ESSAY

Each student had to write an essay about their revolution that connected the book they were reading to their revolution:

Nohemi Hernandez

Humanities

Guerrero

March 3, 2008

When Frankenstein Took Over

Look at the world around us, each day new technology comes up, new cell phones, new iPods, cooking utensils, cars and machines you did not think you needed but when you see it you want it, because life could be better if you had it. People are always trying to make things better, to revolutionize. The Industrial Revolution for example, was a major changing point for technology and humans. Though the Industrial Revolution is usually related to the human species altering the way they live by creating things, the Industrial Revolution also divided classes and it’s framework of existence (Hinshaw iiv). We see in history the change of settled communities rather than nomadic bands and cities instead of rural communities and farms. People created habits of thought and the relations between men and women changed. There were also systems of production and exchange. The Industrial Revolution is precisely the examination of these multiple impacts: the good and the bad of technology and change. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, we see how the scientific breakthrough could affect the whole world we live in, humanity itself could extinguish and our initiative to have machines do things for us could be to blame.

Shelley introduces us to Victor Frankenstein’s life, a man of science. Victor is fascinated by the promise of science and new inventions. He creates life, fueled by arrogance: “A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me” (Shelley, 51). Though his arrogance led him to discoveries, it also led him to tragedy. Not all inventions are good, but not all inventions are bad either. I do not think that all scientific advancements come from arrogance. Some inventions come from necessity, an example being medicine. People needed more medicine after and during the Industrial Revolution due to diseases coming from pollution or horrible hygiene due to working conditions. Other inventions were to make things easier, such as modern transportation: cars, trains, airplanes and sea travel. However, Victor’s invention was one made from arrogance and as we see in the book, it does not go so well. The creature he creates turns out to be a monster and not a happy being, instead, he is rather a very angry and depressed creature who seeks revenge.

The Industrial Revolution consists of the application of new sources of power to the production process. When people were able to create in mass production, like most human beings, they took advantage without thinking of consequences (Hinshaw viii). Just like Victor, who created a superior being without thinking, letting himself be driven by curiosity, eagerness and arrogance. Factories were made and it did not matter who the people were or what condition they were working under as far as they got the work done and the materials were made fast; profit was the only consideration. The conditions in factories were horrid, so many factories created pollution, crowded cities and child labor issues were not left behind either. Humans substituted machine labor for human labor and machine power for human and animal power (Arnold 4). It was more precise rapid, regular, tireless and it had an unlimited energy supply, they were too busy to notice that the factories were unsafe and unhealthy and the population explosion. New inventions sped up production too large and expensive for home use, “the answer was to bring the workers to the machines” (Osborne), so factories were made but these were dangerous and even though efficient for large production, they created problems in economy and in between the classes.

Apart from the exchange of machine labor and power for human labor and power, the Industrial Revolution also brought economic and social transformations. There was “an investment of capital on scale never seen before” (Stewart 127). Mechanization as well increased productive capacity and output which led to a rise in income and living standards. Agricultural labor was also lost in the progress; farmers lost agricultural life and became factory workers. People left the farm to go live in cities and towns, some to work in the factories and try to move upward in the social class pyramid. People soon discovered though, that the middle class (working class) did not advance. Only the business class had capital to invest on stable government positions and some of them had no political experience whatsoever. In addition, though the Industrial Revolution has no specific point of exchange when people started being different, it did make a great difference we still see today: class division. Even though that in Frankenstein there is no clear class division, we do see social exclusion. The creature/monster that Victor created is excluded from every human being he encounters, including his own creator, Victor. Nobody wants the creature around because of his deformity that is classified as a monstrous. People during the Industrial Revolution were not excluded to this extreme but they did put people apart, not based on their appearance, but on their economic status which was more defined at this point.

From any side you see it; the Industrial Revolution had its good and bad moment. For example, better and faster food was produced and medicine practice and advancements also occurred, but, germs were also producing faster as well creating more diseases. Then again, the working conditions were horrible until 20^th century and child labor issues were all over. We cannot forget the pollution all the factories produced and how we went from spacious farms to crowded cities. However, besides the better food, there was other better inexpensive goods, transportation and more advanced communication were also benefits from this revolution (Stewart 24). Though the Industrial Revolution’s ending point was sometime in the late 1800’s, urbanization does not stop. People keep growing and so do cities and factories.