Nature and Civilisation in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Nadine Wolf 
22.08.2004
BA Anglistik

Nature and Civilisation in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

Seminar Paper
Michael Steppat
The Romantic Period
SS 2004

Content

1. Preface  3

2. Nature  4
2.1 Nature And Science  4
2.2 Themes Of Nature Throughout The Novel  6
2.3 Victor’s Problem In Understanding Nature  8

3. Civilization  10
3.1 Victor’s Creation Becoming Civilized  10
3.2 A Female Aspect  11
3.3 Differences Between Victor And His Creation By Their ‘Education’..13

4. Theories And Opinions On ‘Nature And Civilisation’ Adapted In The Novel  14
4.1 Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s ‘Noble Savage’ and ‘Emile’  14
4.2 John Locke’s Theory Of The ‘Blank Sheet 16

5. References To The Bible  17
5.1 The Theme Of Adam and Satan – The Blurred Line Between Monster And Creator  17
5.2 The Creation Of Eve 18

6. Conclusion  20

7. Bibliography 21

1. Preface

With Frankenstein, Mary Shelley wrote a novel which is undoubtedly rooted in the time of Romanticism. So it is only self-explanatory that she placed special importance on two of the mostly used themes of that time, nature and civilization.

Civilization has developed itself from nature, but it has also changed nature in the process. Apart from theories of much cited social analysts like Rousseau or John Locke, who will be mentioned later in this paper, one equally well known example is that of man as the hunter: in his natural state, man only hunted to find food, to ensure the survival of himself and his family. In our society, humans do not have to hunt their food by themselves anymore, but nevertheless we don’t seem to have lost our natural instincts, our natural aggressions. One logical consequence therefore is that we direct our aggressions towards each other, that we decimate our own species; the problem is, however, that natural reasons like ensuring the best breed possible don’t exist anymore, that we don’t have explanations why we kill each other apparently at random. Tim Marshall writes about a crime known as ‘The Edinburgh scandal’, which took place in the years of 1828 and 1829. Dr. Robert Knox, an anatomist from Edinburgh and very engaged in the newly upcoming art of dissection, employed two criminals to bring him fresh corpses for his dissections. At this time, grave robbing in order to obtain corpses was a usual occurrence in British graveyards, but in this case the acquired ‘objects’ didn’t come from those who had died naturally, but from people who had been murdered only for the sake of dissection (Marshall, 1 f.). The reason for these murders was science and with it civilization, therefore human nature was misused for the sake of science which in turn needed the bodies to explore the secrets nature still withheld from science.

The resemblance to Mary Shelley’s novel is apparent. But in Frankenstein, nature and civilization are also set in opposition to each other by the attributes they are given: nature as feminine, civilization as masculine. Shelley draws in her novel a parallel between the relationship of man and woman and the relationship between civilization and nature; we will come back to this in a later chapter.

As we have seen in the Edinburgh case already, the situation of civilization and nature is not a one-way relationship. Without the wish to understand the functioning of nature, and the need for knowledge, which is inherent in human nature, the murders would never had happened. Victor Frankenstein confesses that while he was trying to find suitable body parts for his creation, “often did [his] human nature turn with loathing from [his] occupation, whilst, still urged on by an eagerness which perpetually increased, [he] brought [his] work near to a conclusion” (Shelley, 52). So while his “human nature” instinctively urged him to quit his profession, his ambition still keeps him going. But could it not be a reason why human nature can be so easily overcome, even when one employs such an obvious unnatural profession like imitating life, that it is also part of human nature to have a darker, very tempting side somewhere hidden that was ignored for example in Rousseau’s theory in his Social Contract?

The next chapter will show some of the major connotations nature has in the novel of Frankenstein, followed of course by a chapter on civilization with a small account of the status of women in the 18th century society and a few feministic interpretations concerning Mary Shelley’s novel. The fourth chapter will deal with some of the many different influences which Mary Shelley wove into her story, the fifth and sixth with the most important theories on ‘nature and civilization’ and some of the references Shelley made concerning the Bible and the complicated consequences if one attempts to create a living being by artificial means. This is then followed by my conclusion.

2. Nature
2.1 Nature And Science

The reason for the existence of science is nature. Mother Nature is an area that still withholds many of its secrets from the grasp of mankind, so humans had to develop the scientific branches to be able to still their innate curiosity to search for more knowledge.

This doesn’t mean that nature is cherished by scientists for the many possibilities she opened to them by her ‘wisdom’. Victor Frankenstein’s mentor Waldman says in his introduction lecture:

‘The modern masters (…) penetrate into the recesses of nature and show how she works in her hiding-places. They ascend into the heavens (…). They have acquired new and almost unlimited powers; they can command the thunders of heaven, mimic the earthquake, and even mock the invisible world with its own shadows’. (Shelley, 46)

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