Culture anthropolgy on Aborigines of australia Essay

Culture anthropolgy on Aborigines of australia - Essay Example The first Aboriginals are believed to have arrived in this unique and isolated piece of land some 50,000 years ago, when they migrated from the South Pole as the sea levels generally fell and the last Ice Age saw its end. Experts believe that the race then traveled on canoes and rafts across the ocean in search of a peaceful land (Barnard, 1996). The activities of aboriginals of the area remained secret and restricted to its own lands, until outsiders from around the world intruded their territories for political, economical, and anthropological purposes. Before the invasion of the British into Australia, (first invasion 1788), about 200 years ago, there were about 300,000 inhabitants living in the area, which constituted of 500 tribes using 200 distinct languages amongst each other, of which most of them are found extinct now; with each dialect defining each tribe that occupied a definite area in the continent. Whereas, lands owned by no tribal form were left arid and unoccupied, under the title of ‘no man’s land.’ (Bartlett, 2002). Though the Aboriginals vary abundantly from their appearance due to the diversity seen between their groups; however, some of the common features that all of them share are their dark brown skin with wavy hair, developed onto slender bodies which are erect showing their hardworking capabilities. Anthropologists believe that variations in their appearances are due to their migrations at different points of time in history. Whereas some critics to this opinion believe in ‘homogeneity’ of the aboriginals, whereas any variations in them might be due to variation in diet and the environment they lived in, while as a whole, they lived in isolation from rest of the world (Ashley, 2009). This paper discusses the isolation of the Aborigines of Australia form the rest of the world; as when development and technology were taking the world up by storm, they remained a loaf of this

Preservation of Biodiversity Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Preservation of Biodiversity - Essay Example In pre-Colombian times, this area supported an estimated 700,000 persons (a multiple of todays population) in a sustainable form† (Lutz, n.d.). Interest of human beings needs to be served first. All countries should not be held to the same standards in the preservation of endangered habitats and species because different countries have different levels of economic strength, and socioeconomic and political issues. It is not practicable to establish same standards of preservation in all countries because different countries give different priority to the conservation of biodiversity, and the stance of individual nations is governed by their cultural and religious beliefs, that often vary across nations. Traditional practices such as whaling and killing wildlife for ivory, tiger bones, and rhinoceros horns, etc. are not justifiable because there are better alternatives to these which are not only environment friendlier but also good for the well-being of animals. Conventionally, b ones retrieved from animals have been of little to no use for humans. Mostly, these bones have been used for ornamental purposes which can be lived

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger Essay Example for Free

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger Essay Holden Caulfield in, The Catcher in the Rye, written by J.D. Salinger, lives a troubled life of not really caring about the repercussions of his actions. Holden’s beliefs on life are very narrow minded and he is very judgmental of everyone around him. Holden also has a strong belief that mostly everyone in the world is a phony. This ties into Holden’s wants of becoming a catcher in the rye when he is older. In the future Holden wants to become the catcher in the rye to save children from falling into the rye. This idea of doing this came into Holden’s mind after hearing the poem by Robert Burns. Holden thinks that the poem says â€Å"If a body catch a body comin’ through the rye,† but the actual lyric is â€Å"If a body meet a body, coming through the rye.†The original poem is about two adults meeting in the rye, Holden misconstrues this line and thinks that it means someone catching someone in the rye, which Holden wants to do. Holden wants to stand on the edge of the cliff and catch the children from falling. This is symbolic of Holden wanting to save himself along with other children having to grow up in a world that he believes to be phony. Holden wants to catch the kids before they lose their innocence and fall into an adult world with adult beliefs. By Holden wanting to be The Catcher in the Rye, it is symbolic throughout the book and how he doesn’t want to grow up and tries to avoid everyone who is phony. He doesn’t want children to lose their innocence because it is something pure that only lasts temporarily. Holden’s wish to be the â€Å"catcher in the rye† is significant to explaining who Holden is as a person. After the reader finds out what Holden wants to become when he is older you get a better understanding of Holden and his beliefs. In a world that is all phony to him, he just wants to live. Even though he may not want to hurt any feelings, he comes off very rude. Allies death was a turning point in Holden’s life and changed everything. This truly troubles Holden and is shown throughout the story, such as when he no longer cares about his studies or school. Allies death causes him to become very troubled in life and disregard the good of his own life. When Holden says he wants to be the catcher in the rye, not only does he want to save kids innocence but he doesn’t want to face adult hood as well. Living in a phony world will ruin the innocence of children that doesn’t last forever. As the reader can see, Holden is a very troubled boy growing up in a â€Å"phony† world. A kid wanting to protect children from losing innocence will happen when Holden becomes the Catcher in the rye. As a symbolic theme throughout the whole book it is a symbol of Holden not wanting to grow up as well.

Reflection on the Role of Consumption in Everyday Life

Reflection on the Role of Consumption in Everyday Life Meghan Tenorio Consumption in Everyday Life Eating a hamburger. Buying a t-shirt. Buying a car. Buying gasoline. Just a few things that everyone will do or will most likely do in their lifetime. Consumption is the using up of goods and services by consumer purchasing or in the production of other goods. Someone in the field of international studies can be looking for a relationship between consumption and its role in the environment, national identity, gender, and economic development. Consumption’s role in daily life is inevitable, and as we advance further into the 21st century we can see just how much it connects the people as a whole. â€Å"A pound of sugar is only a quantity, a convenient load, not an object in itself. The book, however – and here it prefigures the durables of our time – is a distinct, self-contained object, exactly reproduced on a large scale. One pound of sugar flows into the next; each book has its own eremitic self-sufficiency† (Anderson 34). This quote is just an example of the simultaneous consumption of the newspaper-as-fiction. Consumption may never be predictable. While â€Å"particular morning and evening editions will overwhelmingly be consumed between this hour, and that, only on this day, not that; sugar, the use of which proceeds in an unclocked, continuous flow; it may go bad, but it does not go out of date† (Anderson 35). Consumption is also not limited to one thing at a time; it may be and usually is simultaneous. As the same newspaper reader reads on the subway or in the barbershop while getting his hair cut, he is performing multiple acts of consumpt ion at once. This assures the reader that the world is visibly rooted in the act of consumption in everyday life. Print-capitalism, a possible form of consumption, is a way that communities can achieve a sense of national identity and connect on a profound level. â€Å"Hence, the printer’s office emerged as the key to North American communications and community intellectual life† (Anderson 61). Assuming that consumption is a social process says that our identity focuses on symbolic aspects rather than the actual material consumption. In the book Eaarth by Bill McKibben consumption is spoken about in the sense of environment – water, land, and especially forms of energy. It is one of the main reasons that the earth is where it is right now – slowly (or perhaps not as slowly as we thought) degrading into earth where any kind of adaptation will prove impossible. As he states, â€Å"Global warming is no longer a philosophical threat, no longer a future threat, no longer a threat at all. It’s our reality. We’ve changed the planet, changed it in large and fundamental ways†¦ We need now to understand the world that we’ve created, and consider – urgently – how to live in it† (McKibben Xiv). The Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius offers the idea a century ago that we were â€Å"evaporating our coal mines into the air,† and calculated that this could eventually raise temperatures, but nobody seemed to pay much attention. We’re not going to get back th e planet we once had. â€Å"We’re like the guy who ate steak for dinner every night and let his cholesterol top 300 and had a heart attack. Now he dines on Lipitor and walks on the treadmill, but half his heart is dead tissue† (McKibben 16). Through high levels of consumption, we’ve burned the coal and the oil, and released the first dose of carbon, that carbon that raised the temperature enough to start the process in motion. Once it’s in motion there is nothing to shut it off but can only be slightly lessened. Without even realizing it â€Å"†¦now, we’ve turned our cars and factories into junior volcanoes, and so we’re not just producing carbon faster than the plant world can absorb it; we’re also making it so hot that the plants absorb less carbon than they used to† (McKibben 23). From the time that we wake up, the second we turn on that coffee pot till the second we turn off the lights and go to bed (don’t forge t the furnace or the air-conditioner that is probably still running) we are burning coal and gas and oil. Our tendency for consumption – not only consumption but more specifically over-consumption – is why we are where we are environmentally. â€Å"Richard Heinberg, the analyst who was one of the first to alert the world to the impending oil peak, once compiled a list of things made from oil that ran from computer chips, insecticides, anesthetics, and fertilizers, right through lipstick, perfume, and pantyhose to aspirin and parachutes† (McKibben 30). These are just a few products that we all consume in one way, or another. This consumption, the overuse of oil, is leading to global warming. It is possible to slow down the growth but only with the cooperation on a small scale – â€Å"small, not significant; dispersed, not centralized† (McKibben 120). All this can add up to the results we are looking for. This means reshaping our society. Growth and expansion requires a kind of centralization: a concentration of resources and the need for consumption. What we are looking for is the opposite. Our earth may never be the same, but at least we will still have an earth to thrive on in whatever shape or form. Consumption has a huge involvement in economic development in the way that whatever we consume benefits the economy. This holds true to many products: food, beauty products, intangible items, and even something as simple as a plain white cotton t-shirt. In the book The Travels of a T-shirt in the Global Economy by Pietra Rivoli it shows many examples of how consumption all over the world can have effects on the growth of the economy in the U.S. The shirts that have the â€Å"Made in China† label are usually made out of cotton that comes from Texas. Texas cotton doesn’t brag about where it was born and raised: †Desolate, hardscrabble, and alternately baked to death, shredded by windstorms, or pummeled by rocky hail, west Texas will never have much of a tourist trade† (Rivoli 3). However, there is a very good chance that your t-shirt and mine were born there in a city called Lubbock, the self-proclaimed â€Å"cottonest city† in the world. Cotton may see m like an unlike candidate for economic success in the United States, but the consumption rates prove it to be a good candidate as most of cotton comes from the U.S. Cotton growers can also appeal to other aspects of consumption than only t-shirts. â€Å"Connoisseurs agree that when it comes to frying chips, cottonseed oil is best† (Rivoli 52). Colgate-Palmolive is also a major customer when it comes to cottonseed oil. This just proves the fact that consumption occurs in multiple ways at once – from the cotton to the cottonseed oil – and, therefore, can help the economic growth and stability more rapidly. Although, because of the abundance of cotton growers in the U.S., other countries fail to find economic stability through cotton production itself as well as the U.S. has. Consumption is an everyday thing and starts as soon as you wake up right up until you turn the lights off at night. It has its benefits up to a set point but also needs to be regulated if we want to maintain a livable planet. Consumption can be a social act, as well as materialistic. Either way, consumption as a whole benefits our national identity and economic development, though if not taken down to the local level it could be harmful to our environment and planet as we know it. Works Cited Anderson, Benedict R. OG. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 1991. Print. McKibben, Bill. Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet. New York: Times, 2010. Print. Rivoli, Pietra. The Travels of a T-shirt in the Global Economy: An Economist Examines the Markets, Power and Politics of World Trade. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley Sons, 2005. Print.

Huanting Of Hill House Essay example -- essays research papers

THE HAUNTING ON HILL HOUSE Eleanor Vance has always been a loner shy, defenseless, and angrily resentful of the 11 years she lost while nursing her dying mother. She had spent so long alone, with no one to love, never had a real home and without any happiness in her life. Eleanor has always sensed that one day something big would happen, and one day it does. She receives an unusual invitation from Dr. John Montague, a man fascinated by "supernatural manifestations." He had been looking for a haunted house all his life. Then He heard about Hill House and he knows that he couldn’t let it go. His intentions with Hill House, was to go there, live there for a while and take notes of everything that occurs within the house, kind of like ghost hunting. So he rents Hill House for three months, organizes a ghost watch, inviting three people who have been touched by unearthly events. A psychic event from Eleanor's childhood makes her qualify to be a part of Montague's unusual study, along with stub born Theodora who was the not thing like Eleanor, and Luke who is the nephew of the owner of Hill House. The reason for him being there is because the family lawyer told Dr. Montague that he couldn’t rent the house without the confining presence of a member of the family during his stay. They all meet at Hill House an estate in New England. This is where i...

America Needs the Affordable Care Act Essay -- America Needs Obamacar

According to Newsweek, the University Medical Center on average has about $100,000 dollars a month in unpaid doctor’s visits and operations and special procedures; this burden gets passed on to the County taxpayer (Johnson). Unpaid bills occur due to people taken to the hospital and either do not have, or have very poor health insurance. The current process is not fair to anyone, whether one has no health insurance or one who has paid for it. Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, otherwise referred to as Obamacare, signed into law on March 23, 2010, this requires all Americans to purchase health insurance. The purchase of this care is purchased either individually or through the government market place. The act will lower the cost of insurance on all Americans, and additionally relive pressures felt at hospitals under the circumstance one does not have health insurance. Similar acts have been passed in states like Massachusetts resulting in high success; the in dividual mandate requiring Americans to purchase health insurance is justified and constitutional. The health insurance debate is not new, as there have been numerous law debates, deriving in the law passing when it comes to health care. One of the first people to introduce a government run health care was Theodore Roosevelt in 1912. One of the reasons for bringing the bill forward was due to similar laws being passed in Europe; however, the bill never made it to a vote. Representative George H. Utter from Rhode Island once stated that he voted against the bill because he did not believe that the federal government had the resources to insure everyone (Fletcher). Also in 1949 Harry Truman proposed his Fair Deal Act: including giving aid to farmers, assist s... ...tives-20140118,0,4710689.story>. Johnson, Matthew. "How Obamacare Will Effect County Taxpayers." Newsday. N.p., 9 Sep 2012. Web. 7 Jan 2014. . King, Paul. "Study Shows Who Are The Safest Drivers in America." Associated Press. N.p., 17 Apr 2013. Web. 16 Jan 2014. . Kolesnikova, Maria. "How Romneycare Helped Massachusetts." Boston Globe. N.p., 8 Dec 2012. Web. 2 Jan 2014. . Weber, Joseph. "Obamacare Will Destroy America." Fox News. N.p., 31 May 2013. Web. 15 Jan 2014. . America Needs the Affordable Care Act Essay -- America Needs Obamacar According to Newsweek, the University Medical Center on average has about $100,000 dollars a month in unpaid doctor’s visits and operations and special procedures; this burden gets passed on to the County taxpayer (Johnson). Unpaid bills occur due to people taken to the hospital and either do not have, or have very poor health insurance. The current process is not fair to anyone, whether one has no health insurance or one who has paid for it. Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, otherwise referred to as Obamacare, signed into law on March 23, 2010, this requires all Americans to purchase health insurance. The purchase of this care is purchased either individually or through the government market place. The act will lower the cost of insurance on all Americans, and additionally relive pressures felt at hospitals under the circumstance one does not have health insurance. Similar acts have been passed in states like Massachusetts resulting in high success; the in dividual mandate requiring Americans to purchase health insurance is justified and constitutional. The health insurance debate is not new, as there have been numerous law debates, deriving in the law passing when it comes to health care. One of the first people to introduce a government run health care was Theodore Roosevelt in 1912. One of the reasons for bringing the bill forward was due to similar laws being passed in Europe; however, the bill never made it to a vote. Representative George H. Utter from Rhode Island once stated that he voted against the bill because he did not believe that the federal government had the resources to insure everyone (Fletcher). Also in 1949 Harry Truman proposed his Fair Deal Act: including giving aid to farmers, assist s... ...tives-20140118,0,4710689.story>. Johnson, Matthew. "How Obamacare Will Effect County Taxpayers." Newsday. N.p., 9 Sep 2012. Web. 7 Jan 2014. . King, Paul. "Study Shows Who Are The Safest Drivers in America." Associated Press. N.p., 17 Apr 2013. Web. 16 Jan 2014. . Kolesnikova, Maria. "How Romneycare Helped Massachusetts." Boston Globe. N.p., 8 Dec 2012. Web. 2 Jan 2014. . Weber, Joseph. "Obamacare Will Destroy America." Fox News. N.p., 31 May 2013. Web. 15 Jan 2014. .

Frankenstein by Mary Shelly

In their chapter on ghosts in literature, Bennett and Royle propose that nineteenth century literature altered the widespread understanding of ghosts. The ghost now ‘move[d] into one's head. The ghost is internalised: it becomes a psychological symptom, and no longer a thing that goes bump in the night†¦ ‘ (p. 133). Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley certainly provides evidence for this argument that nineteenth century Gothic literature became more concerned with the haunted consciousness than the haunted house (Byron 2004: Stirling University). The tale like all Gothic works is concerned with the uncanny, and if we believed the popular representation of Frankenstein, we could be fooled into thinking that it is simply about a terrifying, grotesque monster. However, is this actually what Shelley's novel is about? By paying particular attention to chapter two in volume two of Frankenstein, and using Bennett and Royle's chapter on ghosts, I will consider to what extent Frankenstein can be described as a ghost story. Before we start to look at Frankenstein itself, we should first look at the context in which it was written. As is well known, Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein when travelling in Geneva with her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron. In her preface to Frankenstein, Shelley tells the reader that ‘in the evenings we crowded around a blazing wood fire, and, occasionally amused ourselves with some German stories of ghosts†¦ ‘ She goes on to describe how ‘these tales excited us in a playful desire of imitation. [Percy Shelley, Lord Byron]†¦ and myself agreed to write each a story, founded on some supernatural occurrence' (Norton Anthology, p. 908). So before we have even read her tale, we know that she initially intended to write it as some form of ghost story. Did Shelley achieve her goal? Chapter two in volume two of Frankenstein does seem to provide evidence to the presence of the theme of the supernatural. This is the chapter in which Victor and his creature are reunited after Victor first ran away after bringing the creature to life because he was terrified by its horrific appearance. Prior to this, our only impression of the creature was very much a mysterious one; we knew him only by Victor's description of his hideous and deformed appearance. Now we get to ‘meet' him for ourselves, and our first impression may be that of shock; not because of his appearance (as of course we never really know what the creature looks like) but due to the eloquence with which he speaks. As Sparknotes summarise, ‘The monster's eloquent narration of events†¦ reveals his remarkable sensitivity and benevolence. ‘ The creature tells Victor of the pain and rejection he has had to suffer with great emotion; ‘All men hate the wretched; how then must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things! (Norton Anthology, p. 960). His expressive words show us that the creature is not a purely evil being, as Victor would have had us believe. The creature's appearance has an otherworldly attribute, simply because we never know and never will know what he actually looks like; we can only rely on Victor's and Walton's descriptions which may be biased, and so his appearance remains a secret. Nicholas Abraham ventures that ‘ghosts have to do with unspeakable secrets' (Bennett and Royle, p. 134). As we know, Frankenstein felt his secret of creating life was unspeakable to his family and friends – the only person he recounts his tale to is Walton (that the reader knows of anyway). On the other hand, Victor never constantly reiterates the creature's horrific appearance, and pays much less attention to the humane, sensitive side of the creature. This turns out to be a fatal and tragic mistake, as the creature's human characteristics turn out to be the most important; it is his humane side that becomes blackened by rejection of society, and causes the creature to kill Victor's family and friends and eventually, Victor himself. The way in which the creature appears before Victor in this chapter is also extremely eerie. He ‘bound[s] over the crevices in the ice' as an answer to Victor's call to the spirits. Victor pleads with them ‘Wandering spirits, if indeed ye wander, and do not rest in your narrow beds, allow me this faint happiness, or take me, as your companion, away from the joys of life' (Norton Anthology, p. 959). The fact that the creature's arrival comes when Victor is pleading for someone to carry him away from his worries by means of death could foreshadow who Victor's ‘saviour' will be. The creature also has a distinguishable effect on Victor when the two are reunited; he becomes the catalyst to cause Victor to become haunted only by his sheer animal hatred of the creature. As the creature approaches Victor, Victor describes how ‘anger and hatred had at first deprived me of utterance, and I recovered only to overwhelm him with words expressive of furious detestation and contempt' (Norton Anthology, p. 959). The creature has a ghostlike effect on Victor, as he causes him to become paralysed, not by fear however, but by his pure loathing for him. If we take this further, we could even venture to say that from the creature's animation right until Victor's death, the creature ‘initiates a haunting theme that persists throughout the novel-the sense that the monster is inescapable, ever present, liable to appear at any moment and wreak havoc' (Sparknotes). Victor constantly lives in fear from the appearance of the creature, and also fears that he will kill all his family and friends. The way in which Frankenstein is narrated also carries on this haunting theme. It is told through a series of multiple narratives, as if Shelley was trying to recreate the way in which scary stories are passed down through generations, and perhaps also how they change over time. A noteworthy example of the creature's haunting effect on Victor comes when the two are reunited on the glacier. Victor describes with horror the feeling that came over him as he ‘beheld the figure of a man†¦ advancing towards me with superhuman speed. ‘ He tells the reader that ‘I felt a faintness seize me; but I was quickly restored by the cold gale of the mountains. I perceived as the shape came nearer, (sight tremendous and abhorred! that it was the wretch whom I had created. I trembled with rage and horror†¦ ‘ (Norton Anthology, p. 959). Victor must have, on some level, expected a reunion with his creature at some point; he knew he could only run from him for so long. However, his guilt has haunted him from the creature's creation, and so it could be that the creature is simply the embodiment of all of Victor's guilt and remorse for acting like God. This could explain why he is overwhelmed with horror – not by the creature's appearance, but because now he has to face his guilt head on, which he has attempted to put out of his mind for so long. We should also observe that Victor says he was ‘restored by the cold gale of the mountains' (Norton Anthology, p. 959) when he feels faint. This is the chapter in which the theme of sublime nature becomes utterly important in regard to understanding Victor Frankenstein, his creature and their remarkable relationship (Sparknotes). The majestic scenery of nature affects Victor's moods, has the power to move him and remind him of good times and also bad times. In a striking example, he goes so far as to say that ‘these sublime and magnificent scenes afforded me the greatest consolation that I was capable of receiving' (Norton Anthology, p. 58). This comment may show that Victor takes greater comfort in God's creation, that is, nature, than his own family, to whom he has not told his awful secret, and thus a barrier has been created. Victor has chosen instead to isolate himself and take comfort from the inanimate and almost haunting scenes around him. The changing weather can also arouse in Victor his feelings of despondency. He remarks ‘†¦ the rain poured down in torrents, and thick mists hid the summits of the mountains. I rose early, but felt unusually melancholy. The rain depressed me; my old feelings recurred, and I was miserable' (Norton Anthology, p. 58). This could reveal that Victor's moods are ruled by some absent yet ever-present being – perhaps God. God is notable primarily by his distinct absence in the novel (Byron 2004: Stirling University). However, the way that Victor does not appear to have the power to control his own feelings could show us that he has lost some of his own life and vitality in creating the creature, and now leaves it up to the changing nature and weather to control his emotions. The place where Victor and his creature meet is also significant, as it first introduces the idea of the creature being Victor's doppelganger. The fact that they both meet at a rather random scene of beauty rather than an actual place could show that they are both isolate creatures, albeit that Victor is isolated because he chooses to be, and the creature because he has to hide from human eyes. The language that Victor uses indicates to the reader that he would prefer to be alone with his secret in nature than with other people. He uses phrases such as ‘solitary grandeur' and ‘terrifically desolate' (Norton Anthology, p. 958) to describe the scenes around him, and perhaps also his state of mind. The creature, like Victor, is affected by beautiful nature around him, and feels that ‘the desert mountains and dreary glaciers are my refuge,' (Norton Anthology, p. 960) which also reflects how Victor feels. The creature and Victor are both so at home in nature, which could stress that there is more to this relationship than meets the eye; are these two really so different? Many modern critics believe that the creature is Victor's doppelganger. In earlier Gothic literature, evil was generally located in an external source, but Frankenstein sees a turn inwards to a focus on the evil within ourselves (Byron 2004: Stirling University). Bennett and Royle propose that ‘conflicting senses of the word ‘ghost' suggest ghosts are both exterior and central to our sense of the human' (p. 132). The creature in Frankenstein is the embodiment of this confusion. While he is physically exterior, he also pervades Victor's consciousness. It has to be remembered that it was Victor who created the creature, and so perhaps the creature is Victor's doppelganger, as he is ‘the embodiment of an internal and irreparable division in the human psyche' (Byron 2004: Stirling University). It is possible to see that the gaps between Frankenstein and his creature are not as wide as we may have initially believed. However, while I do believe that Frankenstein is a ghost story to a very large extent, I do not think one could describe the tale of Frankenstein without, at some point, mentioning the genre of science fiction. While at once being Gothic and having the style of the German ghost stories that Shelley and her companions were reading on their travels, the story would have much less of an impact if it were not for the role that science plays in the book. Victor becomes obsessed by the secret of life in the book, and it is he who creates the ‘ghost' in the story, so it is not simply a case of the bogey man in Frankenstein. The creature challenges our way of thinking about ghosts because he was brought to life made of dead parts, as if life can spring from death with the use of science. So, while I would argue that the tale is most definitely a ghost story, I do not think that Frankenstein would have become such a literary classic if Shelly had not chosen to use the role of science to show us what can happen if we mere mortals meddle too much with God's prerogative.