional intensity.

Other characteristics of Romantic Era are:

(1)        All Romantic Literature is subjective:

       It is an expression of the feelings of the soul of the artist. The poet and writer do not care about the rules and regulations but gives free expressions to his or her emotions. Emphasis was given to inspiration and the intuition rather than on the observance of set rules. As the poet and writer is free to write on any theme and any form he or she likes and as a result we have a wide variety of romantic literature as the poets and writers is driven by powerful passions and imaginations, he does not care for the perfection of form.

             Here Frankenstein is also subjective novel because here Mary Shelly art monster, it is her expression of the feelings that she art like that. Because what happen that in the romantic era that women have no rights to write. Because patriarchal society they have. So, her strong feeling rather her rebel against the patriarchal society and may be that is why she portrays the characters like that. In that era writer is free to write on any theme and any form he or she likes. Therefore she described the gender difference.

(2)        Mysticism and the beauty of universe:

                    The poets and writers were always interested in the mystery, beauty and unsigned power of nature. For them the imaginative world was more real than the real world.

                In the Frankenstein Mary Shelly portrayed some mysterical elements, love of the beauty of the nature and unsigned power of the nature. For example – We noticed in these below quotations love of the beauty of the nature.

                         ‘‘I may there discover the wondrous power which attracts the needle; and may regulate a thousand celestial observations that require only this voyage to render their seeming eccentricities constant forever.’’ (pg – 10)

                          ‘‘I have often attributed my attachment to, my passionate enthusiasm for, the dangerous mysteries of the ocean, to that production of the most imaginative of modern poets.’’(pg – 15)

            It is Mary Shelly’s imaginative world and for her it is more real than the real. Because she gave the shape of the male as they are in reality.

(3)            The Pessimistic in Tone:

             The Romantic poet and writer his fisted individual the poet and writer may be dissatisfied with the circumstances of his own life, with this age with literary conventions and with the tradition of the day or with the general faith of humanity. There for Romantic literature is often pessimistic in tone. The Romantics revolted against the exciting condition and tried to escape into an imaginative world of their own. Therefore in Romantic literature we find the remote, the distant and the unknown delight.

           Mary Shelly looked pessimistic side of the humanity and may be because of that she became pessimistic by nature and as a result may be she wrote this work. It is her imaginative world because she inspired by her dream and then she wrote this novel. And dreams allow something to speak which is not normally present in the patriarchal course of things. In that era one of the pessimistic sides was that woman could not write and Mary Shelly dissatisfied with the circumstances. We also find in Frankenstein, desire to explore the unknown through such quotations like,

‘‘This breeze, which has traveled from the regions towards which I am advancing, gives me a foretaste of those icy climes. Inspirited by this wind of promise, my day dreams become more fervent and vivid.’’                                                    (Pg – 9)

(4)            Individualism:

         Another characteristic of the Romantic Era is Individualism. People were believed in individualism. In this period Rousseau confesses that

        ‘‘I am not made like anyone I have seen; I sdare believe that I am not made like anyone in existence. If I am not superior, at least I am different.’’

       We seemed in the Frankenstein they belief in the power of the individual. For example –

                                              ‘‘Six years have passed since I resolved on my present undertaking. I can, even now, remember the hour from which I dedicated myself to this great enterprise.’’(Pg – 10)

                           ‘‘…I feel my heart glow with an enthusiasm which elevated me to heaven; for nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose…’’(Pg – 10)

(5)            Treatment of the Nature:

                If for the moment we take the restricted meaning of the word, and understand by ‘nature’ the commonphenomena of earth, air, and sea, we find the poetic attitude to nature altering profoundly. In the work of Cowper, Crabbe, and Gray the treatment is principally the simple chronicle and sympathetic observation of nature features. In the new race of poets the observation becomes more mature and intimate. Notably in the case of Wordsworth, the feeling for nature rises to a passionate veneration that is love and religion too. To Wordsworth nature is not only a procession of seasons and seasonal fruition: it is the eye of all things, natural and supernatural, into which the observant soul can peer and behold the spirit that inhabits all things. Nature is thus amplified and glorified; it is to be sought, not only in the flowers and the fields, but also in

                          ‘‘The light of sitting sun,

                          And the round ocean and the living air,

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man.’’

                This stanza talked about not only the out of the nature but inner nature of the man is also described. Romantic literature not only deals with outer nature but it is also deals with the nature that is in the mind of man. Nature plays an important role in Frankenstein, although to the reader familiar with romantic poetry, it may seem that nature is somewhat less important or less central than the role it plays, for example, in the poetry of Percy Shelley, or in the romanticism examples of poetry of Wordsworth, and Coleridge. Nonetheless, from the novel’s opening, the importance of the reader getting a sense of physical place is established by situating the text within a particular environment, the qualities of which will both mirror and contradict the inner states of the main characters. Victor notes that the landscape of the Orkneys and that of his native country are quite distinct. His description of the Orkneys is cold, barren, gray, and rough. In contrast, he recalls Switzerland as colorful and lively. He describes the Swiss hills in true Romanticism form as covered with verdant vines and the landscape as teeming with blue lakes that reflect the brilliant blue sky. The final comparison that he draws is between the winds of each place. In Switzerland, the winds are ‘‘but…the play of a lively infant’’ (pg – 42), not the tormented sea squalls that batter the rock face of the Orkneys. It is symbolic, of course, that Victor has chosen such a barren place to create the companion for the creature. The contrast between two places is as stark and distinct as the difference between Frankenstein’s Creature and the human world. The creature occupies a world that is bleak, that is attacked on all sides by an unforgiving set of conditions. Victor, his family, and the De Lacys occupy a world that has beauty, even though each has had to deal with occasional harsh realities. These appropriate pairings of characters with their environments will be re-emphasized throughout the novel, and the physical qualities of the environments will provoke contemplative thought for most of the main characters, especially Victor and the creature.

          On a more symbolic level, Frankenstein is clearly a novel about romantic striving against the customary boundaries or limitations placed on our existence. First, there is the obvious example of Victor Frankenstein pushing against his limitations as a human being by striving to play a God-like role by making the creature. For Victor, it is not satisfying enough to simply study philosophy and science and proceed on to a respectable profession. He must perfect the role of the scientist by attempting to accomplish the impossible, a process which is inevitably frustrated, as it must be, by the fact that overstepping human boundaries has significant consequences. Shelley’s Frankenstein is not a mad scientist, as his character has been reduced to over the years, but a scientist who is passionate about the primary questions and preoccupations of his time.

          In his Romantic quest for a scientific ideal-the perfect human-he creates a monster, which then must be held in check by other systems and institutions that humans have also created. While these institutions are more concrete and based in reality than the creation of the monster, they are equally imperfect. This novel helps the reader understand that there is no such state as perfection. Furthermore, there is no social experiment, whether based in reality or in fantasy that will result in an ideal solution. Rather, human beings will always create imperfect institutions and inventions, and given this, must be prepared to accept responsibility and anticipate the potential consequences.

          Victor Frankenstein is not the only character to strive against and challenge traditional boundaries, however. The creature the Victor makes is engage in his own struggle to experience sublime connection with his environment and with other living beings. The creature makes multiple attempts to connect with other beings, especially before he realizes that he is different from them. Almost all of his efforts are in vain, however. The creature lacks speech and obvious physical characteristics that would make him more recognizable to human beings. The pain of his multiple rejections leads him to believe that, as explained in one of the important quotes from Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, ‘‘The human senses are insurmountable barriers to our union…If I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear…’’(Pg – 173). This decision signals the decline of all of the major characters, and foreshadows the novel’s terrible denouement. In a twist on the typical romantic text, which, if it does end happily, ends on a thoughtful, meditative note, this novel ends with the characters having effect no significant resolution amongst themselves. They have all realized the impossibility of striving against the roles to which they have been assigned in life, and they do not seem to be able to identify any other options for themselves.

       But here Mary Shelley treat nature in different way, she treat Nature v/s nature. Here Frankenstein wants to create Monster and it is against of the rule of the nature. And maybe that is why at the end of the novel he got nothing accepts tragic fact because too much exaggeration is always destroying.

Conclusion:

              Mary Shelley’s novel ‘‘Frankenstein’’ examines many social issues present during the Romantic Period. An analysis of its context reveals just how much it draws upon the Romantic dogma of the 1800’s and how Shelley attempts to warns us of the consequences of our fixation with omnipotence and our ventures into unrestrained scientific progress. Similarly Ridley Scott’s film ‘‘Blade Runner’’ presents a somber view of the earth’s future. It explores humanity’s dislocation from the nature world as a consequence of consumerism, greed and scientific progress.