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Science In Frankenstein Research Paper

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The role of “science” in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has been hotly debated since the novel’s publication, but ultimately today’s historians, scientists, and literary critics alike have attributed its contents to mere science fiction, championing the assumption that “science in Frankenstein is…pseudo-science” and devoid of accurate historical context (Knoefelmacher 317). However, further research has provided evidence of a link between the science of the late 18th Century and early 19th Century and the events of the novel. At the beginning of the novel, we are introduced to Robert Walton through a series of letters written to his sister. In these letters it is revealed that Walton is making a dangerous trip to the North Pole, hoping to find …show more content…

Following the discovery of electricity, scientific exploration was catapulted into unimaginable places, often at obscene and horrific levels. In the 1780s, Luigi Galvin discovered “animal electricity,” a phenomena he witnessed after an electric spark was placed to a frog’s leg, making the muscles jump. While this was relatively tame, his nephew Giovanni Aldini, in comparison, performed a similar experiment to the freshly executed corpse of George Forster (Foster) and incited momentary panic amongst witnesses. The Newgate Calendar described the event: “On the first application of the process to the face, the jaws of the deceased criminal began to quiver, and the adjoining muscles were horribly contorted, and one eye was actually opened. In the subsequent part of the process the right hand was raised and clenched, and the legs and thighs were set in motion (“GEORGE FOSTER”).” Galvanic experiments on corpses maintained as trend during the early years of the 19th Century. Just months before the publication of the novel in 1818, and experiment conducted at the Anderson’s Institution resulted in an effect that inspired “full, nay, laborious breathing…The chest heaved, and fell; the belly was protruded, and again collapsed, with the relaxing and retiring diaphragm” of a corpse only an hour old (Andrew

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