OVER EXCESSIVE AMBITION AS REFLECTED IN THREE SCIENCE FICTION NOVELS: FRANKENSTEIN, SOLARIS AND INFERNAL DEVICES

Abstract

This thesis attempts to explore the emergence of science fiction as a genre and its development into steampunk as a subgenre of science fiction in selected science fiction novels: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1823), Stanislaw Lem's Solaris (1970) and K. W. Jeter's Infernal Devices (1987). This research shows that the scientists in these novels drag themselves into darkness. Victor, the protagonists of Frankenstein, is an ambition scientist who wants to conquer death but tragically loses his family during this endeavour. Kelvin, the hero of Solaris, is psychologically devastated when he struggles to understand how Solaris ocean creates a simulation of people. The hero of the third novel, George Dewar's father, a mad scientist and inventor, creates a double of his own son as a robot tries to destroy the earth. The main argument of this research is that all these novels set in different eras draw on science fiction to criticize and question man's greedy and unrestricted desire for scientific discovery to the extent that they want to conquer the universe and play the role of God. The study will ask the following questions: How do the ambitious scientists in the novels drag themselves into madness? And how does the scientific desire turn into a crave for transcendence bringing about their damnation? What do these scientific explorations and inventions reveal about human nature? Does steampunk bring the evolution to the future as a sub-genre of science fiction?