Analysis Of Frankenstein By Edgar Allan Poe And Angela...

Throughout Mary Shelley’s novel, ‘Frankenstein’, there has been a constant struggle and dispute as to which force is the most dominant and potent; science or religion. It can be argued that the character Victor Frankenstein is in fact trying to fulfil his role as God; the power to create and sustain life just as easily as it is to take it away. However this idea of creating life and becoming a God-complex was much more appealing and alluring than the lamentable reality, suggesting that his concept should have remained just that; an idea. As a result, his utopia quickly developed into a dystopia when Victor created a ‘catastrophe’. This novel seems to fit more so in this century than when it was written in 1818; for now we have the studies of cloning which has sparked much controversy. Throughout this essay I will also be looking at work created by Edgar Allan Poe and Angela Carter to help illuminate my points and gather a broader understanding. A lot of emphasis has been placed upon the importance of Mary Shelley’s family history in the formation of Frankenstein. Shelley gave birth to a daughter in 1815 who later died after just 2 weeks. It has been reported that she had written about a dream in one of her journals that her baby ‘came to life again’ after she ‘rubbed it before the fire’. (Journals, P.70) This is probably one of the main influences into writing a novel on creating life and ‘raising’ the dead. Nevertheless, this did not end well and resulted in only