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Jean-Marc Gulliet: Paper for NYU's MindBodyMedia, Summer 2001
The Golem, the Monster, and the Clone Popular imagination has always loved fantasy. For millennia, dreams and mysteries were brought to life by drawing on religious and magical traditions. Then, science gradually took the place of God in literature, creating the new literary genre of science fiction. By now, science is perceived as so powerful that its power is not questioned any longer but only its ethics in modern novels. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a work that illuminates this era of transition between two worlds of thinking that occurs during the nineteenth century: the use of science in place of magic in the popular mind. In western societies, the idea of bestowing life on an inanimate object seems to have always been present in the popular imagination. Since the description in the Bible of how Adam was created by God, Judeo-Christian occultists and magicians have never stopped trying to use the power of the heavens to animate the inert. The most famous of these attempts must be the golem. The creation of Jewish folklore is supposed to be an effigy that has been brought to life according to a specific ritual, unlocking the power of the Talmud using the esoteric tradition of the Kabbala. The golem is usually portrayed as an anthropomorphic creature made of clay, which is an obedient servant. Until the nineteenth century, the possibility of bestowing life on an inert thing depended on the presence of God. Anyone who tried to animate the clay had to request that God grant him that power. This is God, not scientific knowledge or human will, who grants the privilege to give life and the power to do so to a mere mortal. Before the 1800’s, literary creations reflect that point by using only magical devices as a means to create mystery and fantasy. Published in 1831, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein opened a new literary style that we recognize nowadays as science fiction. It is the first time, indeed, that it is suggested to the public that scientific knowledge and discoveries can lead to substitute man in the place of God during the process of creating life from scratch. In Shelley’s novel, Victor Frankenstein studied occultism by reading the works of Agrippa, Paracels, and others (20-21). Then, as a college student, he studied all the natural sciences. "If you wish to become a man of science," says his teacher of chemistry, "and not merely a petty experimentalist, I should advise you to apply to every branch of natural philosophy, including mathematics" (29). Having mastered all the aspects of natural sciences, he would start to conduct his own experiments to decipher the secret of life. Eventually, he would succeed in his room, used as a laboratory (35). This is a breakthrough for the popular imagination: science is now perceived as a replacement of magical thought in the mind of the public. Indeed, science would be used as a literary device to create fantasy and dream. Mary Shelley started a new genre of literature, which was situated at the beginning of almost two centuries of reflection about the power and the duties of scientists. This era culminated at the end of the twentieth century, when the clone replaced the monster. Not only was the clone described in science-fiction novels but also debated in public and political debates. Therefore, science fiction has changed, and does not question the creation a chimera but questions and explores social changes and ethical aspects of the modern version of the Mary Shelley’s monster. Works Cited "Agrippa." Britannica.com. Encyclopaedia Britannica. 23 May 2001. <http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=4138&hook=265862#265 862.hook> "Golem." Britannica.com. Encyclopaedia Britannica. 23 May 2001. <http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=38034&hook=175396#17 5396.hook> "Kabbala." Britannica.com. Encyclopaedia Britannica. 23 May 2001. <http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=45279&tocid=0> Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. 1831, 3rd ed. Ed. Stanley Applebaum and Candice Ward. New York: Dover Publication, 1994. |
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