Monday, May 3, 2010
Guest Blogger - Melissa D.
Today in class we did a discussion about one of the many themes of Frankenstein by Mary Shelly. The theme we began discussing was about the power of knowledge and how when put in the wrong hands it can be abused. We discussed how Victor’s power-hungry attitude for seeing how much he could accomplish actually ended up hurting him and driving him to become physically ill and have extreme feelings of guilt and sorrow as his creation began murdering those who he loved. One of the things I noticed in the book was how Victor seemed to have all these “book smarts” but didn’t have enough knowledge to realize that what he was doing wasn’t moral. “When I found so astonishing a power placed within my hands, I hesitated a long time concerning the manner in which I should employ it” (Shelly 54). This quote shows that his power of him succeeding in the creation of life over powered his consciousness and common sense. This very observation led our class discussion to a modern controversy that was sparked by this book which is the question of whether man should be able to gain the knowledge and power in order to actually create another human being. After reading Frankenstein, I realize that it may not be as good of an idea to put that kind of power into the hands of such a flawed creature. We see in this story how Victor’s success actually scares him and causes him to abandon this new being causing it to be alone and eventually seek vengeance. Victor’s actions are somewhat of how I would imagine real life scientist to react. If man was to create a man, just to see if they could do it, what would then happen to this new person? Would it be killed to be used for parts? We would have created a HUMAN BEING, not a car or a lawn mower. Even if the human was simply created in a test tube, it was still born with feelings, a brain and a conscious, right? An argument that could be put forth disputing my comment could be something like what a mother would say to a misbehaving child, “I brought you into this world, and I can take you out!” The only difference is, a child has an actual family, who is there to raise it for the good and to love and care for it, where as a clone lacks that part of his/her life. But does that make it right to abandon or kill it? That is basically what happened to the creature. It lacked a family, someone to care and nurture him for the good of the community. He was abandoned and therefore acted out because he didn’t exactly know better, at first. Like a real human, he learned and developed exactly how a clone created today would eventually do. Frankenstein defiantly sparked a whole new train of thought for me, in class and even after the bell rang. New opinions where defiantly formed, much like a lot of readers experience after reading such an intense story.
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I absolutely agree with Melissa on the subject of creating clones of humans today, and I feel that, in a way, the torture that Victor suffered after creating this creature that he knew nothing about was a punishment for playing around with too much knowledge. In class we discussed the idea of poetic justice, and i feel that that is exactly what Victor experienced- up to a point. Victor secluded himself from society to focus his attention on inventing his new creation, and had hopes of this new creature for many wrong reasons. He soon realized that he was naive with this discovery, and ran from his creation he worked so hard on. The creation then left to fend for himself and learned on his own. It soon realized what his creator had done and the power and strength that it possesed, and went on to seek revenge. Although poetic justice plays a role in the story, i feel that the monster took it too far. He did not know how valuable one's life was to the world, and thought it was okay to murder many people to seek revenge. Victor then enters a life full of misery, seeking revenge of the monster that he created.
ReplyDeleteI think that having a clone would be cool, and even though it would be really freaky, it still seems pretty neat. I am not saying that we should make human clones in anyway, I am just stating that the farther that we go in science, the better it will be for humans in the long run. I don't really love the idea of human cloning, in fact it seems a little creepy to have someone else who has your face walking around, but in terms of animals, I say go ahead. I think that, as long as they don't harm the animal in anyway, there really shouldn't be a problem, because animals don't have complex feelings like humans do. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love animals, it's just that they aren't nearly as intelligent as human beings are and there really wouldn't be any severe consequences of animal cloning. (Unless they created an evil rabbit or something, in which case we would all be doomed) And there wouldn't be the confusion, like Maddy and Katie said about the problems with Human cloning in terms of their development and brain, and while it would be awesome to know that you could create a clone of anyone, there would still be problems in even the most careful situations.
ReplyDeleteTo me cloning also seems creepy, and I don't know if it's something we should be involved in. It could be beneficial in many ways but then what if there were some crazy power-hungry people involved in the cloning processes that just took things way too far? That could end badly. And like Kelsey said, animal cloning does not seem like it would be a problem.. however, what if problems were to arise from people eating these cloned animals? I don't know if we have enough information yet to resort to cloning and depend on that cloning. But those are just a bunch of "what ifs".
ReplyDeleteI think that a family is a major difference. A clone would have a difficult time creating the same kind of relationships that exist within a family where there is unconditional love and care. In Frankenstein, Victor's family still loved him dispite the many wrong things he had done. Victor, however, did not have this same relationship with the monster and he was unable to accept the monster even after hearing his story.
ReplyDeleteLike maddy said there are too many "what ifs" but the only way to solve the what ifs is to experiment and create these clones. I'm not saying that cloning is the right thing to do, but to find out information it would have to be tried. The only problem with trying cloning is that there comes responsibilities with creating a human especially if they are bad.
ReplyDeleteI think that we should not be trying to clone any living things. The cloning process is messing with the way things are supposed to be. When Victor's "creation" was created, he screamed in horror at the creation. A mother is not going to scream right after she pops out a child. A human is to be born not created. The point is that a child has parents and someone to care for them while a clone does not.
ReplyDeleteI'm the first to support a pursuit of knowledge and scientific advancement. However, there is an important distinction to make: by finding out the nature of atoms, exploring chemistry, unveiling human psychology, etc., we are able to improve the welfare of the human race. Understanding the workings of the natural world is one thing; how we USE those understandings is quite another. Chemistry can create medicines and poisons. Likewise, learning secrets of rejuvenation and reanimating tissue can do positive things, such as giving amputees new limbs. But there are negative ways to use it, ways that have no apparent redeeming qualities other than to prove we can. And doing things for the sake of doing them, with no real purpose, is an error. Just because we are able to do something, it does not mean that we should. Learning science and application of science must be treated very differently.
ReplyDeleteThis post bring out a lot of ideas for me. First of all it just reminds me that Frankenstein can have so many different themes. Mainly, from this passage, I think about the more contemporary and controversial theme of human creation and/or stem cell research. I also, like Ihab, see how knowledge and research should be treated with respect to each situation. As much as I like Frankenstein, the one thing that really irks me is the ambiguity and uncertainty, like Maddy and Sophie pointed out, all the "What If's" just throw me off.
ReplyDeleteI think that melissa had a good point with the stupidity of Victor because he can realize that he has this immense power and that it needs to be used carefully but he is unable to realize that consequences if he does it. Victor had spent so much time acquiring all of his knowledge and you would think he would have thought about hte consequsences or at least taken some responsiblity for the monster. If victor were as smart as he claims to be he would have been able to eiither make the smart decision or at least clean up his mess.
ReplyDeleteI agree completely with Maddy and Sophie, in that at this point there are way to many what-ifs. But when we do reach the technological stage that we are able to clone other human beings, I think that as a country we would not treat this lightly, they would go over the problems, what-ifs, and possible execution of the being a hundred times before they ever began to clone a human being.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with Ihab, all scientific discoveries can be used for good, as could cloning. We would just have to find the way to use them, whether it is for amputees or maybe for "human" testing for pills or surgeries. Whatever we decide to do in the future, we should prepare now because that technology will come at some point.
I feel that if humans created a human from other body parts and brought it to life like in "Frankenstein", we would be smarter than Victor. As a society, we know the basics of what a newborn baby should have when it is being taken care of. Food, shelter, clothing, etc.; instead of abandoning the creation like Victor did, we would nurture it and love it. The reason Victor's creature became a monster is because it lacked the bare minimum care it deserved from it's creator. In modern times, reanimating dead body parts could become the greatest success in science of the 21 century.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree with you more!! I think it is very wrong to test on these human beings with emotions and can feel everything that is going on. Im Frankenstien i think he had good intentions and had doubt that it would work but when the experiment actually went through with itself that he got scared that it worked and didn't know how to handle the situation. Like in the movie the island, they clone people to get their same organs replaced if it was damaged or had cancer etc. and they would just kill the clone without thinking twice about it. I think we aren't too far off from this because we have already cloned animals why not humans?
ReplyDeleteI agree as well, last week I saw a movie trailer for the movie Slice, I immediately thought of the discussion we had in class about how today we are going too far to search for knowledge we are not ready for. In the movie Splice it is a scientist who is creating a human like creature for some reason i do not know, from the trailer the creation turns for the worst and something goes wrong, the creation gets out of its container and attacks, the movie looks to be a scary movie that people will see for entertainment. But my view of the movie is if we continue to mess and create things we are not ready for, soon it wont be a movie for entertainment, soon it will be real.
ReplyDeleteBut then i look at the movie Avatar, I loved the movie, but it change my point of view a little bit, because they were messing with knowledge they were not ready for, and many times it amlost failed and killed John and other characters, however, the movie ends hapily and the avatars win and keep their land. But, did all that have to happen? while the origional plan was to make friends with the avatars, as always the bad guy ruins it. Killing many avatars and precious land in the process, but WHAT IF the avatars did not win, again, humans would be abusing and destructing things because of too much knowledge.
Like most things, cloning has its pluses and minuses. Its morality is questionable, but it could be argued that it would end horribly or that it would emit miraculous results. I think maybe Mary Shelley was not trying to scare us out of gaining too much knowledge, but possibly trying to show us the great responsibility that comes with gaining that knowledge. Victor did not take responsibility for his creation, and many think this caused the monster to lash out and seek his violent revenge. In a certain, controlled environment, a clone might be able to be raised safely without having them kill our loved ones.
ReplyDeleteI believe that because of all these in between questions, cloning should not require anymore of our attention. As Mary Shelley pointed out, knowledge can become very dangerous when shifting from knowledge to experimentation. Cloning, stem cells, etc. may bring good to those suffering from other problems, but if it were me, I would not accept this aid if I knew others were suffering because of it. Victor created the monster because of his own wishes, and he knew that in no way it would shape others lives. This is what I fear scientists will become consumed in. There is a point in time where one must reflect on what is morally right before proceeding with unnatural discoveries.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with melissa also. I think that the discussion about frankenstien was one of the most interesting things we have done in AP lit all year. The discussions we had in class stuck with me for the rest of the day instead of being instantly disregarded after walking out the door. who knew that a book that was written so long ago could be so relevant and contriversial even today in the 21st century? I think that the book could serve as a warning for scientists today. People must know that if life was indeed created, the person who ws responsible for creating that life must also take responibility for the consequences that follow. The being created may not be everything it was thought to be. I think that if life was indeed created, a new contriversy would emerge as to what is ethical or humane to do to such a creature
ReplyDeleteDuncan G
ReplyDeleteTo clone or not to clone? That is the question.
CLONE!!!!! That is the answer, but only for body parts. There is not need to clone a complete genome, come on we can pop out babies fine on our own. Frankenstein's made a few mistakes in making the monster; it was not aesthetically pleasing. Humans find symmetry in humans beautiful and with all the disproportionate parts Frankenstein put together, the monster must have been asymmetrical. Along with its enormous size, the monster become unacceptable. We can learn from victors mistake, but symmetry doesn't matter since we should only clone for body parts. We can create a brain but we can sever the reticular formation to put the clone into a comma until it dies and if that's not enough for anti-cloning extremists, we could create the brain without associative areas of the brain so the clone can't think while its in the comma. Then we can take all the body parts and live happily ever after.
I agree with Maddy and Tom in that cloning shouldn't be explored. It's scary to think people posess that power, and what they could possible do with it. Will they become power-hungry like we saw Victor become? I think that even though the science/technology may be there, morally and ethically we should stay away from cloning. I really enjoyed the class discussion we had and I think many valid points were brought to the table. It was one of the most interesting things of the year in my opinion, because we shared our thoughts and related it to current happenings, which helps put things into prospective.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Victor didn't take into consideration how his actions would affect people around him. Im sure he didn't realize that his creation would lead to the killing of his loved ones, and if he did know it would he never would have created the monster. As for cloning i believe that we shouldn't be exploring anything that comes close to it. A clone would not be able to develop into a "normal" (whatever normal is) human and wouldn't be able to have those relationships with others and wouldn't feel belongingness.
ReplyDeleteI think that we should not have the ability to clone people. One thing we also discussed that day was knowing when we need to stop and just leave some things a mystery. Cloning would lead to a lot of protests and possibly riots, not to mention all the debates on ethics! I think that for the sake of peace and what not cloning should just remain a mystery.
ReplyDeleteI think that cloning is really creepy. I would like to talk about how you said that the monster didn't register that what he was doing was immoral. I have a theory about that. When we are little parents teach us what boks can't. They teach us what is and isn't moral. I think that because the monster never had those parents he never learned that things were bad. Even if he kind of understands but doesn't care.
ReplyDeleteI feel that this book did bring up a very interesting debate. While it is often debated whether or not something like cloning is right or wrong, we often ignore the question of what would actually happen with the new being. Or in the case of Frankenstein, what would happen with the newly created (as opposed to cloned) being? Frankenstein shows that even if the new being is full sized, it still is initially going to be like a baby, needing love, care, and an education. If these things are ignored, as in the case of the creature, very negative things could result.
ReplyDelete