Compare the two books Frankenstein and Jurassic Park and pay particular attention to the language used, time in which the book was written and any other issues raised. I am going to be looking the following two books in this essay Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein and Michael Chricton’s Jurassic Park. Frankenstein is a fictional biography of a man by the name of Victor Frankenstein. Frankenstein is a man who has been heavily involved in science his entire life, but he is not into the conventional sciences his interests are within the more alternative sciences. These interests result in Frankenstein having a radical new idea.
He desires to create a living creature using the `spare parts’ of deceased human beings. But when he meets his goal he is filled with regret as he learns what he has created is far from human and never could be. And if it had any kind of existence it would be an unbearable and painful one. His creation would be forced to hide within the shadows of society and treated as an outcast when his only desire is to be accepted as a human. But he knows the only reason he can’t is because of his gruesome looks. As the story continues Frankenstein’s fears pretty much come true, and as the monster experiences more of humanity
he realises he doesn’t want to be part of it, just get revenge on it. The monster soon goes after his creator Frankenstein but instead of killing him straight away the monster makes it more painful and just kills all those close to him. But then you read about on Frankenstein’s dieing day and his monster visits him but it is too late Frankenstein is dead and his monster is surprisingly devastated and wishes death upon himself as well. Michael Chricton’s Jurassic Park is a story about a man named John Hammond who has discovered a new way of cloning dinosaurs. He with the help of a select few scientists end up creating a sort of
theme park filled with living breathing dinosaurs. But one of the parks employees is paid to sabotage the project. The story then changes into a escape story for those remaining people on the island as all the dinosaurs have been freed as part of the sabotage and they need to get off the island. The two books are very similar in many ways even though the time periods they were written are so far apart. In both books they science fiction story line; this is aided even more by the fact that the main characters in both stories are heavily into science here is a quote to prove Frankenstein’s love for science:
“Curiosity, earnest research to learn the hidden laws of nature, gladness akin to rapture, as they were unfolded to me are among the earliest sensations I can remember. ” That quote gives the reader the impression that Frankenstein has been a scientist all his life even from an early age. In Jurassic Park throughout the book there is frequent evidence to prove that Hammond too is a devoted lover of science but I think the thing that proves this best is the amount of money his company has invested into various projects worldwide over the years; the book would lead you to believe that he has invested millions for example: “The Hammond Foundation is a respected source of academic grants they fund research all over the world, including dinosaur researchers. ”
In both books they raise the idea of artificially creating life, this subject is becoming increasingly talked about today in modern society, as now the level of technology is so high that it is in fact possible to create new life so Jurassic park may soon be known as a `science fact’ book, who knows? I’m sure you have heard about the sheep that was `unnaturally’ created a few years back; there has been lots of conflict over if that was right or wrong. In these two books on both occasions this has ended with disastrous consequences.
This gives the reader the impression that both writers feel or felt that tampering with nature in that way is wrong and that it would always end badly. The two books do also vary in many ways such as Jurassic is ultimately a story of escape, an escape from the island, an escape from death, an escape from Hammond’s failure and shattered dream. Whereas in Frankenstein the story is of Frankenstein’s pursuit of the monster he created, the evil within it and its hatred and loathing towards mankind. Also the books differ in ending and the way the reader is left after finishing the book.
Jurassic park’s ending leaves you feeling happy and hopeful after the book tells you of how all the `baddies’ get either killed by the dinosaurs or the trail of destruction behind them and the `goodies’ escape the island reasonably unharmed so I suppose you would say that was a happy ending. Compare this to Frankenstein’s ending which mainly consists of everyone dieing be it a favourable character or even the monster himself who Shelly seems to make you feel sorry for towards the end and actually dare I say it, like, well, he banishes himself from society and walks off into the snow in the hope of dieing.
This could also be a reflection of the consumer in the different times nowadays we like to hear nice happy ending to a story but when Frankenstein was written it was a very dark time and a dark and malevolent ending was much more suitable for the consumer of that period in time (If they could even read it anyway). Another obvious difference between the two books is the language adopted for each one. In Frankenstein there is frequent use of simile for example;