Frankenstein’s Influence in Today's World

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Many timeless novels have impacts on our everyday culture, not only as a book but also through music or movies. Frankenstein was not even a word until this esteemed novel was circulated. . The word itself didn't exist until Mary Shelley wrote the book, and now it has a meaning of its own. Frankenstein: A creature of sorts that becomes destructive or terrifying to its creator. Her novel also had a huge impact on the public's perception of “science” and scientific testing on human beings.

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This book showed the value in scientific research on cadavers and gave credence to the notion that we could prolong our life expediency by experimenting on deceased persons. In this printed work we faced with theories about reanimation of human paralyzed limbs, amputation and anatomical donation for the first time ever.

In this novel the main character Victor Frankenstein was a young man of only 17 years when his adopted sister Victoria fell ill to scarlet fever. She miraculously survived this brush with death but their mother who nursed her back to health, in-turn caught the deadly disease herself and perished.

This tragedy had a profound effect on Victor and changed his carefree and happy demeanor forever more. He before had never encountered any turmoil or death in his life and became obsessed with the study of anatomy and physiology after his mother's passing and with the concept of being able to prolong people's lives and prevent death. He felt that no family should endure grief and thought that no natural death was “absolute”.

He (Dr. Frankenstein) hypothesized that only in the case of murder was death an absolute ending and that he could not only through scientific experimentation prevent death but also could recreate life.

Once Victor left to study abroad at Ingolstadt University he met two professors M. Krempe and M. Waldman who introduced him for the first time to chemistry and mentored his love of science. He immediately became a master of his craft and began grave robbing to obtain human remains for his experiments in reanimation. Victor stated “Although i possessed the capacity of bestowing animation, yet to prepare a frame for the reception of it’. (page 40) He then began to construct a blueprint to receive lightening and attempted to create life from a multitude of body parts he collected from charnel houses. Victor theorized “to examine the causes of life, we must first have recourse to death” (page 38).

Victor Frankenstein was successful in his reanimation experiment and created the monster now known as “Frankenstein”. Mary Shelley in this novel created one of the most popular genres we now know as “science fiction”. This novel intrigued the public through its graphic gothic and gory content and raised the collectives interest in science and scientific research. This book helped to inspire young students into the field of science and guided early scientists into the study of electro science (electrophysiology) and medical research.

This novel has had a fundamental influence on pop culture and fueled the study of science worldwide. This body of work helped popularize the study of “Galvanism” or effect of electricity on muscular contraction in the human body. In this century its common place to use electrical current to treat an array of medical ailments. Many people have TENS units (muscle stimulators) in their homes to boost their muscular function via electricity. Many people nowadays are body donors or organ donors as its common knowledge that scientific progression depends on cadaver research, and that our donations of major organs can preserve life through transplant surgeries. Many branches of scientific research stemmed from the interest in reamination that this book created. In my generation as a “ post- millennial” it's common knowledge that scientific exploration on human beings can prolong life and can help to prevent death, and this novel helped to pioneer such concepts. This book is was an important building block into modern-day scientific cadaver research and help to educate the masses on the importance of this body of science research. This novel provoked interest in many areas of science the 19th century and even still does even to this day.