Themes And Motifs In Frankenstein

the 6th of May 2010, the date of the notorious flash crash in the stock market. The novel circulates around the main character, Alex Hoffmann and his hedge fund which is operating in Geneva. The novel revolves around the theme of chaos and the fear than ensues. Harris uses his novel to pay homage to Mary Shelly’s 19th century gothic Frankenstein by creating his 21st interpretation using key ideas and themes taken from her novel. Other than subtle nods towards Frankenstein by using many shared characters’ names and location names. Harris recreates his 21st century interpretation by extrapolating on themes and motifs found in Shelly’s novel such as fear, power of knowledge and the motif of abortion. His novel targets those who are interested …show more content…
This motif was shared by Harris 21st interpretation. Harris uses the motif of abortion to represent an object or undertaking that is badly made or carried out. The first time this motif is present is when the reader is taken into the study of Alex’s wife where there is a “3D scanned image of a foetus composed of about twenty sections drawn on very clear glass”. This piece of art is Gabrielle’s way of holding onto the hope of having kids, despite having several miscarriages in past attempts. It is interesting that Alex doesn’t consider losing his unborn children as important as when he gets his algorithm deleted by CERN. He considers his algorithm more as “his child” than a code. This motif of abortion is repeated when the algorithm is originally deleted. After it is deleted he has a breakdown with his supervisor claiming he “never saw a man so desolate. You would’ve thought someone murdered his child.” This reveals the true character of Alex, his quest for knowledge removes his empathy for others considering the loss of code more significant than the loss of his unborn child. This motif of abortion is repeated at the end of the novel, where Alex is faced with a choice: save his cherished algorithm or prevent further damage to those around him. Much like in Frankenstein the protagonist goes on a quest to destroy what he has created. He attempts to turn off his creation only to find out he is no longer in control and …show more content…
Harris recreates this quality by extrapolating on themes and motifs found in Shelly’s novel. Harris recreates his 21st century interpretation by extrapolating on themes and motifs found in the 19th century gothic Frankenstein. He uses themes of fear and the power of knowledge and the motif of abortion in Shelly’s novel and then puts a modern twist on how they were conveyed. Harris targets those who are interested in classic gothic novels. He maintains the basic plot of Frankenstein while adapting it to merge with the 21st century idea of