It is no overstatement to say that, of all the works of science-fiction in the English language, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has been the most influential on our culture. In fact, the novel is widely credited with inventing the genre itself. The name Frankenstein is known worldwide, and the borderline-mad doctor and his hideous creature have become staples of Western popular culture. Just a few days ago, the celebrated filmmaker Guillermo del Toro released his own adaptation of the novel.
Yet surprisingly few people know what the book Frankenstein is really about. While the (inaccurate) image of the neck-bolted abomination stitched together from bits and pieces of assorted bodies is seared into our collective consciousness, the true meaning behind the story of the monster and his father has largely been forgotten, along with its lessons.
Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus, is a tale of creation, destruction, rejection, and revenge. The story follows the efforts of the brilliant and self-isolated scientist, Victor Frankenstein, as he attempts to do the impossible: create the perfect human, and then bring it to life. Only after he has succeeded in this incredible task does he realise the horror of his actions. He shuns the newly-made creature. The monster, in anguish, flees, but is rejected everywhere on account of its hideous nature. Eventually, it returns to its creator to exact either a bargain, or vicious revenge.
There are many themes to dissect in the novel, but without a doubt the most important is that of the manipulation of life. Frankenstein asks: does man have the right to take creation and the genesis of life into his own hands, and what are the consequences if he does?
These questions remain vitally important today, especially with the rise in new technology surrounding IVF and birth. Take, for example, the corporation called Manhattan Project. This company, as explained by co-founder and biotech entrepreneur, Cathy Tie, is making efforts to artificially modify the genes of human embryos – in effect, to engineer the perfect human. Said Tie, “We want to be the company that does this in the light with transparency and with good intentions” (what the road to hell is paved with). Regarding the name, Tie said that she and her colleagues “believe the scale of [their] mission, to end genetic disease, is just as significant as the original science behind Manhattan Project”. “Our focus is on disease prevention,” she assured us. “We draw the line at disease prevention.”
Interestingly, Tie’s co-founder of Manhattan Project also led biological sciences at Colossal Biosciences, a company which made the Time Magazine cover page some months ago when it claimed to have resurrected the long-extinct dire wolf species. This company managed to “de-extinct” the dire wolf by analysing its genetic code from fossilised remains, modifying the genetic coding of a living grey wolf genome to match that of a dire wolf, and finally implanting the resulting nuclei into grey wolf ovae that had had their nuclei removed, incubating them inside surrogate mother dogs. Colossal is not done yet, however, and is making strides toward resurrecting the dodo, the Tasmanian tiger, and even the woolly mammoth.
These things may sound like incredible advancements in modern technology, and they are. They are also exactly the kind of thing Shelley warned against.
The idea of artificially editing the genome of an actual human being is something of a modern Frankenstein experiment. If children are born as a result, they may well be beautiful, even perfect, but that will not change the fact that there is something profoundly unsettling about editing a human being. And where will it stop? Even if we are to take the company’s word at face value and accept that disease prevention is their only concern, we can know with certainty that it will not be the only concern of the other companies that will pick up the technology later.
In all probability, this kind of procedure involves the destruction of hundreds of fertilised human embryos (or living people, as I like to call them). If the researchers involved in these experiments are already willing to cross that line, where will they – or those who follow after them – stop? What happens if their supposedly perfect human is born with some defect they did not anticipate? It is not a stretch of the imagination to suppose that “failed experiments” may be disposed of like clinical waste – along with their embryonic siblings who never saw the light of day. Quite probably, Frankenstein’s creature’s words would mean nothing to them: “Life, although it may be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me”. And what happens when the procedure is taken to an extreme? Where will the dividing line be between human and non-human when a significant portion of a human embryo is redesigned? Perhaps “Manhattan Project” – the code-name given to the American programme that would bring untold death and destruction in the form of the atomic bomb – is more appropriate than even Tie thinks.
Shelley’s wisdom applies also to the Colossal case above. As Frankenstein warns us, some things are supposed to stay dead. What good will come of bringing back a species of wolf that died thousands of years ago? History has furnished plenty of examples of the destructive capabilities of animals being introduced into an unsuitable eco-system, with even such small species as the European rabbit causing mass destruction in Australia. To introduce a Frankenstein’s-monster-like new breed of wolf then, and one significantly larger and more powerful than any currently living, seems like a spell for disaster. It is all well and good for Colossal to suggest that they may balance the ecosystem, but what will happen when some small child living in a mountain village is torn to pieces by a dire wolf pack? Should the creator be held responsible for the creature, like Doctor Frankenstein?
Today, the meaning of the word “monster” is widely misunderstood. Many would define the word as simply a “hideous creature”, or something along those lines. However, in its original definition, the word entails a kind of amalgamation of mismatching parts, not even necessarily in an ugly formation. Those who have read Frankenstein will know that Victor Frankenstein’s great mistake was not designing his monster to be ugly. In fact, the monster, as described in the book, was almost perfect. It was tall and muscular, with flowing black hair. Frankenstein’s entire purpose in animating the creature was to create the perfect man. Why, then, was the creature described as hideous?
This was not some kind of contradiction by Shelley. What she was trying to highlight was not the monster’s physical ugliness, but the repulsiveness of its very existence. The mere fact that the thing had been created by an unholy method of putting human pieces together and shocking them to life was what made it vile. Its existence contradicted the set laws of nature.
No matter how “perfect” Frankenstein made the creature, there would always be a deep wrongness to its existence. In the Catholic Nicene Creed, God the Son is “begotten not made”, because what God begets is God, and what God makes is not God. Likewise, what man makes, rather than begets, is not “man”. Through no fault of its own, no matter how “perfect” the monster was, or how good it appeared to be, it would always be disgusting, simply because its existence contradicted the God-given laws of life.
It is unfortunate that the main images associated with the name Frankenstein today are a flat-headed bolt-necked green monster and an eccentric white-coated mad doctor. The original story is much more philosophically deep. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a staple of English literature for a reason: not only was the style of the book revolutionary at its time, but the moral concerns that drive it were, and still are, vitally important. The story serves as a parable against prodigious and evil Promethean experimentation, and of the kind of destruction that can ensue from the hubris of man.
When Shelley wrote her magnum opus, the subject was still science fiction. Today, the concepts that she based her story on have become scientific reality. Never have the words of Doctor Frankenstein himself been so poignant: “‘Man,’ I cried, ‘how ignorant art thou in thy pride of wisdom! Cease; you know not what it is you say.’”
Patrick Vincent is a Dublin-based writer.