“What terrified me will terrify others” (9). Mary Shelley stated this in her Author’s Introduction to her story Frankenstein. Mary Shelley uses her story to express this fear to the public. Through the story, Frankenstein, Shelley is critiquing the human desire to exert power over Nature and discover the secret to life. This can be examined through her use of the characters of Frankenstein and the creature Frankenstein creates.
In Mary Shelley’s Author’s Introduction, the inception of Frankenstein is revealed. Shelley participated in a friendly competition with 3 other writers to see who could come up with the best ghost story. The reader is first introduced to Shelley’s fear of human power when she discusses hearing her fellow friends talk of Dr. Darwin’s experiment that lead to a piece of vermicelli voluntarily moving in a glass jar. Shelley pondered this as she lay in bed, “The idea so possessed my mind that a thrill of fear ran through me,” (9). Here the reader is first introduced to how terrifying this thought was to Shelley, so terrifying that it leads to her writing a great horror story of that very fear.
Shelley expresses her negative thoughts about humans discovering the secret to life through her character of Frankenstein. Frankenstein’s pursuit for this secret is described in the quote, “And the same feelings which made me neglect the scenes around me caused me also to forget those friends who were so many miles absent,” (56). Frankenstein allowed his desires to understand “the secrets of heaven and earth” (39) to become more important than his own friends and family. Here Shelley clearly expresses that this human pursuit makes us forget what is truly important in life. Upon finally finishing his project, Frankenstein describes his feelings as his heart being filled with “horror and disgust” (58). In fact, once realizing what he had done, he ran out of the room. This reaction shows that Mary Shelley believes humans could not handle discovering the secret to life. Frankenstein immediately expresses regret once he sees the spark of life in his creature. The reader can interpret that Shelley believes once the secret is discovered humans would be horrified, and their minds could not handle the discovery. A final point that Shelley reveals through the character of Frankenstein is that of selfishness. Towards the end of the story, Frankenstein states, “If you knew what I have suffered,” (197). Here Frankenstein views himself as the victim, not Justine, William, Clerval, or even the creature. He is completely self centered and only cares of what he has “suffered. Shelley points out here that humans are selfish and incapable of being creators. When the reader thinks of a creator, such as God, they think of absolute love and a being that takes care of them. Not once in the story does Frankenstein ever show either of these duties towards his creation. Frankenstein described his parents as having a “deep consciousness of what they owed towards the being of which they had created” (35). Mary Shelley contrasts the affection of Frankenstein’s parents to Frankenstein’s inability to understand his duties to the being he has created. Here she critiques that humans would not be capable of understanding the duties of being a creator of life. Through the character of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley builds her theme that humans should never try to exert power over Nature.
Shelley reveals critiques of humans exerting power over Nature through her character of the creature. One question Shelley addresses in her story is that of how people would react to a man made creature. The first person, besides Frankenstein, to lay eyes on the creature is an old man in his hut. Upon seeing the creature enter his hut, the old man “shrieked loudly, and quitted the hut,” (108). Shelley shows that humans would not be accepting of such a creation by having every person that comes in contact with the creature be afraid of him. The creature is unable to make a single human friend and is therefore all alone. It is those human reactions to the creature that lead to him becoming violent and revengeful. Mary Shelley expresses that humans might not be able to accept the consequences of exerting power over Nature. People in the story judge the creature on his appearances and are unable to see the kindness inside the creature. Even the creature’s creator, Frankenstein, calls the creature a “monster” (102). Frankenstein stated he “was unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created,” (58). Frankenstein is unable to love his own creation because he cannot get past his own superficial ways. Mary Shelley is portraying humans as superficial by having them be disgusted in the appearance of the creature. She critiques that humans are incapable of loving a creation unconditionally as we believe our true creator to do.
Through the use of the characters of Frankenstein and his creature, Mary Shelley critiques the human desire to exert power over Nature, and to discover the secrets of life. Shelley shows that humans are not capable of being more powerful than Nature because they cannot get past their human traits. To Mary Shelley this is a horror that terrified her, and upon discovering her fear of this horror she wrote a story that would terrify all of its readers. Mary Shelley could have made the creature beautiful and acceptable to the human race, and she could have made Frankenstein a great creator who cared for his creation. Yet, this is not what Mary Shelley did. Instead, Shelley did the exact opposite, and this instills a fear in her readers that leaves them to ponder the consequences of putting a passion for exerting power over Nature before life itself. These consequences leave the reader terrified, thus Mary Shelley was right for saying, “What terrified me will terrify others.”
Works Cited
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. London: Penguin Books Ltd., 1992.
