“Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.”
I would to acknowledge the fact, that when most people hear Frankenstein they think of Boris Karloff playing the monster or a green skinned zombie like figure with bolts in their neck. Even I believed in this before I took up English Literature as an A Level. Contrary to popular belief, Frankenstein is the scientist and the “monster” in the novel, is nameless and left behind by Victor Frankenstein.
Since the publication on January 1818 Mary Shelley’s classic cautionary tale is about how the ambitious Victor Frankenstein represents the real monster as the young scientist unleashes the pure horrifying reality of scientific discoveries to society however Frankenstein is merely being plagued by his own misfortunes.
Mary Shelley had the intention that ‘Frankenstein’ would be a horror story. This is clear in the authors introduction which retells the origin of the classic novel during her stay in Geneva, Switzerland in 1816. It started as a dream due to Lord Byron’s commission of writing a ghost story as this was also the year without a summer which brought tremendous changes in weather due a massive volcanic eruption. In her dream she claimed what terrified her would “terrify others” and “curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of the heart.” Also in her terrifying dream she visioned Frankenstein as ‘the pale student of unhallowed arts’ Shelley used the adjective ‘unhallowed’ meaning unholy, wicked to give the hint of Frankenstein’s role as the real monster even in her dreams.
This highlights the young author’s intention at the time was to write a horror story based on the “unhallowed arts” meaning wicked of the young scientist in her dream.
In the gothic novel Frankenstein is the true monster, shown by Mary Shelley as a critique of the Enlightenment age of the early ninetieth century Europe. In the 1831 edition Shelley highlights this salient point in the author’s introduction: ‘speak to the mysterious fears of our nature’. The scientific discoveries which influenced this piece of prose, the most famous being Galvanism: Luigi Galvani who electrocuted frog legs, in which the muscles move. Then his nephew Giovani Aldini in London applied electrical current to a dead hanged convict which caused the body to move after receiving the current. This idea of giving life to the macabre is used in the novel to highlight the disruptive nature of science has upon nature. Many were playing God. Victor is of no exception, as his God complex ignited him to “pioneer a new way, explore the unknown”. This shows to the readers the ugly truth as Victor created the creature only satisfy his greed to be Divine power. Shelley was influenced by the French philosopher and novelist Jean- Jacques Rousseau had quoted: ‘everything degenerates in the hands of man… he disfigures everything’ This is important of the characterisation of the Swiss scientist Victor Frankenstein as the word monster derives from the Latin word: monere, ‘to warn’ therefore Victor Frankenstein’s ethos and hubris of creating a creature by disobeying the natural order is one to shame. The romantic movement had primitivism ideologies: a massive emphasis on the glorification of nature and a critique on the industrial revolution.
Shelley uses Victor’s feelings to allude to the idea that he is the real monster:
“I bore a hell within me which nothing could extinguish”
This is a literary illusion to Milton’s Satan in Paradise lost. They are both alike as both have a thirst for knowledge and want to overthrow God. This alludes to the scientific age of playing God.
On the other hand, he is not the real monster rather an anti-hero of the gothic novel written by Mary Shelley. Victor has no real sense of morality as he mimics the omnipotent God with mind and hands by presenting his creation to the world. He is not intrinsically evil rather the flawed young student who lives with regret as everyone perishes around him. ‘Until I fell, never, never again to rise’ The repetition of ‘never’ shows the guilt and remorse that Victor Frankenstein shows to Walton near his death shows that he is not the real monster rather an imperfect protagonist of Mary Shelley’s science fiction novel.
In Gothic Literature there is the motif of the Doppelgänger. This is used by Mary Shelley to portray Frankenstein as the real monster. Shelley uses ambiguity to show that Victor is aware in chapter 7: ‘my own spirit let loose… destroy all that was dear to me’ Shelley employs alliteration of ‘d’ and alludes that it is the nameless creature that is mirroring Victor’s own inner turmoil only to sacrifice his closed companions. As the novel descends into the perils of Victor’s own decline mental stability as his surrounding companions feel the wrath of his creation the distinction between the creature and victor start to vanish. This is heavily referenced through Shelley’s use of the motif of the double and, this is seen through Victor internal narration: “I had unchained an enemy” the use of the personal pronoun ‘I’ further implies his responsibility towards his creation. Further in the same text Shelley emphasises towards the reader of the real relationship between the two characters by using the personal pronoun of the diegetic narrator ‘My unhallowed acts and the crimes had their source in me!’ The creature in ‘Frankenstein’ is the double of Victor. The neurologist Sigmund Freud comments that people try to distract themselves from reality of pain and suffering and he also claims that people who reject reality all together become disillusioned and think their delusion is the truth like blaming the monster for the murders. In the consideration of Freud’s theory, the Creature may not be real at all, rather the deep dark murderous desires of Victor Frankenstein but is afraid to admit them in fear being “a madman”.
Also, Shelley shows that the embodiment of the creature is Victor’s Delirium. In 1817, the main feature of delirium was to be the clouding of consciousness. It was proposed that the state of fever induced disturbances in the brain. Since the creation of the creature in chapter five death has only plagued Frankenstein with deaths of William, Justine, Henry, and Elizabeth. The latter half he blames on Monster can make the reader wonder if it is true or Victor’s only excuse for his tremendous grief to blame on an entity only, he has seen. He reverts to fever upon seeing or hearing the “spectre’.
However it could be argued that Frankenstein is not the real monster. If we take the novel at face value, Frankenstein is the protagionist. Frankenstein himself poses less of a threat compared to the creature to society. The creature murdered William, the false conviction of Justine, Henry, and the climax of the novel: the murder of Elizabeth. The act of homicide had a death penalty of death by hanging if found convicted of murder. Mary Shelley is symbolising the injustice in the law of courts by using the name Justine to emphasises this point. This also correlates to the French revolution; the reign of terror which mass executions took place to show injustice. ‘Learned… the work of mischief…placed the portrait’ The creature goes on to kill two remaining companions of Victor to make him suffer.
Ultimately, interpretation varies on this question. As at face value Victor is clearly not the monster yet when you delve more into the novel, picking apart Shelley’s choice of words, plot and literary devices, it becomes clear that Frankenstein is the real monster.
“And now, once again, I bid my hideous progeny go forth and prosper. I have an affection for it, for it was the offspring of happy days, when death and grief were but words, which found no true echo in my heart.”
― Mary Shelley,Author’s introduction (1831)
