Samuel Holmes Vasbinder
Author of Scientific Attitudes in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (Studies in Speculative Fiction)
About the Author
Works by Samuel Holmes Vasbinder
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- c. 1940
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- USA
- Places of residence
- Canton, Ohio, USA
Members
Reviews
Statistics
- Works
- 2
- Members
- 8
- Popularity
- #1,038,911
- Rating
- 3.5
- Reviews
- 1
- ISBNs
- 1
Where he loses me is that he has an overly simplistic reading of the novel: because the novel's description of Frankenstein's adventures in corpses is calm and detached, he argues, there must not have been anything wrong with it. This overlooks that I think Frankenstein is the one who tells us about these studies, and he is hardly an unbiased narrator! To describe Shelley as having "positive attitude toward Newtonian science" (69) strips the novel of the very nuance that Vasbinder's analysis is trying to reveal. There may be more science in Frankenstein than pre-1984 critics admitted, but that doesn't mean Frankenstein had a positive attitude toward this science. So, some good insight, but weirdly subsumed into a misguided overall analysis of the novel.… (more)