Thesis: Kant's book on observation of the sublime and the beautiful contains numerous themes which can be directly compared to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Themes in the Kant's "What is enlightenment” are also deeply in comparison to how Mary Shelley's Frankenstein theme were or not enlightened. Outcome of events in all the themes is evident in the text.
Abstract
In this paper, there is a deep comparison of the philosophical works of Kant to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein work. The paper discusses how Kant's enlightenment affects the society and its occupants in particular. How the people are unable to make their own decisions and what binds such people into living such a life. We shall see the way the society depends on service from others which is bad. We also learn what happens when people rise to make their own judgments. On the observation of the beautiful and sublime by Kant, we will be able to understand what brings about morals and self-esteem in the society. The paper goes further to consider the two sexes and their different desires as well as behavior. The state of being sublime is further differentiated from what is beautiful. Comparison on countries with different attributes of what they desire either beauty or sublime nature is also done.
Frierson, Patrick, and Paul Guyer. Kant: Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime and Other Writings. Cambridge University Press, 2011
From the article on the sublime and the beautiful, Kant talks about how different aspects of life each human being has during their lifetime. He goes further to talk about how we as human beings have different admirations for others and our feelings are completely different. All this information is relevant to get the understanding of the western civilization where people interact and understand one another in their own way at any given time. The article brings out the picture of livelihood, both in what is sublime and what is regarded as beautiful and how the two phenomenon work out in people’s lives.
Kant stresses on the fact that there is a drift between what people feel as being right to them as compared to what might be regarded as wrong. The concept mainly distinguishes people’s feelings towards given things in life. For instance, people will choose what to love and what's not to love according to their own views about life. A business man will be happier with the event when his business makes massive amounts of profits while a giver will be happy over the course of helping others. On the same case, a man might be happy when pursuing a woman whom may not make another man as happy with the same measure. The concept is that we as human beings, we have different measure of being happy and different things triggers us to be happy.
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft. Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus, 1818. Engage Books, AD Classic, 2009.
In this book by Mary Shelley on the myth of her dream story of how a scientist was able to make a monster, we are able to trace a number of relevant themes to western civilization. In the time, we are able to see that people were traveling where Mary and her boyfriend go out on vacation to Switzerland. People in the time learned language and there were numerous publications as well.
Compared to Kant's view on the beautiful and sublime, Mary's story shows completely opposite phenomena by the way Frankenstein was created with some of his body parts beautiful but most of all, he was very ugly. Due to the creature being extremely ugly, he was not able to make any significant relations. The idea goes completely the same with Kant's as Frankenstein was firstly not able to find out a person they would articulate with but later we see Frankenstein finding a friend who was a blind old man. Despite the rest of the people fearing him in the village, the blind man was comfortable with Frankenstein.
Doran, Robert. The theory of the sublime from Longinus to Kant. Cambridge University Press, 2015.
This publication is relevant in the way it brings out the view of Doran on the sublime and the beautiful. Amongst the things that are sublime is nature; the way the darkness comes in, the way we fear for some realities, and even the future as well as compared to beautiful aspects of life like the sunlight and manly decorations. Doran explains how Kant emphasizes that the sublime is truthful and builds our self-esteem while the beautiful is pleasing to the eye and leads to relations.
However, when compared to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, we are able to see Kant's sublime view. Frankenstein attitude is angrily provoked by the way he is unable to find someone to love. His behavior changes and moves away from people who hate him and go to hide in the mountains. Fear is also evident in the way the scientist fears to make a partner for Frankenstein because of the wrath that Frankenstein had caused by killing the loved ones of the scientist. Mary Shelley stresses on the need for a healthy state of the mind rather than Kant's opinions on the need for morals in a civilized society.
Spark, Muriel. Mary Shelley. Carcanet, 2013.
From this article by Spark, the virtue of the scientist who made Frankenstein is clear in that he displayed a lot of selfishness in his work and was not a noble person which makes the article relevant to the fact that Frankenstein was created abnormally from any other being. Many people describe him as being a monster among other hideous names. The lack of Frankenstein being referred to by name was thus problematic and contributed to killing his self-esteem.
Mary Shelley’s narration on Frankenstein by Spark here stresses on the point that Frankenstein was not made to enjoy life as such but to endure suffering. The scientist who made Frankenstein was just being ambitious and in the event he ended up making a creature which came on earth to face isolation. Compared to Kant’s view of how the society should be struck on the terms of good morals of unselfishness, and love for one another, Frankenstein is isolated by the people and shown no love. Furthermore, the scientist had no desire to do good as he did not make a female for Frankenstein to love but instead Kant’s sublime effect of fear strikes him of what the creatures could turn out to become.
On the contrary, Frankenstein is not able to love which is opposite to what Kant thought that every being should be happy on its own way. However, making of Frankenstein is sublime as he is a large creature as compared to beautifully small beings like human beings.
Kant, Immanuel. An answer to the question:’ What is enlightenment?'. Penguin UK, 2013.
From this article by Kant, we are able to understand what enlightenment is the ability to make own thinking and reasoning irrespective of external effects. The article is relevant in comparison to the study of how Victor, from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is unable to make his own decisions. It also impacts on the way the creature; Frankenstein is unable to love until he gets help from victor to create a female creature for him to be able to love.
When Kant's work on enlightenment is compared with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein work, we are able to spot similarities and differences. From Mary's work, Victor becomes undecided on whether to continue with his pursue of alchemist theories after he sees them as outdated compared to modern theories. Victor’s inability to get enlightened on what to pursue is further darkened by death of his mother. On joining the University in Germany, his disbelief is changed by his lecturer in the chemistry department who encourages him to pursue his desire.
Kant enlightenment stresses on the fact that, Victor should have been independent of his thoughts and get to choose for himself whatever that he wanted to learn in the University. On finding out that his brother had died and blame put on the house help, he did nothing to stop it despite his knowledge of Frankenstein, the creature he had created having killed him. Victor was unable to make a decision to tell his family of what he had created which is opposite from Kant's teaching on enlightenment. If he had made his own decision on what to pursue then all the tragedies in his family would not have happened to such an extent.
In addition, the village of the blind man where the monster stays while hiding away from the public, the people are unable to make their own judgment to embrace Frankenstein. He is able to help the villagers in some duties which they cannot be able to carry out but still some villager even the closest hate him. Frankenstein on the other hand is enlightened by the way he makes some of his decisions. Even after Felix in the village attacking him, he still rescues a drowning child. Victor despite his ability to make the creature, he was not able to decide to tell anyone close to him of his work.
Battersby, Christine. The sublime, terror and human difference. Routledge, 2013
Further in this revised article of Kant’s work, the author talks of how two sexes of man and woman differ in real life. The author puts it out that women only have a touch to what is good, what can be adored and only that which is beautiful in nature. In comparison to Mary Shelley's work, the article is relevant in the way the creature is unattractive and cannot find a companion as a result. The article talks about sense of shame in which humans or any creature tries to hide themselves from anyone they do not want their secrets known to.
The author stresses on the fact that people can hide their secret which is a form of nature. He argues that nature is good to keep secrets as it agrees with all your secrets. When compared to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, we see they interlink on the fact that Victor secludes himself into a remote area to create for the creature a companion. Victor does so because he did not want his loved ones knowing that he was bringing creatures into life which of the time they had killed some family members.
On the same, the attribute of sense of shame witnessed in Kant work by Battersby, is also seen in Mary Shelley's work where the creature escapes from people to go live in the forest where a small pack of people live. The creature is ashamed of the fact that no single human being is able to accept him on terms of love other than a fellow blind man who might be friendly with him due to his blindness. The virtue that women adore only what is beautiful and pleasing to them in the Kant's work can be related to the way Felix fiancée, the daughter of the merchant helped to get away from prison chooses to follow her love for Felix rather than her father. After the shameful act by Felix, his family which was amongst the upper class in the society was exiled to a remote area where they hid their shame of poor exceedingly bad morals as per the society in particular.
Consequently, on the same issue of shame, the creature finally confesses of its sins after Victor’s death. The creature regrets of its torture of Victor leading to his death which the creature says to Walton that it did not even feel justified. Ongoing against the morals of the society where the creature killed a good number of Victors family, it disappeared to the north due to shame and guilt.
Cavarero, Adriana. Relating narratives: Storytelling and selfhood. Routledge, 2014.
On the narratives by Cavarero on Kant's work on enlightenment, we are able to grasp the outlook of the work. The work embarks on how Kant's enlightenment motto was and relates to the fact that people should make independent decisions despite the outlook of the external environment. It is thus relevant in the sense that laziness is portrayed by those who are not able to make out their own decisions and are cowardly as well. In addition, those who can't go for independent decisions are mainly depended on others who help them in whichever endeavor they want to pursue. Without those who push them to changing their choices, they may be stranded but with extremely ruthless factors, they act in cowardice.
From the narrative, the author is able to stress on the issue that being lazy and a coward contributes a lot to not being enlightened. Once one is a coward in making key and strategic decisions, there is a greater possibility to the fact that they will be subjected to a higher power of which will submerge them to their demands whenever hence preventing them from making their own paths. On the dangerous part, cowardice to making critical choices is triggered by a higher power which has already set an example on the precautions of making such decisions.
Comparing this Kant's work to Mary's Frankenstein, we see that despite Victors member of the family being killed by the monster, he does not take crucial decisions like going to the authorities to report it. The decision is solely based on the fact that the monster was capable of doing more harm even after reporting to the police hence it could only make matters more badly. Even after Victor being sent to jail in Ireland after the demise of his friend Claval, he is jailed for two months and does not talk about it to free himself due to the growing tutelage in him.
Furthermore, the monster is attached to its maker as it faces difficulty to associate with others in the society and no one else who could change its state other than its maker. The creature thus could hardly live its life knowing that its creator was happily in love while it was sad. The fact is seen in the way it remorsefully regrets after Victors death.
Ishizu, Tomohiro, and Semir Zeki. "A neurobiological enquiry into the origins of our experience of the sublime and beautiful." Frontiers in human neuroscience 8 (2014): 891.
From Ishizu and Semir edit of Kant's work on the beautiful and the sublime, we can learn that certain countries like Germany, England and Spain are sublime states which believe only in greatness unlike the Italians and the French. The Italians and the French believe in divine beauty rather than mighty and extremely terrifying.
When this is compared to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, we see to it that the scientist who made the hideous creature was studying in Germany and in an astonishing experience, before making the creature he went to consult fellow specialists in England. The aspect of the creature coming into existence is thus clearly sublime as it was from knowledge in Germany and England combined. The creation of the monster is thus an adventure from the scientist cooperated with sublime view of the countries he gathered his knowhow from. On the contrary, it means that if the scientist behind the monster studied in France or in Italy, he would have then made a beautiful piece of art. engaged
Works Cited
Battersby, Christine. The sublime, terror and human difference. Routledge, 2013
Cavarero, Adriana.
Relating narratives: Storytelling and selfhood. Routledge, 2014.
Doran, Robert. The theory of the sublime from Longinus to Kant. Cambridge University Press, 2015.
Frierson, Patrick, and Paul Guyer. Kant: Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime and Other Writings. Cambridge University Press, 2011
Ishizu, Tomohiro, and Semir Zeki. "A neurobiological enquiry into the origins of our experience of the sublime and beautiful." Frontiers in human neuroscience 8
(2014): 891.
Kant, Immanuel. An answer to the question:’ What is enlightenment?'. Penguin UK, 2013.
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft. Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus, 1818. Engage Books, AD Classic, 2009.
Spark, Muriel. Mary Shelley. Carcanet, 2013.n
