Okay, so I am about to make a radical statement regarding Mary Shelley and her most famous novel, Frankenstein is ahead of its time. Sarcasm aside its something which I don’t think is often talked about regarding the novel. One of the obvious take aways is that humanity and its science can do amazing things but also terrible things, but that’s seeing only half the picture and also what someone would say after looking at crude retellings of the story that omit a bulk of the original work. In its entirety, the book is about how humanity is capable of creating amazing and terrifying things but we should approach the methods through which we do so with humility, grace and commitment. Though Shelley herself did not see the magnitude of what science has built in recent years, her underlying sentiment applies to the terrifying technologies which we’ve concocted. The nuclear bomb is the first thing my mind goes towards. Like Frankenstein’s creation, nuclear fission was a discovery met with awe and expectations of greatness as well as it’s benefit to humanity. It was to be the power source for an inextinguishable torch for humanity, but it’s execution was a cruel display of our propensity for horror. Those who saw the potential for cruelty in nuclear fission made it real, twisting its original purpose from a beacon for all mankind to a portal of hell where fire sears at the eyes and the rain thereafter comes as poison. I bet if Mary Shelley were to see the nuclear bomb and understand its power she would liken it to her allegory of the monster.
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