Frankenstein and playing god

Having delved into Frankenstein before in other classes, I’d like to take a more overarching look at the text and explore what I feel to be its key themes and messages. The discussion in class regarding whether fate or man’s actions served as the primary source of conflict in the novel’s plot was an interesting one, as I believe the answer is less cut and dry than a simple either/or dichotomy. Fate and especially man’s tampering with it are interrelated in Frankenstein, and these are integrally tied into a discussion of what does and doesn’t constitute nature and the natural. The foremost discussion in the novel is that of Frankenstein’s alteration of the natural order of things, repurposing fated elements of the natural world for his own scientific devices and thereby taking fate and nature into his own hands.

In chapter four, as Frankenstein begins obsessive work on his experiment, he turns his back on the events of the natural world around him. “Winter, spring, and summer passed away during my labours;” he says, “but I did not watch the blossom or the expanding leaves—sights which before always yielded me supreme delight—so deeply was I engrossed in my occupation” (54).¹ This passage, for me, symbolizes his apathy towards the natural world when engaged in his scientific endeavors, and his lack of interest in the natural order of things as he pursues his own new order of resurrection after death. His dangerous playing God eventually has disastrous consequences on his life and on his loved ones, as nature and fate attempt to reconcile his unwelcome alterations to the ordained destination of things.