Wells‘s The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896) and The Invisible Man (1897) as the founding texts of the long tradition of mad scientist narratives. In the light of these, this thesis examines Mary Shelley‘s Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus (1818), Robert Louis Stevenson‘s Strange Case of Dr. As scientific knowledge became more extensive and the figure of the scientist turned into a more threatening figure, nineteenth-century British authors responded with borrowing some of the features of evil alchemist or natural philosopher narratives and creating a modern mad scientist figure in order to voice the concerns of their age. In the nineteenth century, new sciences and technologies brought with them new anxieties, especially the worry of going too far and upsetting the balance between science and religion (or ethics). ![]() After the early modern era, natural philosophers who focused on experimenting began to take place in literature, but they were also mocked because their experiments were seen futile just as those of the alchemists. Alchemists were the antagonists in literary works for many ages as a result of their controversial practices that aimed to manipulate nature and obtain the formula of immortality. Although the modern form of this trope emerged in Britain in the nineteenth century, its roots can be found in the literature of earlier ages. One of the outcomes of this interaction is the fictional mad scientist figure who represents the dangers inherent in scientific knowledge. ![]() Since very early ages, literature has been closely intertwined with science and technology.
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