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Why Is Frankenstein Unethical

968 Words4 Pages

Johnny Gambino
Mrs. Schroder
English IV Honors
December 8, 2016
Frankenstein: The Ethics Behind It
Technology has evolved over time, getting more and more complex. From the cotton gin helping farmers with their cotton to the mapping of the human genome, science and technology have improved the lifestyles of everyone on the planet. But as time goes on, ethical issues begin to arise. The act of “playing God” is the most frequent issue that comes up. An example of this act would be from the novel Frankenstein, written in the early 1800s, where the main character Victor creates a creature made up of a variety of corpses, bringing it to life. Scientists can now create what some people call “the perfect child” with the amount of technology the world …show more content…

The other side of the argument in “playing God” especially with this novel, whether Victor actually create a human or was he acting in a God-like manner. The creature that he created is depicted as a multi corpse, built from random body parts that Victor found. The author, Mary Shelley, seemed to allude to what the future of biomedicine may hold. Now, scientists are transplanting various human parts such as lungs and livers, into other human bodies. But with doing this, scientists have been developing ways to regenerate one’s own body parts. This field holds the promise of engineering damaged tissues and organs by stimulating the body's own repair mechanisms to functionally heal previously irreparable tissues or organs (Regenerative Medicine). That means that if a part of the body is purposely destroyed through human activity like smoking, doctors would be able to give the humans that smoke medicine for their lungs to regenerate themselves. This connects with the question on whether was acting in a God-like manner or was he creating a human. Shelly’s Frankenstein also alludes to this topic in the coming future at that time. It comes to the question as whether a human given medicine to regenerate their own body parts still human. Is trying to push the human body beyond its limits ethical even though there is a future behind …show more content…

Victor creates a human like creature that learns how to be a human although he is made up many corpse parts. Shelley introduces the idea that someone crazy like Victor Frankenstein would make a human like creature and have it act just like what happened in the novel. The creature started off in a good way but then as the story progresses, the creature kills loved ones of Victor, reminding him of his childhood on how people around him were dying all the time. Creating a creature brings up the concept of bring back the dead. An ethical issue arises here as this also alluding towards the Bible when God rose his son Jesus from the dead. Christians believe that the only being that can resurrect people from the dead is God himself thus Victor is “playing

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In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley uses Victor’s selfishness and ambition for knowledge to questioned how far society has to go to satisfy our yearn to be God. Vicor’s God complexion shows the dangers of wanting to challenge the limits of human knowledge without thinking of the consequences. When Victor attends university and the material he has learned is belittled by a professor as a waste of time, Victor is determined to prove him wrong. As Victor becomes more interested in the sciences and in the creation of life he sees that as the only way to make advancements that others have not yet done. He succeeded in bringing the dead back to life but not in the form he had in mind.

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His goal was to get body parts from a graveyard and create a human. In this way Victor wanted to play like God. Dr.

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The topic of Dr Frankenstein playing God can be related to the current day issue of abortion laws. Creating life should just be the act of God and taking it away is in the same context. Twenty years before Shelly published "Frankenstein" Luigi Galvani discovered that electricity could make a dead person's muscles twitch and simulate some type of life. This portrays the belief that reanimation is possible. The common belief of Dr Frankenstein playing God in this novel can also be portrayed as an issue between all religions.

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Victor defied the natural laws of life by creating a living person entirely by himself. He also used other people’s dead corpses without

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In Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein, one of the main characters Victor Frankenstein creates a creature in an uncertain process from his eagerness to bring death back to life. Victor worked intensely for approximately two years to accomplish his desire of creating a human being. However, after bringing the creature to life, Victor felt guilty that he had given life to a "monster". Many people may believe that the creature is not human but based on the evidence the creature is human. Two reasons the creature is human is that he has a conscious and he committed crimes out of envy and revenge.

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Mary Shelley's Frankenstein explores the consequences of playing God and the complex nature of humanity. The central characters, Victor Frankenstein and the Creature, both receive gifts that are both a blessing and a curse. Victor is gifted with an exceptional mind and a passion for science, while the Creature is given life and consciousness. However, these gifts ultimately lead to destruction and despair for both characters. Through analyzing the nature of these gifts and how they contribute to the characters' development, we can better understand the themes of the novel.

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In Mary Shelley's Novel Frankenstein, the main character Victor Frankenstein was very interested of life and death, but one day Victor's desire of finding the truth about life was too much so he created a creature. While Victor was working on the creature he went to get the right parts in graveyards to give a man look on the creature. Victor worked hard every day to prove himself that he can give a thing animation. But then when the creature woke up victor was terrified of what he made but also surprised himself of how the skin and hair looked human. Then Victor ran away from the creature abandoning everything even though the creature would live a lonely life in a new world he was brought into.

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[1]Blinded by his passion and ambition, Frankenstein did not consider ethics or consequences when he created a being in the likeness of man and gave it life. [2]Through the course of his life, Frankenstein admired nature, but more than that the hidden workings of it all, such as how life was bestowed. Thus, he was overly obsessed when he ascertained that divine secret and “played god.” However, although Frankenstein had devoted two years to his creation, he instantly regrets his actions: “I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart”(25). Frankenstein had formed no plan.

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Throughout ‘Frankenstein’, we discover that Shelley presents Victors responsibility as flawed, We see him as childish and unable to accept his failures and mistakes. Rarley does he accept the “demonical corpse” who is “more hideous than belongs to humanity”, as his creation. Rather than dealing with the conequences and raising the monster, as his father and god. He abanondens it into society. We Can look back into Victors childhood to see where he gained his original morals, and where the drive for the creation of the monster was.

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With this in mind, God can be viewed as an all powerful being who can easily conjure humans into existence, while providing a set of moral beliefs to ensure a prosperous life. Based upon this definition of God, Victor’s pursuit in creating life may at first resemble acts of God; but, much like a chair missing a leg, Victor’s overpowering creature, ordinary abilities, and lack of influence over his creation falls short of the qualifying aspects of a

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In Frankenstein, the conflict against morality was that Dr. Victor Frankenstein created a creature that he made from dead body parts from different people. However, there were other problems involving scientists crossing the line between science and morality. During that era, doctors would hire “resurrection men” to rob graves for corpses for dissection. Not only that, but doctors also practiced vivisection, the dissection of live animals. People believed that scientists would do anything for the pursuit of science.

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