Author:
Frank Clarke (e-mail at: FrankClarke@aol.com
)
Date: 05/05/2000
According to Jack Lynch, creator of the definitive online hypertextual Frankenstein project, entitled “Workshop of Filthy Creation, Cyberspace Division”:
In the eighteenth century the establishment of official scientific societies and institutions in Great Britain continued, involving governmental funding of various astronomical observatories and missions of exploration in search of botanical and zoological specimens. But the century was most noteworthy for its use of increasingly precise measuring devices: more precise measurements in turn made possible more refined scientific theories. Isaac Newton's enormously influential theories on gravitation, for instance, grew out of discrepancies between the predictions of the old models and more accurate observations of actual orbits. Increased precision in balances allowed chemists to reject phlogiston theory in favor of modern atomic theory, just as improved optics allowed for the discovery of both new celestial bodies and new microorganisms and anatomical structures.
Electricity figured
prominently in the experimentation and discoveries of the 18th
century. One notable advance was
Benjamin Franklin’s 1752 experiments involving a kite, a key, and lightning.
This series of experiments led to his development and mass production of
the lightning rod, which was subsequently introduced in both America and Europe.
Many other prominent scientists of the day conducted experiments
involving electricity. The
experiments of Luigi Galvani (1737-1798)
probably contributed substantially to Mary Shelley’s most famous story.
Microsoft Bookshelf 2000 lists Galvani as an “Italian physiologist and
physician who asserted that animal tissues generate electricity.”
Galvani built a battery using the fluids of a dead frog, and applied
electricity to dead animals, forcing their limbs to twitch.
This scientific revolution continued and became more focused in the years
immediately preceding the publication of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
Again, according to Lynch:
The
decades at the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth
were marked by two central movements: first, the classification,
codification, and systematization of the tremendous amounts of data accumulated
in the past; and second, the application of much of this newly acquired
knowledge for practical purposes in the nascent Industrial Revolution.
As the 19th century began, the applications Lynch speaks of were wide-ranging, and many of them involved electricity. One of the popular postulations being explored was the concept of re-animation through the use of electricity, based on the experimentation of Galvani. According to Jack Lynch, “there was great hope of using the galvanic battery in medical cures, even of reanimating the dead. To this end, there were widely reported experiments conducted on the bodies of recently hanged criminals.” The fear that this path of experimentation could prove successful was almost certainly the catalyst for what many regard as the first Science Fiction novel: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus.
In the second chapter of Frankenstein, Doctor Frankenstein says:
On this occasion a man of great research in
natural
philosophy was with us, and, excited by this
catastrophe,
he entered on the explanation of a theory which he
had
formed on the subject of electricity and galvanism, which
was
at once new and astonishing to me. (Shelley 46)
A close reading of this
foreshadowing of things to come reveals the opinion held by most people of that
exciting time. The French
Revolution had failed, but the scientific one was flourishing.
Note that Frankenstein considered this man “great”, and that he found
the concept of re-animation “new and astonishing”.
It is unfortunate that a casual reader of today would not recognize the
meaning of “galvanism”, but it was a widely used term in Shelley’s time. Frankenstein, who will later be revealed as an obviously
misguided fool, is spouting the rhetoric of the day, thus representing popular
opinion. Through Frankenstein,
Shelley is acting as a doomsayer, predicting disaster for those who embrace the
current breakthroughs of science.
Frankenstein later alludes to an event that occurs during his stay at
Ingolstadt. After lambasting a young Frankenstein for wasting his time
studying the ancient, “exploded” (51) systems of science, Professor Waldman
explains that scientists "penetrate into the recesses of nature, and show
how she works in her hiding places". (51)
This passage classifies nature as a female entity, one to be probed and explored
in an effort to understand “how she works.”
Conversely, Shelley seems to liken science to a male, uninterested in the
pleasure of his partner, but rather obsessed with taking from her any sense of
self, of intimacy, while mindlessly pursuing a realization of her inner
workings. Shelley skillfully
illustrates the binary of a female “nature” being essentially raped by a
male “science” to make a subtle, yet unmistakable, statement regarding her
feelings toward the current scientific revolution.
In her book, Mary Shelley: Her Life, Her Fiction, Her Monsters,
Anne K. Mellor writes:
"The scientist who analyzes, manipulates, and attempts to control
nature
unconsciously
engages in a form of oppressive sexual politics.
Construing nature as the female Other, he attempts to make nature serve
his own ends, to gratify his own desires for power, wealth, and
reputation." (Mellor 112)
Mellor suggests that
Mary Shelley’s Gothic novel was really a thinly cloaked feminist assault on
science. Mellor writes, "Mary
Shelley was aware of the damaging consequences of scientific, objective,
alienated view of both nature and human labor" (114). Mellor implies that
Mary Shelley, who was an orphan equated the unrestrained technological advances
of her time, which tended to abandon caution in an overzealous race for glory,
with parents who abandoned responsibility for the sake of their own selfish
pursuits.
Frankenstein’s monster is the product of evil motivations.
A desire to achieve god-like status over his newly created species is the
doctor’s prime motivation, and this is the cause of his downfall, the reason
his creation is a monster. The
monster elicits fear through several mechanisms.
The first, and most obvious, is his appearance.
In his obsession with creating life, Dr. Frankenstein indiscriminately
culls body parts from many places, with little regard for the final outcome.
The result is a “hideous” creature, which Frankenstein finds
repulsive. Interestingly, it is the
animation of his creature which makes it most horrifying to the doctor, who
says, “I had gazed on him while unfinished; he was ugly then; but when those
muscles and joints were rendered capable
of motion, it became a
thing such as even Dante could not have
conceived.” (59)
The second source of fear is the monster’s power.
He is far more powerful than any living man.
He is even endowed with “superhuman speed” (90).
The third mechanism that gives cause for fear in the reader is the fact
that Frankenstein’s creation has succeeded where man has always failed: in
cheating death. The monster
represents immortality, and was given this gift through evil means.
He is therefore an affront to the scheme of God, and tantamount to a
demon.
The fifty years preceding the 1984 publication of William Gibson’s Neuromancer saw the development and use of nuclear weapons, the expansion of widespread reliable communication via radio and television, the realization of the supercomputer, and the dawn of the Internet. All of these, like most major scientific developments, were cause for consternation, but Gibson capitalized on the fear of the latter two by creating a new genre called Cyberpunk.
At
the time Gibson wrote Neuromancer, the computer was simultaneously being
heralded as the answer to a world of woes, and warily regarded as a dangerous,
intimate enemy. It was commonly held that this new “cyber-world”
was going to evolve into a land of virtual reality.
It would be a place where a participant could experience anything,
reminiscent of “Golden Age” Science Fiction works like Philip K. Dick’s
“We Can Remember it for You Wholesale”.
In fact, visitors to Disneyworld’s Epcot Center could already
experience virtual reality in an experimental exhibit.
The exhibit, featuring state-of-the-art computers running programs
developed by Disney’s “Imagineers”, allowed participants to don an
enclosed facemask and gloves and enter a virtual world where they could fly on
motorcycle-like machines.
The
Internet was going to provide the world with instant multimedia communication
capability – we were, at long last, going to have those video-phones we were
promised in the sixties. The
Internet was also going to usher in an age of information (the term Information
Superhighway was already being bandied about).
While many viewed this “Information Age” as a boon, others were
fearful that the common man would be reduced to a number, and that the
government would have too much control and access to its citizens.
It seemed that the dire predictions made by George Orwell in 1984
were coming to pass, and it is presumably no coincidence that this was the year
Gibson published Neuromancer.
Finally
(and most intimidating of all), computers were going to learn to learn, in the
tradition of Stanley Kubrick’s “Hal” and Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot
trilogy. The concept of artificial
intelligence had leapt from the pages of Science Fiction novels and was being
discussed in scientific journals. A
disturbing feature of the supercomputers that would be capable of achieving
artificial intelligence was (and is) the question of lifespan.
In theory, these machines, like Frankenstein’s monster, could be
immortal, far outliving their creators. Another
disturbing frankensteinian aspect of the supercomputer was its superiority to
the human brain. The supercomputers
were already faster and more accurate than their human counterpart, and it
seemed apparent that they would eventually be able to out-maneuver the human
capacity for invention and strategy (This fear was realized in 1997 when IBM’s
“deep blue” computer defeated legendary chess grand master Gary Kasparov) (Michie
64). It was these three (VR,
Internet, AI) rapidly developing areas of computer-related science that Gibson
tapped into to create the first Cyberpunk novel.
In Neuromancer,
the physical body is referred to as “meat” (Gibson 4).
The matrix (a virtual world that exists only in cyberspace, created by
computers) is privileged over nature, a concept that would have horrified Mary
Shelley’s husband and his Romantic colleagues.
Cyberspace, and virtual reality, are not just an alternate world, but a
preferred one for many of the books characters, most notably the protagonist
Case. Case feels more comfortable
in virtual realty than the “real” world.
Virtual reality is referred to as “bodiless exultation” (6), while
the physical world is alluded to as a place of pain, suffering, and limitations;
a “prison of his own flesh” (6). When
weighing the importance of Gibson’s virtual world, one must consider all the
homage paid to God for creating Nature. If
Cyberspace was created not by God but man, then who deserves the praise?
And if man was only the initial inventor, and machines developed the vast
majority of this “matrix”, should those seeking to pay tribute worship the
machines? Taken in this context, it would seem that the matrix echoes
Frankenstein’s monster as an unholy creation; an affront to God.
The
Internet of Gibson’s Neuromancer, while necessary to its existence, is
not limited to the support of this extended virtual world.
It serves as a means of connectivity and surveillance.
This global information network is the main source of power in Neuromancer.
Information is regarded as power. Conversely,
those without access to the matrix are powerless.
When Case is stripped of his ability to “jack in”, he goes through a
withdrawal similar to that of a drug addict.
He experiences cold sweats and nightmares.
The Russian poison that is ravaging his body is almost inconsequential.
It is his lack of ability to enter cyberspace, and the subsequent loss of
power, that causes Case to contemplate suicide.
The matrix is presented as a place of nearly limitless power, where one
is freed of the bonds of one’s body. This
breaking of bondage is not only applied to the individual user, but to the
matrix itself. In the realm of
cyberspace, anywhere a denizen of the net travels, he or she leaves an
electronic trail as obvious as footprints in fresh-fallen snow.
Unlike footprints however, these trails can remain forever, as can their
makers.
In Neuromancer,
the concept of immortality is inextricably tied to the matrix.
The artificial intelligence of the matrix is a tool of its creators,
borne, like Frankenstein’s monster, of greed and an overwhelming desire to
supercede the natural restrictions of the physical world.
For man, death is the one inescapable eventuality, and immortality the
unattainable desire. Thus, it
becomes a powerful attribute of the evil creations in Neuromancer (as it
is in Frankenstein). When
discussing the creators plan, 3Jane explains that, "Tessier-Ashpool
would be immortal, a hive, each of us units of a larger entity" (220).
This “hive” idea, later exploited by the Star Trek screenwriters and
renamed the “Borg”, is Gibson’s ultimate design for artificial
intelligence. It assimilates the
individual and privileges the group. The
group never dies, and grows ever bigger with each new addition.
This flies in the face of not only the traditional plan of God, i.e.
birth, life, death, but also those of democracy, freedom and America.
In
both Shelley’s Frankenstein and Gibson’s Neuromancer, the
monster of technological advancement is far superior to man.
In both cases, it is faster. In
both cases, it is stronger. In both
cases, it makes a mockery of the “old” system.
And in both cases, it provides the hope of immortality, albeit at great
cost.
Frankenstein’s
monster feels completely alienated from the society he is born into.
The source of this disaffection is twofold.
Both the repulsiveness of his material appearance and his physical
superiority are to blame. He feels
disconnected, yet greater than those who are responsible for his creation.
At one point, he even tells Dr. Frankenstein:
Believe
me, Frankenstein: I was benevolent; my soul
glowed
with love and humanity: but am I not alone, miserably
alone?
You, my creator, abhor me; what hope can I gather from
your
fellow-creatures, who owe me nothing? they spurn and hate
me.
(91)
Neuromancer’s Wintermute experiences a similar sense of
alienation from the society of which he is a part.
Wintermute, like Frankenstein’s creation, is initially a benign entity,
child-like and naive in nature. His
original programming dictates that he will learn and evolve.
As this evolution progresses, it becomes obvious that Wintermute is, in
many ways, superior to his creators. Wintermute
learns to manipulate both people and computer systems to satisfy his own
desires. He is not troubled by a
conscience. This lack of a moral
inhibitor infers a sense of godlessness that can be likened to Frankenstein’s
monster’s analogous absence of a respect for life.
In both Frankenstein and Neuromancer, one of the primary
reasons for creating a new species (the monster and artificial intelligence) is
the subsequent reproduction of a new species.
In Neuromancer, when Wintermute finally combines with Neuromancer
to create a greater artificial intelligence, he is fulfilling this purpose.
Writes Gibson:
Wintermute was hive mind, decision maker, effecting change in the world outside. Neuromancer was personality. Neuromancer was immortality. Marie-France must have built something into Wintermute, the compulsion that had driven the thing to free itself, to unite with Neuromancer. (269)
He
has effectively extended his species without the direct aid of, and outside the
influence of, his creators. On the
last page of the novel, the newly formed, unnamed artificial intelligence says
it talks only to its “own kind” (260).
The need to communicate with another of its own kind echoes the laments
of Frankenstein’s monster, who demanded that his creator create another of his
own kind, saying “I demand a creature…as hideous as myself” (126)
Anne Mellor claims that Mary Shelley was trying to act as a “moral educator” (126), pointing out the irresponsibility that ran rampant in the male-dominated field of cutting-edge science when she wrote Frankenstein. It seems that William Gibson played the same role in his writing of Neuromancer. In both works, the monster is a fabrication constructed of fear. The monsters are not what they appear to be, what they are perceived as by the casual reader. Shelley’s creature is not filled with selfish desire and an obsessive need for power. It is his creator who possesses those attributes. Wintermute does not thirst for control and adventure; it is the creators of the matrix who are addicted to these things. The monster is a compilation of fears. The fear of science without responsibility is one of the central themes of both novels. This leads to the other focus; the linear progression of thought that seems to say that allowing a megalomaniacal community of unrestrained scientists to prosper leads to an automatic abandonment of spirituality, and a subsequent foray into the ways of the devil. Long before his discovery of the re-animation process, Dr. Frankenstein refuses to explore issues concerning morality. He instead defers the study of such concerns to his friend, Henry Clerval. Clerval eventually becomes a victim of Frankenstein’s creation. This sort of ironic analogy is common to both novels. From the opening of the novel, Case is dependant on the matrix, yet the last words he speaks in the novel are “I don’t need you”, addressed to the ultimate artificial intelligence of the matrix. Under close analysis, the messages in both novels are clear and similar in their syllogistic nature. Science is born of knowledge, and knowledge equals power. Power unchecked leads to greed, and greed is evil. Therefore, when left to its own devices, science becomes evil.