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By Katie Hennessey
Hometown Weekly Intern
The story of Frankenstein is a well-known narrative that is often associated with the image of the monster’s signature bolts through the neck and a menacing, fear-inspiring face.
However, delving below the surface of the infamous story reveals a myriad of hidden allegories and dynamics, many of which are applicable in the modern context.
David H. Guston, Principal Investigator and Director of the Center for Nanotechnology in Society at Arizona State University, aims to bring to light the powerful subtleties of Mary Shelley’s novel. Guston is the lead editor of "Frankenstein: Annotated for Scientists, Engineers, and Creators of All Kinds," in which annotations and essays are incorporated into the original 1818 version of the novel in order to illuminate the social and ethical implications of science.
In a discussion at Wellesley Library on Friday, October 12, Guston delved into the many subtleties of the novel by first discussing the author herself, who miraculously wrote "Frankenstein" as a teenager, about two decades before the word “scientist” even existed. In 1816, commonly known as "the year without a summer," Mary Shelley began to craft her masterful novel with the simple goal of writing a ghost story.
Daughter of revolutionary feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley was likely empowered to include feminist ideas in her novel. Guston discussed this theory by arguing that Shelley characterized the misogyny of the era by including in her novel the inability of Victor Frankenstein to create a female monster.
Guston pointed out that a feminist interpretation of this part of the story would contend that what Victor is “really afraid of” is a “powerful female creature.”
The discussion also addressed the title and subtitle of the original novel. Guston discussed the popular theory that the origin of the name "Frankenstein" stems from Benjamin Franklin. Guston mentioned the more overt connection that is embodied in the fact that Benjamin Franklin was accredited with the discovery of electricity, the means of which was used to bring Frankenstein’s monster to life.
Yet Guston also mentioned more obscure parallels, such as the fact that Benjamin Franklin’s boarding house in London secretly served as a school of anatomy in which cadavers were dissected, and that he was coined “the Modern Prometheus” in a 1775 essay by Immanuel Kant.
This final point about Benjamin Franklin’s moniker led to an exchange of ideas between Guston and the audience members concerning Mary Shelley’s subtitle of the novel, "The Modern Prometheus." Guston declared that the subtitle “elevates the text,” and “makes it clear that it’s not only a ghost story.”
One audience member noted that the subtitle clarifies that there is more than one way to read the novel. Guston proposed that perhaps Mary’s subtitle suggests that the author saw a “redeeming quality” in Victor Frankenstein, and that comparing Victor to a “modern Prometheus” was used to emphasize the idea that Victor’s original goal was to progress mankind by conquering death.
The story of Victor Frankenstein and his repulsion towards the monster grapples with the familiar concept of creator versus creation.
Guston remarked that he believed Victor saw himself as a “god of creation,” and that he recognized that he was “doing something a human should not do.” What Guston aims to do in his work is to elucidate the fact that “every technology has a social side,” and he uses Frankenstein as a vehicle to “challenge the way that we think about science.” Guston discussed how Victor turned away from the monster when it woke up, and how that disconnect between creator and creation could have been the driving force in the monster’s path towards malevolence and destruction.
At this point in the discussion, one audience member, contemplating the liability of a creator, demanded, “Where is the responsibility?”
With technology accelerating beyond the limits of imagination, some, like Stewart Brand, believe that, “we are as gods and might as well get good at it.”
However, Guston argued that it is essential that we contemplate where the line exists between what is real and what is not; what is life, and what is not.
