Cultural Studies Texts - Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818)

Way before Ayn Rand took a stab at sci-fi, Shelley's original Frankenstein tapped into the scientific advances and experimentations of the day to depict Doctor Victor Frankenstein and his freaky obsession with conquering death as it becomes a quest to inject life into organic matter.

Vic co-opts the reproductive power of nature to bring his monster to life, but he finds himself horrified by the creature that emerges from his experiments. Even though the guy didn't have green skin and a square haircut and bolts through his neck in the original piece, the pain and confusion faced by the creature are even worse than those fashion no-nos, since the poor guy's been created only to be abandoned and persecuted.

How does the tension between scientific experimentation and humanity bring up ethical concerns during the time Shelley was writing? What parallel issues are there today?