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Lily Lamb
Mrs. Bouch
AP English Literature & Composition
9 November 2020

Frankenstein; or, Romantic Propaganda

From the late 17th to 18th centuries, a new intellectual movement was on the rise in

Europe. This movement, known as the Enlightenment, developed a worldview which

emphasized secularism, equality, and reason above all (Duignan). This emphasis on rationalism,

however, inspired a reactionary movement, that of Romanticism; centered around arts and

literature, this movement’s central ideals emphasized the rejection of harmony, idealization, and

rationalization. One of the most famous works from this period is Mary Shelley’s genre defining

Frankenstein. The novel tells the story of the egotistical Victor Frankenstein and his disastrous

attempt at creating life. Victor’s actions in pursuing creation are predominantly inspired by his

own obsession with science and reason. Shelley uses Romanticism in Frankenstein to highlight

the fault of Victor’s obsession with reason and the better options open to him, revealing

Shelley’s own deeply Romantic beliefs that rationality is a fault of human character.

Romanticism is emphasized throughout the novel by a contrast to Victor’s own choices

and ideas. All the misfortune of Victor’s life arises from his lifelong obsession with science, and

how his obsession will lead him to his mission of creating life and the misery which is the

mission’s final outcome. His early fascination with the work of Cornelius Agrippa leads Victor

to a lifetime of scientific study, namely, at the college of Ingolstadt. Here Victor’s obsessive

studies lead him to discover the secret of life and death. With this knowledge, Victor sets to

bringing a new creature to life with the goal of the eternal glory of “a new species” which would
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“bless [Victor] as its creator,” (Shelley 45). One of the major flaws of Victor’s character is the

great lack of respect for nature, expressed in his belief that he himself could learn to control

God’s power of creation. This state of hubris is directly in contrast with the respect and

appreciation for nature which was essential to the beliefs of the Romantics. Victor’s unlawful

attempt at creation is rewarded by the rage of his Creature, who tragically destroys everyone

Victor loves in his mission for revenge against his creator, yet this is almost the natural

consequence of Victor’s blind pursuit of science- his reason, pride, and selfishness. In a novel

about reason and Romanticism, Victor definitively represents the downfall, if not sinfulness, of a

life devoted to nothing but science and reason.

Like the Romantics, both Victor and the Creature find wonder and healing in nature. The

sublimity of nature is emphasized throughout the novel by the experiences that Victor and the

Creature both have at different points in the wilderness. The idea of sublime nature emphasizes

both its greatness in comparison with all human concerns and faults, but also the power of nature

to inspire emotion, healing, or passion. This Romantic view of nature is revealed in Victor’s

experiences in nature and the descriptions which express his awe: “I looked on the valley

beneath; vast mists were rising from the rivers which ran through it, and curling in thick wreaths

around the opposite mountains, whose summits were hid in the uniform clouds,” (Shelley 90).

For all of his obsession with reason, Victor seemingly cannot escape the sublime presence of

nature. Even to violate nature as he does in making the Creature, Victor is still ultimately smaller

and lesser than nature. The grand depictions of nature in the novel also hint at its second role of

inspiring healing and refuge in line with the Romantic interpretation of nature’s emotional value.

Even at some of their highest points of internal tension, the Creature and Victor reliably find

even a short immersion in nature to be successfully emotionally healing. For example, the
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Creature, after being dramatically rejected by his beloved De Lacey family, is able to temporarily

soothe himself from his blinding rage after the “pleasant sunshine, and the pure air of day,

restored [him] to some degree of tranquility,” (Shelley 129). Victor has a similar experience in

nature during his exploratory trip with Clerval after his perceived failure with the Creature and

month-long breakdown: even from such a poor state he recovers greatly from his time in nature

and he himself claims that “a serene sky and verdant fields filled me with ecstasy,” (Shelley 61).

The similar experiences that the Creature and Victor have with nature creates a trend in the

novel, revealing the value nature and its power to inspire, heal, and command the emotions. The

great power this perception gives to nature is a thoroughly Romantic concept, stemming from

beliefs in sublime nature, and this introduces a sense of inescapable Romantic truths even to the

life of reason obsessed Victor Frankenstein.

Throughout the novel, rationality is shown to be an incomplete and dangerous worldview,

and thus in turn the novel serves to emphasize the value of rationality’s opposite- in Shelley’s

case, the Romantic movement. This clear positive emphasis on the Romantic path makes sense,

given Shelley’s own life and background. Mary Shelley was herself closely tied to the most

famous names of the Romantic movement, given that her friends included the eccentric Lord

Byron and her husband himself was the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Both Lord Byron and Percy

Shelley were intimately involved with the development of the concept of Frankenstein, so the

story goes. The Romantic movement which Shelley was so critically involved with was at its

core a reaction to and rejection of the recent social and intellectual upheavals of the

Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution; as these movements emphasized the crucial

importance of rationality, the Romantics instead emphasized emotion, individual experience, and

a rejection of reason (Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica). Shelley writes these Romantic

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beliefs into the very novel itself: the example of Victor’s failed creation and the years of misery

he faces as a consequence serve as an example of the larger shortcomings of reason, the

Enlightenment, or the Scientific Revolution as a whole. According to Shelley’s own beliefs, and

thus imbued in the whole novel, scientific ends are always of a critical flaw- but this tone in turn

serves to highlight both the relative merits of Romanticism and Shelley’s investment in them.

The devices and message of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein reveal the novel’s purpose of

comparing and debating reason versus Romanticism. Victor’s horrible choice to reject the natural

order, the miserable consequences of this choice, and the presence and power of nature

throughout the novel all reveal the bias and disregard for reason held by Romantic author Mary

Shelley. However, for many, Shelley’s warning against tempting nature with science likely

seems outlandish and pointless. In all likelihood, a relatively small amount of Shelley’s readers

have contemplated the creation of Frankenstein’s monsters, whether literal or metaphorical. It is

even unlikely by modern times that there are many readers struggling to pick between lives of

reason and Romanticism The issues Frankenstein speaks to today are far more subtle, but far

more universal. The Enlightenment and Romanticism no longer exist as competing ideological

movements, yet reason and emotion remain two essential values of human character and decision

making. The life of Victor Frankenstein proves the downfalls of using science and reason to

tempt God and nature, but neither would it do to live life frivolously from one emotional ecstasy

to the next with no place for logic or science. In a way, by dramatizing the conflict between

reason and Romanticism to such extreme proportions, Frankenstein best serves not in offering an

endorsement one way or the other, but in emphasizing the importance of the binary itself to

human identity, nature, and experience.

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Works Cited

Duignan, Brian. “Enlightenment.” Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/event/Enlightenment-

European-history. Accessed 5 November 2020.

Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Romanticism.” Britannica,

https://www.britannica.com/art/Romanticism. Accessed 5 November 2020.

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. San Francisco, Ignatius Press, 2008.