5/21/24 — SOCIETY | ESSAY

Discuss a book that you would call a “great book.” We want to learn both about the ideas in the book and about you. What makes the book great in your view? What effect has it had on what you think or how you think?

Between the years of 1750 and 1900, humans began to confront their nature — again. The cause, this time, was industrialization. Likely in part to her unparalleled literary exposure, Mary Shelley saw the pendulum of human thought for what it was. Having read herself into old age at only 19, the inquiry of 19th century man sounded all too familiar. She traced its origin to literature’s collective consciousness, which cited the fact that humans had been asking Romantic-era questions forever and would continue to. Frankenstein was bound to be a classic. Who am I? What is my role in relation to nature? What is nature? Shelley draws from a well of timeless thought to answer these timeless questions and is proof that studying among the “greats” allows us to stand on the shoulders of giants. 

Who am I?

As a function of Shelley’s adept characterization, her in-depth analysis of Dr. Frankenstein’s creature is, subsequently, an in-depth analysis of the innate nature of man for which we join either the side of Hobbes or Rousseau. Might the naïve beginning of his creature identify a Rousseauian defense of man’s good?

Having encountered prehistory the summer prior to being introduced to this text, I couldn’t help but notice Shelley’s layered demonstration of civilization’s corrupting effect on personhood now face to face with it. Human and societal development are paralleled within the monster’s accelerated growth. For its time, anthropology is surprisingly trackable in Frankenstein. Frankenstein’s monster as an infant is prehistory’s paleolithic hunter-gatherer, his contact with villagers’ civilization, a Neolithic revolution of sorts as he engages with stolen bread, cheese, and wine. At which point this “model man” makes contact with civilization, Shelley is sure to not only paint his curious enlightenment but to make a nod to his subtle corruption.

In the personification of mankind’s unique acceleration from tabula rasa to modernity, Shelley’s “model man” asks itself the very question, “Who am I?” This metacognition urges nineteenth-century man to abandon industrial innovation in pursuit of the self.

The “Self” continues to be a fundamental concern of human authorship — whether in favor of the state of nature or the state. In my senior year of IB literature, after graduating from junior year and Frankenstien, I was confronted with postmodern texts that took up both Rousseauian positions and Hobbesian ones. They force Shelley to anticipate the following inquiry:

What is my role in relation to nature?

To describe our relationship with nature, Frankenstein portrays human competition with the natural order. This is evident in Victor Frankenstein’s conflict; he, as “The Modern Prometheus,” who manipulates omnipotence. It is interesting that Shelley chooses not to portray this conflict as being inherent to our nature. Instead, she rejects this/our innovated condition as being anything but. As an allegory for Milton’s Paradise Lost, Shelley’s characters explore the unique bounds of human nature and often find themselves lost in its labyrinth. It is a compelling interpretation of the human condition.

The truth is that the most important question is not addressed in Frankenstein:

What is nature?

The “great books” I read in senior year IB literature allowed me to settle somewhere in-between Hobbes and Rousseau. After reading Siddhartha, I was left in observance of the oxymoron that is trying to pry apart the two bounds of human will whose coexistence define it. While I’m not convinced our most natural state tells us everything we need to know about our nature, I know Shelley’s unique courage to continue The Discussion is the means through which I can. This courage, to continue The Discussion, is what defines a “great book.”

Students of the liberal arts have this courage. They take to literature’s collective consciousness for citation and are provided the liberty to make their mark on it by contributing their own findings, often in the form of prose or poetry, to innovate its body. Only in literature can we track the evolution of human thought — over three thousand years of it. Shelley’s decision to bring Rousseau, Milton, and the Prometheus legend to the forefront of the 19th century industrial dilemma, very conscious of this, highlights the importance of understanding fundamental discussion in the pursuit of intentionality.

Over 200 years later, her message still holds true, but we have yet to solve the issue of intentionality. I often wonder how a societal reinvestment in fundamental discourse might impact our civilization for the better. Literature’s collective consciousness draws me to the liberal arts. As modernity forges ahead, into discussion of AI legal personhood, the modern version of Dr. Frankenstein’s monster, I choose to step back— into intentionality. Such fundamental questions as “Who Am I?” “What is my role in relation to nature?” and “What is nature?” are increasingly vital to the creation of a world driven to found purpose, solve moral dilemma, and preserve human legacy. For the sake of intentionality, I owe myself a liberal arts education. There should not be Mary Shelleys and then the rest of society: there should be a society of them.

Summer Arukwer-Strother