Abstract
The story of Victor Frankenstein is popularly and critically regarded as, among other stories, the story of a mad scientist . In this chapter, that mad scientist narrative is explored in relation to the study of childhood. The relationship between the scientist and the child is examined first through the story of Victor and his nameless monster creation. Mary Shelley’s critique of science is engaged as a critical element of that relationship. The chapter then examines three further relationships of children to science and scientists through the stories of Ender Wiggin, Tetsuo, and CHAPPiE . In each narrative, Promethean problems are revealed for the study of childhood. The chapter concludes with the provocation that Victor Frankenstein’s failing was not his apparently failed experiment but rather his failure to care for the monster .
Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow.
Shelley (2009, p. 54)
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Gibbons, A. (2019). Franken-Education, or When Science Runs Amok. In: Kupferman, D., Gibbons, A. (eds) Childhood, Science Fiction, and Pedagogy. Children: Global Posthumanist Perspectives and Materialist Theories. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-6210-1_2
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