Dialectical musings on the relationship between art and science

Frankenstein’s Womb really got me thinking about the relationship between science and art (specifically literature). After throwing in some dialectics into the mix, I’ve come up with some musings about this relationship. While these thoughts are still in their infancy and in need of maturation, I encourage anyone to complicate, contribute, or refute my ideas.

I’ve come to the conclusion that art and science are one in the same, or at least very similar. Literature (and all forms of art) gives us an experience of the world by interpreting it through the recreating and reflection of different histories, ideologies, realities, which helps us to understand the world around us—by using gothic tropes, the sublime, the picturesque, etc. to comment on social inequalities, for example. Science, on the other hand, uses empirical knowledge and observations to seek a better understanding of our world/reality. However, I don't think that we can get to a full understanding of our world by simply looking at these two entities in isolation. Rather, I think that if we look at them dialectically and combine and weave them together we see how art and science ebb and flow with one another we will see that they do not deal with different problems, instead they deal with the same problems but in different ways. Or more distinctly, science gives us a conceptual knowledge of our worldview (our understanding) and art (literature) gives us the experience of that worldview; when used together, both can be the roadmap to reach a greater understanding.

I don't know exactly how relevant these ruminations are to the graphic novel, but I felt like sharing these, hopefully they help in some way, shape, or form.

Graphic Novellas

There are two individual stories per each novella. In the first one, provided by David, he is a caretaker of the past, present, and future. He shows Mary Shelley how he is "born", then he takes her back to when she was born; but most importantly, he takes her FAR into the future and shows her how life is restored through a defibrillator; electricity is the key to life, taken from the first novel. It was incredibly well organized, although it jumped around time eras a lot. It was a very intense take on how we constantly bring people from the dead back to life through the use of electricity, just like Dr. Frankenstein.

My least favourite thing though is that in the first novella, it does not show the Doctor in the creation process, or not as in depth as I would like it to be. 

Frankenstein and Science

So, it seems Walton has decided to give up his scientific journey to the North Pole at the end of the novel, as he realizes it is not worth the risk of lives. Frankenstein's story has taught him to think things through more. This begs the question, why didn't Victor think more about the consequences of creating a new being? Surely he realized something had to happen after  his experiment was finished. I think he was more focused on giving life to the creature than what kind of life it would have. He didn't plan ahead like he needed to. Victor was in love with the idea and cold not handle the reality.

The Graphic Novels

I thought that both of them had a very unique style. The more literal one looked much more like a modern comic, while the other one seems to have a more classical style. I really didn't like Frankenstein's Womb. I found the characters to be annoying and crass.I loved how the literal one was able to be faithful to the source while keeping a comic book style.

P.S: Jason Cobley also did a version of Dracula that was released last year.

“’ I was not even of the same nature as man.  I cannot describe to you the agony that these reflections inflicted upon me; I tried to dispel them, but sorrow only increased with knowledge…’”

During our class discussion on Monday on the end of Frankenstein, I was really struck by the concept of the creature’s relation to society. In the novel, we see more and more evidence of the creature’s acquisition of knowledge. With more knowledge came more agony and misery. His dealings with society are largely the biggest creators of his learned agony and misery. After saving a girl in the forest, a man shoots at him. People react negatively to all of his witnessed actions. The creature in turn feels betrayed by society, betrayed enough to take action for his creator’s abandonment. For the creature to be entirely abandoned by his creator and society, the only natural reaction is for the creature to lack faith in humanity. All of the creatures suffering, whether it be from isolation or guilt, is directly caused by his relationship with society.

Thoughts About the Preface

I thought that preface to The Cenci was interesting. It gave some insight into Shelley’s frame of mind and inspiration for the story as a whole. It also looked at the purpose of art in general. “The highest moral purpose aimed at in the highest species of the drama is the teaching the human heart, through its sympathies and antipathies, the knowledge of itself; in proportion to the possession of which knowledge every human being is wise, just, sincere, tolerant and kind.” Fiction mirrors truth and reality. Even in the most imaginative story there are bits of humanity, society, culture, reality, or some piece of relatable material for the audience. That’s what makes literature so interesting. In literature every reader can find some aspect that they relate to, maybe not agree with entirely, but you can pick out something that you’ve seen play out in life. It’s the same reason why we like certain song lyrics or lines in a movie. Shelley also says that he had to downplay the gruesome aspect of the play so that readers wouldn’t get hung up on that part and instead enjoy the story. This shows just how much the audience can get enveloped in a story such as this with believable characters and relatable aspects. Shelley had to create a little distance so that the audience can derive pleasure from the story. I thought this preface as a whole began the play with the reader in the right frame of mind to receive the ideas, characters, and story of the play as a whole. 

Pictures Are Cool

I always enjoy seeing a story told in different perspectives or mediums. There’s something intriguing about a form of art being represented in a new way. The graphic novels serve to highlight concepts in Shelley’s Frankenstein in the same way that a movie changes your idea of a novel. I read Annie Proulx’s Brokeback Mountain for another class so I’ve really been thinking about different retellings of stories and these graphic novels furthered that thought process.

Frankenstein’s Womb reminded me of Dicken’s A Christmas Carol in a way with the concept of time changing. The past, future, and present had a collision in this story and I found that really interesting. The past leads us to the future and the present gives birth to the future. “You die, Mary, giving birth to the future.”, was an interesting line in Frankenstein’s Womb.  The comic served to cement Shelley’s novel in a place in time that exists within a certain culture. Obviously scientific revelations of the time had a huge impact on writing, and this novel was certainly affected. I enjoyed the almost “prequel” aspect of the comic. This was the imagining of Shelley’s inspiration for her novel. This story hasn’t been told as thoroughly or examined as closely as the novel. The process that causes an author to create a story is just as important as the story itself so the imagining of Shelley’s experience with the castle brought more to her novel even though it was obviously fictional. It is the same idea as Baum’s Oz books, its just interesting that a story be continued in whatever direction one might take it whether it is a prequel type story or not.  

            I was disappointed that the preview of the other graphic novel ended. My thought process with this was that I couldn’t figure out what makes a “picture book” version of a novel so interesting.  I guess it’s pretty obvious, though. It’s the same reason why we show children animated movies. At the most basic level…pictures are cool… the graphic novel takes the imaginative aspects of the story as a whole and brings it to the forefront. We don’t have to imagine the scene because its there for us. 

Frankenstein Graphic Novels

I thought Frankenstein’s Womb, while obviously not the real events leading up to Mary Shelley writing Frankenstein, helped to put a person to the story. While we all know that Mary Shelley wrote the novel, and that many of her own experiences are incorporated into it, the graphic novel helps to really put a face and a time behind the making of this classic. It offers a whimsical alternative to someone just traveling Europe while writing it. It helps to allow the reader to enter this fanciful world where impossible things can happen. This in turn can help the reader to get into the mind frame necessary to truly enjoy Frankenstein. The one illustrated by Jason Cobley is much more literal and adds illustrations to the words in the novel. I found this graphic novel very interesting because it is intriguing to see how someone else sees the novel. In my head, it looked nothing like this. Being able to see different viewpoints helps to reader to see things from different perspectives he or she may not have been able to acknowledge from his or her own imagination.

P. Shelley's Preface

I found Percy Shelley’s preface to The Cenci to be extremely interesting. He unfolds to the reader exactly why and how he chose to turn this true story into a drama. I particularly noted his own feelings about Beatrice Cenci. He seemed drawn to her story from the beginning, noting he himself had a copy of her portrait that he kept with him. What is most interesting is that he tells the audience he does not agree with her actions, saying that revenge and retaliation are “pernicious mistakes”. However, he notes the necessity of her to make the story tragic. He notes that if people seek justification for an action, there probably is not in fact any justification to be had. It is people’s desire to find justification in her acts that allows the story hundreds of years later to entrance audiences. While the preface talks about other things like Catholicism, imagery, and poetry, I found the part about Beatrice to be of the most importance. Reading this helped me frame my mind to recognize Beatrice and her actions and justifications for those actions are the heart of the story.

Mary Shelley, why do you write?

One day someone will ask you what special interest in the world causes you to write in the manner that you do. You will reply “the way a person's role in the world can be cataclysmically altered either by an internal emotional upheaval, or by some supernatural occurrence that mirrors an internal schism”

I found Frankenstein’s womb fascinating especially in the way that it explores how the novel Frankenstein came to be the way it is. When the graphic novel Mary is quoting things that her father wrote and said, one can see how she found inspiration in his ideas, but also how she interrogated those ideas to come to the conclusions that she does in Frankenstein. There is the line that says, “There is nothing that human imagination can figure brilliant and enviable, that human genius and skill do not aspire to realize.” One can imagine this line being at the forefront of Mary Shelley’s mind as she began to create the character as Victor Frankenstein. He is driven by this idea that he can give life to something that he creates and believes that science and his intelligence will create this being. 

Referring back to the quote at the start of this post, I think it’s interesting to imagine how this encounter with the nameless creature in the graphic novel might have had an effect on how Mary Shelley wrote the novel. I’m thinking specifically about how “some supernatural occurrence that mirrors an internal schism”. The author of the graphic novel is positioning this encounter as the inspiration for Shelley’s Frankenstein, so what is he saying about Mary Shelley’s creative process? We’ve noted several times about how Mary Shelley’s life story feeds into her work, so how would the story in this graphic novel feed into Frankenstein?

Cultural Legacy of Frankenstein

One of the most important aspects of the novel also seems to be the one that culture chooses to neglect: the creature's tale. Throught numerous incarnations in film, the creature rarely gets the chance to tell his side of the story. He is always the creature, a monster, nothing short of a zombie in many incarnations. The question here is why would the various screenwriters choose to take this tact? It cannot be because it would not make a good story, and thus spell financial ruin: cinema is littered with coming-of-age stories and the representation of the misunderstood. Further, especially in modern cinema, there is a love of the anti-hero or a hero that behaves less heroically. Culturally, we love stories about falls from grace as well, with Star Wars as a prime example. Perhaps the answer lies in the demonization of "The Other" that we discussed in class on Monday.

Born of the Dead

I found it very interesting in "Frankenstein's Womb" that the creation says he and Mary Shelley are similar because they are both born from the dead because her mother died in childbirth. Perhaps this is another allegory in her writing. Death from child birth complications was very common during the 1800s. Maybe Shelley is making a plea for advancements in this field to prevent loss of life for the mothers? The creation has no mother, as would a child in the situation, all that is left is the "father" (Victor) who disowns him, much like many children whose mothers died during child birth experienced. They became orphaned despite a living parent which is what the creation has to live through. Mary could also be making a statement about how this unfortunate incident leads to these innocent, yet neglected, children who have tendencies to lash out.

The Two Comics

Reading the two comic’s gave me a new perceptive of what the story represents overall, especially the comic by David. The representation by David shows how the monster’s conversation with shelly creates a sense of the predestined key switches in which she creates the story not only based on her life, but to soon follow up the works she would later create. Also on thing to not is that the monster gives the message that life for her will not end in death, neither her mother, in which her will lives on in the works she created. The other comic by Jason gives the story a more humanistic approach to what humanity guilt is when confronted with the mistakes they have created. The comic more focuses on Frankenstein rather than the monster, and gives a more represented symbol to the people who work in the field of science. Therefore, the message in both comics gives is the greatness of science is unlimited, but humans are weak when confronted with the responsibilities of their own creations.   

Emotional Monster

Something that has always captured my attention about this book is the emotional range given to creature. I really attribute this to Shelley being a woman, and using this creature to express a lot of the perhaps more restricted emotions. The sense of isolation in the creature is more than obvious, but the source of this isolation maybe not so much. Mary Shelley lived a life with a lot of emotional stress, having no mother, strange relationships, and we can't forget that she was a woman in the 1800s, which was not exactly the best situation. With all of that, the creature really does begin to take on this new allegorical side as the embodiment of Mary Shelley's personal struggles.

Burke’s 'Philosophical Inquiry' as applied to Shelley’s 'Frankenstein'

I was strongly taken by Burke’s “Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful”, and find that the majority of his ideas can be applied directly to Shelley’s portrayal of the sublime and beautiful within the characters of her novel, Frankenstein. 

The Creature itself embodies the terror of Victor’s sublime idea in sharp contrast to the beautiful expectation he held for it. According to Burke, the two cannot exist together in one object, for beauty stems from pleasure and the sublime stems from pain. The passions which stir a sense of pain (or danger) concern us with a sense of self-preservation, which leads to a strong sense of horror that our life could be affected by illness, malformation, or death. Something of this nature cannot therefore be categorized as beautiful- no matter its appearance. “…my first observation… will be found very nearly true; that the sublime is an idea belonging to self-preservation. It is therefore one of the most affecting we have. That its strongest emotion is an emotion of distress, and that no pleasure from a positive cause belongs to it.” (Burke)

Burke also has something to say when it comes to Victor, who is a character defined by his solitude and ambition. Victor, who chooses solitude, and the Creature- who is forced into it, both experience “The total and perpetual exclusion from all society, (which) is as great a positive pain as can almost be conceived” (Burke). Burke’s version of the ‘passions of society’ can be broken down into three large categories; sympathy, imitation, and ambition. Sympathy, as a form of substitution, places us in the place of another man. As we discussed in class, we see this occur between Victor and his Creature- but it becomes a cycle that relies on self-preservation and fear as opposed to sympathy and/or pity. Within this cycle is imitation, which the Creature both lacks (because he is shunned), but also strives for as the ‘son’ to his Creator and father figure, Victor. Over the course of Victor’s ambition towards Creation- he realizes that he has pressed too close to danger and has stepped beyond the natural. By Burke’s standards- it is this closeness that makes it impossible for him to feel any pleasure in his Creation. For, “when danger or pain press too nearly, they are incapable of giving any delight, and are simply terrible” (Burke).

Comparing the two graphic novels to the original text

Where to start?  I loved both graphic novels for different reasons.  In terms of something good they both did, I loved that each one still took the subject matter seriously.  Not that there isn't a time and place for fun, goofy, spin-offs, but I think I prefer a graphic novel to take itself seriously.  This is partially because I think a heightened sense of melodrama is part of what makes graphic novels so great; if they are effective, you the reader can buy into it and transport yourself for a while.

Personally, I enjoyed the art style of Frankenstein's Womb more.  I loved that the monster was simultaneously hideous and awe inspiring.  Beautiful by no means, but well adapted to the graphic novel form (apparently Frankenstein had him on a low-carb diet in order to get him that six pack).  I also think the choice to use black and white worked very well; it helped the transition from old text to graphic novel run much more smoothly.

The Electric Beauty

Put simply, I love reading. There's a joy that can't be explained when the words from the pale yellow pages transform into a never-ending picture in your head. I also love reading comics because I love seeing my favorite characters come to life not only in my head but right in front of me on paper. It's an art form that In Frankenstein: The Graphic Novel, there's a scene on page 15 that completely took my breath away because that's when the idea of electricity and the beauty that Victor was seeing really stood out to me because you can imagine the scenes chapter by chapter in your head, but sometimes, words do not replace the beauty of an art work. . It's the part in the comic where Victor is telling his story, beginning with his life. He goes on to tell about a huge thunderstorm that overcame his home growing up and the lightning that struck the tree outside. When I got to that page, the colors were so vibrant that I couldn't look away. The lightning was characterized by a "KARAK!" and the bright white of the lightning against the dark broken tree trunk pulled me in. For a brief second, the artist was able to pull me away from my world into the world of color and entrance me in the beauty, and for that little while, I knew why Victor was so consumed by the idea of lightning and electricity. The depiction of the lightning hitting the tree held so much power and yet elegance, and that was what Victor saw in it, the beauty of the natural electricity. Just for a second, all of that came to life, and I understood.

Frankenstein's Monster

The creation of Frankenstein's monster by doctor Victor Frankenstein features elements of Nature along with what can be seen as unnatural. Frankenstein's creation cannot physically be more than a patchwork of what has been given by nature; however, the mere synthesizing of life by the means of exciting an assemblage of corpse-parts creates a sort of divine, sublime or impossibly unnatural context. Frankenstein being attributed with qualities such as "God" can be rather suiting insofar that "God" is our way of conceiving Nature in the most impossible and unnatural of ways(as ourselves). God or Nature is a paradoxical juxtaposition of the same thing in the same way of Frankenstein's scientific breakthrough can be interpreted as an accomplishment in natural science or a horrid crime that is unnatural; the latter is assumed when we decide to conform Nature to what we think it should be this may seem rather ironic but this is to say Nature is limitless and unrestrained and all we can do is discover. We cannot say that Frankenstein's action was "creation ex nihilo" but rather a scientific discover of an attribute already immanent to Nature.

Frankenstein

Victor wanted to create something beautiful and sublime, instead getting a monstrous creature. What if the creature had come out aesthetically picturesque and pleasing? Would both Victor and the community be more patient and understanding? They would know the truth of how it was created - unnaturally with bits and pieces of humans and animals - but because its beautiful would they be accepting, or still see it as monstrous on the sole basis of what it is; not a natural being. If the creature looked like a normal person, would Victor and the community be more willing to work with it in order to teach it to be like them? To be more human? If so, would they always secretly live in fear of what is inside of the creature?

Frankenstein graphic novels

I've uploaded links to two graphic novels to the course Blackboard site under Announcements; if you'd like to do an extra credit post to the blog about these, please feel free. We'll take some time to talk about them (and other facets of the novel's cultural legacy) on Wednesday. Happy reading!