The Humanity of Frankenstien (the Monster)

   I suppose what one has to realize when first talking about morality is the flexibility of its restrictions. It’s very nature as a mere abstract ideal lends to it a fair degree of uncertainty and subjectivity from place to place, culture to culture and even from one person to another. This is, perhaps, its most peculiar feature.

   As far as we know, only man is ever capable of ever distinguishing what he deems to be “good” or “bad.” In the natural world, even the most advanced plants and intellectual animals have no real sense of morality. They act on instinct, for the sake of their own survival, as it was programmed by nature. No plant or animal would ever have the mind to sacrifice itself for the betterment of another. No, only man has the capacity to do so.

   Therefore, in the pursuit of investigating this wide, unfeeling world one may also encounter such manifestations of natural instinct. When an animal maims a naturalist, one may see the cause as due to anger of the animal, when the truth actually is that the animal is merely acting on an instinct to protect its territory and, by extension, its life. The ethical extension of our insight into matters regarding the natural world are mere artificial constructs from our own minds that perhaps aid in allowing us to understand the matter in terms we would understand.

   This alludes to the reason why we place such ethical implications on these natural acts. It all boils down to understanding. For man all things have must have a purpose, much like their own lives must too. If something happens there must be a reason for it. For something to happen for nothing seems almost surreal and scary.

    In the same way, when one talks of the moral implications of certain scientific endeavors, those are, as well, a representation of the how we fear the knowledge of the unknown and untested. Frankenstein’s Monster was an experiment to realize the power of man to conquer death, a concept that must have been so unbelievable and sacrilegious to the people that they were very much afraid of it. The rather macabre process and the resulting monster did not help much in convincing them either.

   Notice, however, that the resulting monster was not at all the savage, instinctive animal the townspeople thought it was, but was very much human, emotionally and morally active. Unlike the book’s incarnation of the monster, in the film it was portrayed as rather dull and simple-minded, very much like a child. This act actually seems to emphasize more the innocence of the beast and allows the audience to empathize more for it draws not on mere intellectual aspect but more so on the more human emotional aspect of the monster. So instead of hearing how human the monster is, we instead feel how human he is.

Miguel Augusto A. Racadio

2013-59621

STS THX E-one