Professor Patrick N. Allitt gave a lecture titled, “Monsters Have Feelings Too: Frankenstein and the Early History of Bioethical Disputes” at Bakersfield College on Thursday, Nov. 8 in the Fireside Room.
Allitt, a professor of history at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, was born and raised in England and attended the University of Oxford and later UC Berkeley, where he earned his Ph.D in U.S. History. Allitt was the first to point out the humor of a British U.S. History teacher.
Allitt lectured about Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” and how it related to past and current bioethical controversies like abortion, stem cells and prosthetic limbs.
“Machinery and humanity have come together,” he said.
About issues like abortion and new technology to live longer, he posed the question, “When does life really end? When does it really begin?”
Before answering, he told the audience more about the book’s author. Shelley was the daughter of feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and political philosopher and novelist William Godwin. She married poet Percy Bysshe Shelley when she was a teenager.
“Frankenstein,” a story about a man who creates a monster, was the product of a contest held between Shelley, her husband and their poet friend Lord Byron to see who could write the scariest story. Shelley was the only one to finish. Allitt joked that the poets couldn’t stand to write something so long.
“It’s actually a terrible book,” Allitt said with a laugh. “The plot is absolutely ludicrous. The characters are unrealistic. The couples are so in love, it’s like a Hallmark greeting card.”
He did allow that it was an “astonishing achievement” for a 19 year old, saying that the characters are well developed, and the plot is ingenious. He then asked who at the lecture was 19.
“I’ve read a lot of papers written by 19 year olds,” he said. “And none are as good as ‘Frankenstein.'”
He went on to tell how Dr. Victor Frankenstein thought he was like God, another bioethical issue, and how he fantasizes about being the creator of a new kind of life. In the novel, the doctor creates a man from parts of dead bodies, which did not make for a very aesthetically pleasing creature.
“He is simultaneously pulled forward by what he’s doing and repulsed by how he has to do it,” said Allitt. “No sooner does the Creature open his eyes does he (the doctor) go ‘Blegh!'”
Dr. Frankenstein abandons the Creature, who becomes violent because nobody treats him well because of his looks. Allitt told about how the Creature is a “more refined being” and “more adult” than Dr. Frankenstein. “But on the other hand, he’s hideous.” He told how the Creature learned English (another unlikelihood of the book, he said). He meets his creator later in the book and tells his story.
“Dr. Frankenstein realizes upon hearing his story that monsters have feelings too,” Allitt said.
Allitt spoke in depth about the novel, which he called the first science fiction story, before moving on to other bioethical issues, particularly those that arose in the Victorian era.
“It’s the great question that confronts us. What makes us the way we are?” he said. “Is it nature or nurture?”
He said that Shelley argues that it’s nature, and that the Creature could have been good with proper care.
“Frankenstein” was written during the time that dissection was new and controversial. Christians did not believe in it because they thought their bodies should be whole upon death. Because of this, the only people who could be dissected for research were those who were condemned to death. He also talked about how anesthetics used to be controversial, especially in childbirth because it was a “violation of God’s will,” as childbirth pain was Eve’s punishment for disobeying God.
“There were all sorts of medical disputes at the time, which strike us as odd now,” Allitt said. He also told about how people used to not believe in extinction. Although we now have proof of certain animals becoming extinct, Allitt said it was hard to believe back then because it was incomprehensible to them to think an animal would cease to exist.
He also talked about Thomas Jefferson’s “Notes on the State of Virginia” and how Jefferson thought mammoths existed in Virginia, something most of the crowd laughed at. But Allitt was quick to say that these people were just as intelligent as we are today, and that they worked with what they had.
Allitt wrapped up the lecture by saying that these controversies are similar to those in “Frankenstein” and asked, “Is science going to be our salvation or condemn us?”
Though many students attended the lecture for extra credit for various classes, many seemed to actually enjoy the lecture. Among these students was Daniel Sagun, architecture major.
“I ended up having a lot more interest in it than what it was advertised to be,” he said.