Ayn Rand and the Posthuman by Ben Murnane

Author:Ben Murnane
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

Humanity, Enhanced in Fiction

When the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, American radio commentator H. V. Kaltenborn declared, “For all we know, we have created a Frankenstein!” (qtd. in Allen 1992, p. 506). Today the name of Mary Shelley ’s creation is cited in debates about embryo research; we speak of genetically modified organisms as “Frankenfood.” As Jon Turney puts it, we still turn to a story that is now two centuries old, “when we look for ways to interpret the latest developments, the hot news from the lab, the technological promises for the twenty-first century, when we look for stories to tell about what we are about to do.” Shelley “identif[ied] concerns which go to the heart of our response to science” (Turney 1998, pp. 2–3). Frankenstein is a gothic metaphor for fear of science that pushes the boundaries of life, and consequently could destroy life as we know it. The creation and the creator have become fused in the popular imagination, a conflation signifying horror of both: the science and the scientist, the technology and its originator. Roslynn D. Haynes summarizes the situation thusly: “Not only has his name become synonymous with any experiment out of control but his relation with the Monster he creates has become, in the popular mind at least, complete identification: Frankenstein is the Monster” (Haynes 1994, p. 92, emphasis in original).

The novel which is often seen as the first work of science fiction is a Romantic novel—and it provides an image of the monstrous posthuman. The possibilities of contemporary science are at the center of Mary Shelley ’s Frankenstein ; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818/31). Shelley was the first to put “the creation of the Homunculus on a purely scientific basis” (Louis Awad, “The Alchemist in English Literature: Frankenstein ,” qtd. in Botting 1991, p. 166). The opening line of the preface to the first edition states: “The event on which this fiction is founded, has been supposed by Dr. [Erasmus] Darwin, and some of the physiological writers of Germany, as not of impossible occurrence” (Shelley 2008, p. 13). 4 Here, fear is the governing intent (also placing Shelley in the gothic tradition). A man, Victor Frankenstein, studies ancient and modern science to an intense degree, begins his own experiments—and innovates. He discovers the “spark,” a kind of electricity, that gives life to living things. 5 He creates a posthuman: a being that is man and more than man, human and not so human; man overcome. The creature’s form is composed from the body parts of dead humans, and endowed with life via Frankenstein’s discovery. It is possessed of supernatural speed and strength. Abandoned by his creator, the creature wreaks havoc on Frankenstein’s life: murdering those close to Victor in acts of revenge. Confronting Victor, the creature demands a bride: a companion who will be like him, since he is shunned by all others who behold his hideousness. Frankenstein determines, however, that he must not create such a creature. He fears for “the

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