Every August 30 is celebrated as the Frankenstein Day the world over. Why so? Well, the reason is but obvious. The day marks the birth anniversary of Mary Shelley, the English novelist who created the monster making scientist, Victor Frankenstein, in her eponymous novel.
Incidentally, Mary was in her late teens when she wrote "Frankenstein", the first ever science fiction which exposes the banality of the evil that the unbridled use of science without ethics unleashes.
Unique sure was Mary, the daughter of William Godwin, the arch rebel whose political principles matter even today and Mary Wollstonecraft, the first feminist, and the wife of one of the greatest poets ever, P.B. Shelley. Written against a lazy bet, this novel, which she wrote in the Gothic style quite prevalent then, tells the story of the irresponsible scientist, Viktor Frankenstein, who creates a monster without a thought nary about the consequences.
Viktor burns with the ambition of playing God, that is, of creating life artificially. His arduous experiment is successful as well. Yet his creation, the monster, is so hideous that the disgusted Viktor lets it loose on the unsuspecting world heartlessly, a stupid and cruel decision whose consequences ruin both, the creator and his creation.
In my opinion, Shelley's novel shows how empathy has to be the central principle of life, both individual and social. Viktor, self obsessed, lacks this virtue that truly makes us human(e). Obsessed with appearances, he abandons his own creation recklessly, which in the final analysis leads to disaster.
Why is this short little novel, hardly two hundred pages long, still relevant, more than two hundred years after its publication? Well, the answer is obvious. In today's era of the galloping AI, and riveting robotics and gigantic genetics, this novel exposes the dangers of playing God without being human(e) in the first place!
Pratima@ Science and technology, maintains folk wisdom, never solve a problem, without creating hundreds in the process!
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