Since its inception, language has been the primary tool for communication. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is full of humans using language to talk to one another, particularly Walton writing letters to his sister, Margaret. The writings are so deep and wordy that many different meanings can come out of one sentence, and none of the meanings can be known as the definitive answer. The person who needs language the most in Frankenstein, however, never gets a chance to learn from his creator. This failure of Frankenstein forces the monster to feel like a passive viewer of his own life.

“I was a poor, helpless, miserable wretch; I knew, and could distinguish, nothing; but feeling pain invade me on all sides, I sat down and wept,” (84) the monster said, describing his feelings to Frankenstein soon after he was created. This feeling extends on to when he found a family living in a rural cottage; “By degrees I made a discovery of still greater moment. I found that these people possessed a method of communicating their experience and feelings to one another by articulate sounds,” (92) he tells Frankenstein. The monster understands that by learning the sounds, he would be able to understand the cottagers’ interaction. After months of watching the cottagers, he “discovered the names that were given to some of the most familiar objects of discourse; I learned and applied the words, ‘fire,’ ‘milk,’ ‘bread,’ and ‘wood.’” (93)

At first, the monster is overjoyed by the fact that he was able to learn the human’s language. “I cannot describe the delight I felt when I learned the ideas appropriated to each of these sounds and was able to pronounce them,” (93) he told Frankenstein. Like some philosophers of his time have said, however, too much knowledge is power. By amassing the knowledge through watching the cottagers, the monster has gained enough literary skills to read the papers he found in Frankenstein’s dress. “You doubtless recollect these papers. Here they are. Everything is related in them which bears reference to my accursed origin….” (110) It is in that sentence, that Shelley reveals the changing motivations of the monster. Shelley wrote one great sentence, that I think shows the whole turnaround of the book. That sentence is while he is talking to Frankenstein about visiting De Lacy, and the monster says, “I saw [Felix] on the point of repeating his blow, when, overcome by pain and anguish, I quitted the cottage, and in the general tumult escaped unperceived to my hovel.” (115) Some may say the more you learn the more dangerous you are, and I definitely agree in this case.

As soon as the monster was able to read Frankenstein’s letters and hear tales about murder and other woes that people suffer, he turned his back on humanity and decided to murder the ones Frankenstein loved. I believe the letters and stories that the monster hears makes him more violent because he realizes that his creator will not give him the one thing he wishes—another monster just like himself. On page 147, he makes a threat that defines the book, telling Frankenstein that “it is well. I go; but remember, I shall be with you on your wedding-night.” This quote comes after the deaths of Justine and William, but before the death of Clerval. Just that thought alone is one to make your blood curdle and fear for your life.

While common theory says that the reason Walton is sailing near the North Pole trying to find riches and fame, I think that that opinion is overshadowed by a bigger thought. Only a few times, if at all, does Walton mention becoming rich through his voyage. Rather, he names he desire to “discover the wondrous power which attracts the needle and may regulate a thousand celestial observations that require only this voyage to render their seeming eccentricities consistent forever” and “a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye. I believe that Walton is going on this trip for two different reasons: one, he is eager to quench his thirst for knowledge about humans and where we came from; and two, he wants to find out his purpose as a man. In his letters to Margaret, Walton often mentions celestial bodies or his “heart [glowing] with an enthusiasm which elevates me to heaven….”

Whereas Walton wanted to learn about himself and share his knowledge with others, Victor Frankenstien became obsessed with the creation of life. “Whence, I often asked myself, did the principle of life proceed?” Frankenstien asked. Victor is asking who chooses when a life is born, a new life is made. “After days and nights of incredible labor and fatigue, I succeeded in discovering the cause of generation and life; nay, more, I became myself capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter,” he added later. Finally, he acknowledges that all he has done in his workshop was to create life by saying “after so much time spent in painful labor, to arrive at once at the summit of my desires was the most gratifying consummation of my toils.”

In writing the above quotes for Walton and Frankenstien I believe that Shelley was trying to tell us that people in her time were looking to celestial bodies for answers to their questions about creation and why there were upon this Earth, and also that they thought the heavens would provide the answers through its celestial bodies. I would also argue that if not most people that Shelley knew at the time were questioning this, Shelley herself was and it allowed her to voice her opinion without insulting the scientists of her day.

I think that of the three motives I’ve stated the only one that could apply to today’s technology magnets such as Bill Gates is the one provided in the assignment prompt, “Walton is trying to find the Northwest Passage—it would revolutionize world trade, and make him very famous and rich.” Gates’ motivation seems at least in part to be becoming rich and famous, but there are also other motives that he would be able to describe for you. Gates is not influenced by the other two motivations because the questions asked in Shelley’s era were either answered before his time, or are now understood to be unanswerable.

In recent years, doctors have had much success saving patients that with diseases that were thought to be incurable and untreatable a short time earlier. The majority of this improvement is seen because doctors have been able research and experiment with different drugs and procedures. In “The Birthmark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne and Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, however, the two authors make a fabulous case for limiting the research of physicians worldwide. Often times now doctors have set their sites on some of the world’s toughest disease’s that would bring the discoverer instant respect if they found a cure or treatment—a respect that would also bring millions more dollars the doctor could use for research. I feel that while we must give doctors incredible leeway as they are expected to save lives whenever possible, we must also expect them to act within moral responsibility and with ethics and integrity. Physicians are still doing the best they can in order to save patients, but too often more and more doctors are leaving their practice for a job in a laboratory mixing chemicals. Unfortunately, in many of those laboratories the concern is money, not life.

Most often the subject of limiting the research of doctors is brought up when talking about pregnancy. There are multiple tests that one can now perform—they can actually tell you what sex your baby will be very early in your pregnancy—and they can also perform surgeries to save the fetus—from conditions such as spina bifida—if it is in danger. Those are only two examples of what doctors can do. On February 8, 1998, the Washington Post published an article by reporter Rick Weiss titled “Babies in Limbo: Laws Outpaced by Fertility Advances” showcasing a doctor who had agreed to implant an egg from a dead woman (who had her eggs frozen) into a living woman. Not only was there controversy with the precedent this would set, but also there was controversy about who would raise the child. Can you imagine it?—the doctor wants has a chance to experiment, and goes ahead with bringing a life into the world without even arranging for its care! Sadly, the surrogate mother miscarried. Like noted above, though, this is not the only example:

Today’s ethical crisis in reproductive medicine is the product of converging social, economic, and scientific factors. Many women in the workforce have delayed childbearing to the point where technological intervention now offers their only hope of being biological mothers; a lack of financial support from the federal government pushed the $2 billion-a-year fertility industry onto an aggressively entrepreneurial track; and recent advances in egg freezing, embryo manipulation, and other techniques have shattered many of the biological barriers to parenthood.—Rick Weiss (the full text of this article can be found at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/science/ethical/fertility1.htm)

I believe that both Hawthorne and Shelley are warning us to beware of the advances doctors are claiming to make. Yes, they are improving medicine and people are living longer, but at what price is this improvement coming? I have not read Frankenstein, but I understand that a quick summary of the story is that the townspeople of the story are angered after they found out that a doctor has created a mechanical creature that instead of helping around the house has a tendency to destroy things. In Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark,” Aylmar becomes so crazed about his wife’s birthmark that it only makes her ugly in his mind. After marrying Georgiana, all he can see when he looks at her is a minute outline of a hand that he believes is an “earthly imperfection.” So incensed at this birthmark is Aylmar that he convinces his wife that she needs to get rid of it. Georgiana begins to see the birthmark as an imperfection while she is waiting for Aylmar to make a potion to cure her. In his infinite wisdom, Aylmar works for days, trying each new batch that he has made and wondering if it can help his wife. Finally, he comes up with the concoction he thinks will save his wife. Aylmar clearly believes he cannot fail, as he has put this formula through many tests. “The concoction of the draught has been perfect, said he, in answer to Georgiana’s look. ‘Unless all my science have deceived me, it cannot fail” said Aylmar. Even with all his certainty, Aylmar was not able to make the right potion to save his wife—instead of making her beautiful and removing the blemish, he has killed her.

Shelley and Hawthorne’s text serve the purpose of communicating to their readers to never allow one person to go too far. Their imagination may have run a little wild in the events they allow to happen, but the message is clear: do not allow anybody but god to play god. When others attempt to play god and try to change something that, they run the risk of failing horribly. Doing so, it seems by the words of these two authors, would upset the balance of the universe. A human trying to do a god’s work, to Shelley and Hawthorne, is detrimental to the lives of all humans. It is better to allow a god, with much more intelligence and power to create humans and rectify mistakes as he sees fit, rather then having humans do it for him.

Placing limits on the research of doctors is an important issue that people should not pass judgment on too quickly. Like many other subjects, there are many examples and facts, and not looking at all the material available to a person would be a terrible mistake.

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