Compare the ways in which the writers of your two chosen texts show how science can create victims (44 marks)

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Compare the ways in which the writers of your two chosen texts show how science can create victims (44 marks)

Both Mary Shelley and Margaret Atwood show how science can create victims when great power is abused by those in authority to others and ensure that through narrative voice, the reader is aware of it. Whereas Frankenstein holds three narrators to its title, The Handmaid’s Tale only has one, excluding Pieixoto in the Historical Notes. However, both give us an in depth and intimate perspective on how victims have been created through science. Furthermore, they both use various methods of character development to build a sense of familiarity with the reader to which they destroy when these characters become victims of science. This all aids the way the reader feels towards those with power. The periods that both novels were written in were times of significant change regarding scientific discovery, especially for Frankenstein. By showing science to have the ability to create victims it shares the message that morality is essential when one has great power and these novels are great examples of this.

One way that the writers show how science can create victims when power is abused is through narrative voice. In Frankenstein, Shelley makes use of what has been dubbed the ‘Russian Doll’ model: the creature’s narration is embedded between both Victor Frankenstein and Robert Walton’s narration. By doing this, Shelley is able to give a personal account of how the creature has been victimised by science as he retells his experience to Victor who “consent[s] to listen”. Before this, we only have Victor’s opinion on the ‘monster’, of which the constant use of negative nomenclatures, such as “wretch” and “demon” instil a hatred of the creature in the reader. However, when he is finally given a voice, the reader can understand that he starts life as an innocent being, just desperate for affection. He talks of the DeLacy family “whom [he] sincerely love[s], and of whose favour [he] has some hopes”, nonetheless, his unnatural form and terrifying appearance – brought about by Victor’s endeavour for scientific development – results in him being “struck…violently with a stick” and cast out. He becomes a victim because Victor abuses his power to create life in order to become a creator of which a “new species would bless”.

Conversely, in The Handmaid’s Tale, only one narrator dictates the story, until the Historical Notes, which is both a part of and separate from the story. Yet through this very intimate view on the oppressive regime of Gilead. The science of fertility is what the government abuses and in doing so creates many victims, especially the Handmaids. Without Offred’s narration, the reader would not be aware of anything that goes on in Gilead, including Janine’s childbirth experience. She is reduced to animalistic traits and is described as a disgusting woman that has a “smell, more animal.” Like in Frankenstein it rests on the shoulders of the narrators to relay the story, who tend to also be the victims. Whether it be from creature to Victor or from Offred directly to the reader, the stories they tell would otherwise remain unheard, as victims so often are – but by giving them a voice, it gives them power. Those who abuse power through science are not held accountable.

Both Shelley and Atwood use character development throughout their novels to show how science creates victims. In The Handmaid’s Tale, Moira is portrayed as a strong presence, a rebel who was a ‘fantasy’ to the other women. She was escaping from the Red Centre and determined not to be overcome by the regime, whilst the other Handmaids “were losing the taste for freedom.” However, when Offred visits Jezebel’s, a very different Moira is presented, weak and defeated, “she shrugs. It might be resignation.” This same gradual victimisation by science is shown in Frankenstein by the characters of Victor. At the beginning of the novel, he is excited by the thought of science and the potential to be a ‘creator’, though as the story goes on, he is reduced to a weak man who feels suicidal and “abhors society”. It relates to what critic Anne Mellor says regarding the relationship between science and nature. She says the nature is presented as female and science, the male and that when people, like Victor, commit transgression, science “penetrates” nature, commits a rape, and means that an abuse of power can lead to science creating victims, as a rapist creates a victim.

Both Shelley and Atwood were writing in a time of great change that concentrated on science. In Mary Shelley’s era, some natural philosophers were intrigued by the idea of galvanism, which Victor uses to create his monster, “I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing” however immediately after he creates the monster, he is horrified and in a way, creates a victim by science before the creature has had any life because of his “horrid” appearance. He hates the monster and says “a mummy again induced with animation could not be so hideous.” Thus the creature is destined to be an automatic outcast. In the 80s when Atwood wrote The Handmaid’s Tale, technology was of increasing importance and thus resulted in a popular period of other dystopian and sci-fi novels being written such as ‘The Clockwork Orange’. In Atwood’s novel and others of that time, science and technology is shown to be an entity that creates victims. For example, Offred is tested for fertility using technology and this is all artificial in creating new life. They are like human test tubes; despite being set many years in the future. Furthermore, the use of computers means she loses control of all her money before the regime had a stronghold on the population, Luke owns her money and this makes her a victim. It conveys a sense of fear that people had for science, in that victims are created when power is abused in the hands of strong, influential governments.

Ultimately both novels aim to display the world as a place for great potential. Victor says he wants to use science to “dispel all illness” and the technology used in The Handmaid’s Tale has the potential to improve modern issues such as decreasing fertility rates. However, in the hands of Victor and Gilead, they use the power they have for selfish and twisted purposes that result in Offred’s best friend never being seen again and both Victor and his lifelong dream die at the end of the novel. Science creates victims and it is because humans often believe they are able to defeat what is natural, beat the system, yet it only results in pain and misery.