The Time Traveller: A Singular "Mad Scientist" Alejandro Martínez Fernández College

Mad Scientists in Literary History

The figure of the ‘mad scientist’ is present in many literary works, and its influence as an irresponsible character with an uncontrollable intelligence can be found in many others. But before explaining its origin, it seems convenient to give a proper definition of the term. For that, it may be used the online Oxford dictionary, which defines the ‘mad scientist’ as “a scientist who is mad or eccentric, especially so as to be dangerous or evil: a stock figure of melodramatic horror stories”. We may say then, that the two main characteristics of this kind of character are the obsessive behavior and the use of very dangerous methods. The origin of the ‘mad scientist’ can be located in the medieval alchemists. However, as Stiles explains, “the now-familiar trope of the mad scientist in fact traces its roots to the clinical association between genius and insanity that developed in the mid-nineteenth century” (319). That period, the Victorian era, is actually the key to understand the nature of this character. The circumstances, such as the rise of the industrialization or the resurgence of the Gothic fiction, made the authors write about the dangerous consequences of modern science’s experiments...