Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
wife” (Hawthorne 1987, p. 175). Like Frankenstein he has studied the
works of Albertus Magnus, Cornelius Agrippa and Paracelsus. Aylmer,
too, is an idealist. Living in a time when “kindred mysteries of Nature
seemed to open paths into the region of miracle” (Hawthorne 1987, p.
175), he becomes obsessed with perfection and determines to remove his
wife's one tiny blemish, a birthmark, symbol of the inescapable imper-
fection of the human condition. The elixir vitae he persuades her to drink
in order to remove the mark kills her.
(vi) Alchemists and scientists are typically presented in literature as
having different allegiances from other people. Like religious and politi-
cal extremists, they are ruthless in their idealism, prepared to sacrifice
people or animals in the cause of their experiments. Wells' Invisible Man
kills and robs without remorse to finance his research, while Doctor
Moreau is deaf to the screams of pain of his experimental animals. More
recently the scientist character frequently enacts the view that the pursuit
of scientific knowledge justifies any means, for example, suppressing
knowledge of likely side effects, environmental pollution, the possibility
of 'jumping genes' or contamination from genetically engineered organ-
isms, lest research projects be curtailed.
(vii) A major factor in the continuing appeal of the alchemist narra-
tive is its ability to evoke perennially convincing patterns of horror, mys-
tery, and evil. Horror continues to fascinate us. Even though most of the
examples from past centuries with their focus on graveyards and charnel
houses, corpses, ghosts, and monsters have ceased to frighten us, many
elements of the Frankenstein narrative remain perpetually relevant as
symbols of changing technology, if not of that technology itself. Films
have intensified this relevance with special effects, reaching out to a far
wider audience than the written word. Horror fiction and horror movies
allow us to indulge our worst impulses and fears, to be, at least vicari-
ously, complicit in what violates culturally sanctioned norms. They
transgress the boundaries of 'decency' and blur the categories that make
up social structures. The writer Stephen King asserts that the effect of
horror fiction is to shore up the
status quo
, because we see that the alter-
native is too terrible and hasten back to the 'real world' with a sense of
relief.
