Frankenstein and Technological Failure

Abstract

With its themes of audacity and technology, the ancient myth of Prometheus echoes throughout Faust, but informs even more Shelley’s Frankenstein. While Goethe’s drama culminates in a final “great deed,” the engineered natural and social environment, Shelley’s novel opens with an amazing technological accomplishment, the engineered humanoid. As in Faust, a glorious end again justifies vile means in Frankenstein, but the means and end blend and blur into one. The techno-scientist Frankenstein believes himself to be the wonderful benefactor of the human race, but his beautiful creation turns out to be a monstrosity. The blessings for humanity imagined by Frankenstein do not materialize, but instead reveal themselves as curses. In Shelley’s story, technological achievement and success intrinsically correlate with failure and disaster.