Why Victorians are interesting
I know this is late, but I wanted to participate in the discussion.
David Gange identifies the coexisting but seemingly incompatible contradictions of the Victorian age as one of its most fascinating features: “Intense religious enthusiasm seems to coexist with secularization; growing middle class wealth with poverty of the most extreme kind; a liberal vision of enfranchisement with Tory commitment to the established order; a Queen wielding immense power with millions of women confined to domestic duty; global vision with parochial insularity; a deeply traditional people who were Britain’s most aggressive modernizers” (11).
There are many other contradictions within the Victorian era that Gange doesn’t mention here. We often associate the Victorian’s with stuffy morals and rigid behavior, yet crime rates soared in major cities and prostitution was widespread. It was a time of horrible living conditions in slums, yet out of that came great social reforms. The age of the British Empire saw wide reaching colonial holdings across the globe, and yet many of these exotic places were on the verge of rebellion.
The Victorians are at once familiar and strange to us. They are recognizable but still somehow uncanny.
These contradictions are interesting when juxtaposed with our reading of Frankenstein. Frankenstein fits more into Romantic literature, but there are still some connections we can make. The creature is both monstrous and recognizably human. He is made up of human pieces that don’t quite seem to go together. Frankenstein creates human life through scientific trial and error, yet there is obviously a supernatural element. His training prior to university consists solely of outdated alchemy texts. There’s a similar parallel between Victorian superstition and scientific and medical advances.
You’re right – Frankenstein was written before the Victorian era, so it’s more of a pre-cursor than a representation of the Victorian mind-set. But I wonder whether the contradictions, the contrasts between reliance on human nature and reliance on science, didn’t begin early than 1830.
Do you think we can trace those thoughts back to the Enlightenment and movement away from religious orthodoxy? I know Romanticism is often considered a reaction against the cold reasoning of the Enlightenment. Should we read Frankenstein as the failings of the Enlightenment to truly understand what makes something human?
There are parts in the book (nearer the end so we might want to get there next week) that directly criticize science, as both mind-set and tool. I have usually seen Romanticism as a reaction against industrialization, which seemed to put Enlightenment ideals into a social context that affected everyone obviously and visibly. But in the case of Shelley, she would be educated enough to see the possible impact of those Enlightenment ideas.
I see very little religion in Frankenstein. It makes me wonder whether Romanticism is more forward-thinking than I thought.
I think it’s really interesting to think about his how the Romantics would have characterized Prometheus. Mary Shelley’s husband Percy wrote a play about Prometheus. He seems to be characterized as a hero in it. Professor Lane have you read Percy’s play? I wonder how much Percy had an influence on Mary.
Was Prometheus a hero in the eyes of the Romantics for enduring such suffering ( after bestowing humans with fire)as having his liver eaten out every day by an eagle? Also I found this comprehensive page on Romanticism.
http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/rom.html
*prometheus seems to be characterized
There is a great crash course video on Frankenstein that discusses all of these ideas. Watching the video is how I found out that Mary’ys husband wrote a play about Prometheus.
I think you highlighted the general contradictions of the Victorian age well. I look forward to your post on the next couple of chapters.
I was never aware of the fact that Mary Shelley’s husband even wrote a play about Prometheus! It makes me wonder why he was made to be the villain of the story then if he tends to be seen in a different light. As far as romanticism, I don’t know if I can fully agree. What I do see within the Frankenstein novel is the monster’s yearning for what everyone else has. He seems to be lonely and his reactions could just be a response as to what he was feeling. What other genre could you have Frankenstein under?