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Frankenstein: Shelley's Take on Advancements 883 Views
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Description:
When we picture the future, we imagine giant man-smartphone hybrids as our overlords. We wonder if Mary Shelley would agree with us.
Transcript
- 00:01
We speak student!
- 00:09
This guy means business.
- 00:13
Frankenstein a la Shmoop
- 00:16
What's Shelley's take on
- 00:17
scientific and technological advancements?
Full Transcript
- 00:21
It's pretty easy to just read Frankenstein and be like,
- 00:24
"Oh! Anti-science."
- 00:26
- Prometheus. - Exactly.
- 00:27
I mean, that's the subtitle of the book.
- 00:28
But it's kind of like,
- 00:30
"Oh, hey, yeah. This guy tried to use science to create life
- 00:34
and it failed miserably and everyone died."
- 00:36
Okay. But, you know, I would say that Frankenstein
- 00:39
isn't really a completely anti-science creed at its core.
- 00:44
Clearly, Mary Shelley's living in a time
- 00:46
of scientific advancement.
- 00:47
She saw the benefits of it.
- 00:51
But I think what we're seeing isn't this knee-jerk reaction against it,
- 00:56
but more that nagging feeling
- 00:58
that comes to us.
- 00:59
We get that feeling now
- 01:01
with all the crazy technological advancements.
- 01:03
You know, that like [ hesitant sound ].
- 01:05
Is this everyone being on their iPhone all the time
- 01:08
gonna come back to bite us?
- 01:10
Are robots going to take over the world?
- 01:13
We have this nagging feeling of
- 01:15
yeah, we love the Internet.
- 01:16
We couldn't survive without all these technological advancements.
- 01:19
But there is that nagging feeling of, you know --
- 01:21
- Chernobyl. - Yeah, exactly.
- 01:23
Exactly. Something terrible's about to happen.
- 01:25
So I would say it's kind of more of a balance in that,
- 01:27
where she's kind of saying,
- 01:29
"It's not necessarily bad, but we have to, you know,
- 01:31
we have to remember that there is the chance
- 01:34
that it is gonna turn out badly."
- 01:39
What arguments suggest Shelley was anti-science?
- 01:43
What arguments suggest Shelley was pro-science?
- 01:49
[ horror film echoing effect ]
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