Passion In Mary Shelley’s Novel Frankenstein And Christopher Nolan’s Movie The Prestige

A passion could be conceived as a pleasant thing to possess, but letting that passion consume the user can lead to the utter destruction of oneself. In Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein and Christopher Nolan’s movie The Prestige, the main characters are willing to sacrifice the things they love and do to get what they desire. Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein is Gothic Fiction and it focuses on a brilliant young scientist Victor Frankenstein. Victor’s goal in life is to create life through his experiments which the idea could stem from his mother's passing. After his mother's passing, Victor’s ambition to create life takes over his life and in the end, he did achieve the goal. Although the end product of Victor’s experiment will become more of a curse to him and will destroy his life slowly over the years. So Victor's passion to create life, in the end, destroys him and everything he loves. Christopher Nolan’s movie The Prestige is a thriller and it focuses on the intense rivalry between Alfred Borden and Robert Angier. Both of these men develop consuming passions for magic which develops rivalry to which can be the best magician in London. Though Alfred Borden was played by two people pretending to be him. The rivalry has always been there but truly starts when Angier’s wife drowns to death when performing. Angier blames her death on Borden because  he believes that Borden used a different knot which intensifies the rivalry even more. Angier vows vengeance which results in both of these men wanting to beat each other to be the best magician. This intense passion for being the best Magician will in the end destroy both of their lives and consume both of them. In Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein and Christopher Nolan’s movie The Prestige show that humans with uncontrollable passions have the power to self-destruct and have their lives thrown into chaos.

The uncontrollable passion in both of these works plagues the main characters and it destroys their families. In Victor Frankestein’s case, his entire family dies because of his passion. Victor’s passion creates a terrible monster from the dead, but he denies the fact that he created the monster and that it is his fault. When Victor blames the monster for all of his problems, he declares, “As the memory of past misfortunes pressed upon me, I began to reflect upon their cause—the monster whom I had created, the miserable daemon whom I had sent abroad into the world”(Shelley 189). Victor is very close to his family and was very loved by them too. Which makes it hard for Victor to realize that it is truly his fault for all of their deaths. Mary Shelley makes Victor's passion so obvious to show how his passion has blinded him to the fact it is all his fault for his problems. When Victor was creating the experiment, he never looks at the possible consequences of creating this monster. At that moment it foreshadows the downfall of Victor because of how delusional he is. His passion blinds him and he never controls it to look at his experiment with realistic eyes. So Victor blaming the monster for the destruction of his family represents that Victor never realized how dangerous his passion was to his family. Leaving the monster without anyone to go to is terrible and Victor should have realized that his family would be a target to the monster. Both Alfred Borden’s and Robert Angier’s family life was destroyed by their uncontrollable passion. Both Alfred Borden's relationships did not end well because of how obsessed they were with magic. One Borden loved Sarah and at the beginning of the relationship it was going fine. When Borden started to sell out shows and grow more popular, their relationship started to decline. This is why Sarah will go on to hang herself in Bordens workshop(Nolan). Sarah felt no connection with Berdon anymore because all he did was lie to her everytime she wanted to talk to him. Also the other Borden was abandoned by his love because of his obsession with magic. Both of these women got sick of the lies and obsession they have with magic. Their passion for magic was strong enough to keep it going even when their loved one left them. It shows how uncontrollable passion can ruin people's lives and it did the same thing to Robert Angier. Robert Angier and his wife Julia are passionate about magic and wanted to become stars. Though that passion blinded Julia when she let Borden try a harder knot on her which caused her death. Her death should have been a warning to Angier to slow down his passion for magic, but it was the total opposite. He becomes obsessed with beating Borden after that dreadful day and nothing will stop his passion for being the best magician. Borden’s and Angier’s obsession with magic becomes even worse when they do not have their significant other there to help them. Which foreshadows them getting stuck in this endless cycle of who can beat others until one of them dies or quits.

A passion that cannot be controlled or managed can lead to terrible consequences. Which is what Victor had to go through when creating his monster. During Victor’s time creating the monster, he states, “Sometimes I grew alarmed at the wreck I perceived that I had become; the energy of my purpose alone sustained me: my labors would soon end, and I believed that exercise and amusement would then drive away incipient disease, and I promised myself both of these when my creation should be complete”(Shelley 55). Victor grows weak and tired from not being able to subdue his passion. He relatively knows this is harmful to him to keep living this way, but he is overly ambitious and wants to keep going. He cannot control himself and will keep going until he receives what he desires. Even if his health declines in the process and it seems like he does not really care about what could happen after creating the monster too. Victor allows his passion to control him and in the end, he makes a monster that will destroy his entire life. Mary Shelley uses Victor to foreshadow what could happen to humans if they allow a passion to get out of control. The same thing also happened to Robert Angier too. He is a passionate guy and loves magic. During a performance, his wife drowns in the middle of her stunt and it deeply affects Angier(Nolan). The smart idea would be to slow down for a while and reflect on what just happened. Though the opposite happens, her death pushes Angier's passion for magic and it makes him work harder. It equally creates a passion for revenge against Alfred Borden because he thinks he killed her by using a different knot. Angier goes to great lengths to be the best magician by kidnapping to get the secret of Borden’s tricks. This then leads him to Tesla. During the time spent with Tesla, he spends a fortune getting a machine that could beat Borden. He uses that machine to clone himself and frame Borden for the death of that clone. Even though he does kill one Borden, he does not kill the other Borden and he ends up dying for not seeing the two of them. All of these events show how passionate Angier is, which is even recognized by tesla and John Cutter. The passion Angier has blinded him and after all of that work to outsmart Borden, he still is outplayed by Borden by not releasing he has a twin. Angier did not realize that Julia’s death should have been a warning to slow it down, but he did not listen. This is why Christopher Nolan uses her death to foreshadow Angier’s future self-destruction.

In light of this information, Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein and Christopher Nolan’s movie The Prestige demonstrate that uncontrollable passion can lead to destruction and ultimately, destruction of oneself. Through these two works of art, it shows how uncontrolled passion can ruin a family and, in the end, can devastate the family altogether. It also indicates how people with unchecked passions can lead to terrible consequences for themselves. In all, these works of art warn humans how terrible life can get when it is not in human control.