Thompson post #1

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is about far more than just a genius scientist and the misunderstood creature that he created. It’s really a look back of sorts into science and history of the time in which this book was written. This book was written in 1816, a pivotal time for useful inventions yet a little too late for ground breaking discoveries like where the earth is located in our solar system and just exactly how gravity works. What Mary Shelley WAS able to do with this book was create a word where the idea of our modern science was still in its infancy.  For example, when Victor was discussing with his father about some theories regarding science, his father shot him down. The reason, Victor still considered Cornelius Agrippa’s theory, a theory nearly 300 years old, of magic as the best way of discovering nature a viable scientific source, “I chanced to find a volume of the works of Cornelius Agrippa. I opened it with apathy; the theory which he attempts to demonstrate, and the wonderful facts he relates soon changed this feeling into enthusiasm.  A new light seemed to dawn upon my mind-“(20). This seemingly infantile way of viewing the ideas of modern science on the part of Victor are spawned from the ages of Scientific repression, where no new discoveries that conflicted with the teachings of the catholic church, so all of them, were prohibited. This created a massive ripple effect for hundreds of years to follow where the teaching of modern sciences and the beliefs of modern scientists were often years behind the times. Another example is in the very beginning of the book when he is writing his sister to discuss the wonders of the North Pole, “I may there discover a wondrous power which attracts the needle; and may regulate celestial bodies (1)”. Although he actually had some valid points regarding the magnetic poles, overall, his theories on what he would find at the poles were scientifically very off base. In conclusion, although science has taken us to seemingly immeasurable heights and given us seemingly likely theories at one point science gave us Heliocentrism and the flat earth concept, so I for one am excited to see what is to come and am pleased with Mary Shelley for allowing us a look into the past science.