Releasing a Creation
Mary Shelley, in the introduction to Frankenstein, refers to her writing as her “hideous progeny”, describing it as her own “monster” let loose upon the world. As I read the novel, I made connections between the way she describes the work, and the way the character of Frankenstein feels toward his “creation”. Shelley explains in her introduction that she wrote Frankenstein for herself, not her readers, as Frankenstein created his monster not for anyone else, but for himself. It would seem, if this train of thought were to be followed, that through the way that Frankenstein is unable to control his creation, Shelley implies that once a writer sends a piece out to be read, the piece becomes its own entity, and there is very little that can be done to stop the effects of that writing.
The frame of the narrative is found in the letters of Robert Walton, where Walton describes his voyage and his chance encounter with Frankenstein. The rest of the narrative is Frankenstein’s horrified account of his experience. This frame occurs after the main part of the narrative, and yet Frankenstein is still pursuing his creation. This suggests that the creation, whether it be Frankenstein’s monster or Shelley’s writing, is still free and able to have an impact, and allows the reader to consider this idea throughout the actual narrative.
A line that made me think of Sven Birkerts was this:
“Learn from me, if not by any precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge, and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow” (Shelley, 57).
This seems to go hand in hand with Birkerts’ fear of globalization of information, and his warning against the attempt to learn everything, which leads to understanding nothing. It can be interpreted that Shelley’s warning against the reckless pursuit of knowledge may be along the same lines as Birkerts, or that Shelley is warning against the obsession with a particular subject beyond reason.
