It can't be
said that Mary Shelley invented science , for the use of imagined advanced technology to propel
a story goes back to Lucan's True History, a Roman (2nd century)that
includes space voyages and aliens. Nevertheless, Shelley's Frankenstein is
often credited as the first work of modern science fiction.
It earns this distinction because, if she did not invent science fiction, Shelley did
invent the prototype of the isolated, "mad" scientist alone in his lab concocting
experiments that willor couldhave significant impacts on humankind as a whole. Victor
Frankenstein concocts a creature that could, as he realizes, potentially breed and populate the
earth with a race of "monsters."
This motif of the mad scientist
has been much repeated in science fiction, with spaceships, time machines, and other advanced
technology coming out of the lab or garage of a lone genius.
Shelley is also
considered a pioneer in her employment of what was then state-of-the-art scientific knowledge to
lendand plausibility to the idea that one could use electricity to animate dead body parts into
new life. Plausible, rational science is one of the backbones of science fiction and is what
distinguishes it from magical or fantasy literature. There is no magic in
Frankenstein, simply science gone awry.
No comments:
Post a Comment