弗兰肯斯坦书评

Thoughts about Frankenstein

Frankenstein is regarded as the first science fiction written by British novelist Mary Shelly about a fanatical scientist who creates a monster and the disasters after that. It is a novel with Gothic elements and it reflects the darkness of human being. Beginning in the form of letters, the author uses flashback and makes the reader less boring when reading this book.

The monster is one of the main character of the novel. He is created by a seemingly crazy scientist, Frankenstein and suffers the unfair treatments of human being. Then he takes revenge to the creators and his family and finally moves down to the path of destruction by himself. Actually in my opinion, the corruption of the creature has something to do with the behaviors of human beings. He lives in the jungle alone and takes notice to the old man and his poor family besides him. He cuts fire woods for them and even learn speaking and reading by himself in order to understand that poor family. When he takes his determinations to make friends with the kind family, they are too sacred about his ugly appearance and fights to get rid of him. That hurts the monster. He suffers so many similar events and finally goes to the path of self-destruction. I think it is the discrimination of human being that renders the changes of the monster. There is an old Chinese saying, “people at the beginning of goodness.” No one is born evil. To some extent, life changes people. Imagine that the monster gets fair treatments and lives a normal life. The ending of the story will be different. There are also examples in modern life. Ma Jiajue who was a good student and got many honors at school killed four classmates because of feeling despised. Maybe it is the poor family background and long-time self-abasement that causes the psychological illness of him and the harsh words from his classmates that cause the tragedy. When some tragedy happens, there are both immanent and external cause of it.

When we turn our eyes to the creator, Frankenstein, we can see that he is a figure with different characteristics. When he is a scientist, he seems determined and crazy. When he wants to prove his lovely friend is innocent, he seems coward. Combined with the time of the creation, people are experiencing the fast development of technology and it has many great influences. When we pay more attention to the development of high technology, we should sometimes slow down and think about the impacts to our normal life. Technology is a double-edged sword and if we abuse them, it

will cause some catastrophes to human beings. Such as the clone technology, on the one hand, it actually extends the longevity while it also causes many social and moral problems. Whether we should use this technology has become a hot topic. But we should have a neutral and calm attitude towards the development of technology to make it have the most benefit towards human beings.

Another important impression of this book is the encounters of the poor family living besides Monster. They are kind and warm-hearted but they are cheated by Safie’s father, then their life are changed. From this little scene, we can see the dark side of humanity. Sometimes you are sincere to others but you can not get what you deserve.

Even though Frankenstein is only a science fiction, it also reflects many social problems and human foibles. Even though it was written in 19th century, it still has practical significance in modern society.