Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein. For this week, we read about Victor Frankenstein’s remorse over the deaths of his brother William and of Justine; we read the beginning of the Creature’s own account of the first few years of his life; we read Kant’s rightly famous essay “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?”; and we read a brief excerpt from Mary Wollstonecraft’s “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.” In class, I discussed a few different ways that we could read the novel Frankenstein as referring to, contradicting, critiquing, or endorsing the Enlightenment ideals of liberty, reason, and intellectual progress that both Kant and Wollstonecraft write about. My question to you, then, is this: Does the novel Frankenstein, or at least the sections we have read so far, support or criticize the ideals of the Enlightenment that we find in Kant and Wollstonecraft?

Is Mary Shelley pro-Enlightenment or anti-Enlightenment?

Of course I don’t think there is an easy answer to the question, and I don’t expect you to come down firmly on one side or the other. But what I’d like you to write about is how the Enlightenment ideals we read about are presented in the novel, and whether they are portrayed in a positive or negative light. As always, I need you to use specific examples from the novel, and ideally also from the two essays. The goal here is for you to take a stance: to make an interpretation about the text and defend it with arguments and evidence. I look forward to reading what you all think!

Emmanuel Kant defines enlightenment as the emergence of a man from a self-caused
inability to understanding without relying on others for help. The ideas of enlightenment
presented in the novel are apparent. For example, Victor Frankenstein is grieved by the sudden
demise of his brother, William. After reading the letter addressed to him by Alphonse
Frankenstein, “Victor covered his face with his head and wept with bitterness”.
Tears also gushed from Clerval his friend and most excellent aide when he learned of Victor’s
misfortunes. The two then decided to go to Geneva instantly as Alphonse
Frankenstein requested. Alphonse noted that it is Victor alone who could console Elizabeth.
Victor also mourned Justine with a heavy heart. He says, "the blood flowed freely through veins
but weight of despair and remorse pressed on my heart” . APA style