Frankenstein: The Monster This Time

I don’t know when people began calling Victor Frankenstein’s creation “Frankenstein.”  Those attempting to be literarily proper usually say, “Frankenstein’s monster.”  Fair enough, though it’s a little awkward and some more casual sorts might accuse the purists of being pedantic—if they use words like pedantic. 

Most expectant parents usually have at least one or two names in mind before a baby is born. Prior to ultrasounds they usually picked out a name for a boy and a name for a girl.  Victor Frankenstein apparently never thought that far ahead. Perhaps that’s why the doctor so often called his creature, “the daemon;” and once addressed him as “Abhorred monster! Fiend…[w]retched devil,” names not likely to build the lad’s self-esteem.  Instead, might Frankenstein have suggested “Vic, Jr.” and called him “Sparky?”  Had Frankenstein been American instead of Swiss he might have nicknamed his eight-foot creation, “Shorty.”  But I digress. 

Keeping Frankenstein’s vision in mind, I’ll call his creature, “Manlike.” 

Manlike, we shouldn’t forget, was capable of acts of kindness and heroic courage.  He once, secretly, helped a poor family gather their firewood, thus saving the beleaguered householder hours of backbreaking work.  On another occasion, he saved a little girl from drowning, risking his own life.  Yet, these acts became rare as Manlike surrendered to bitter self-pity.

Manlike could appreciate beauty. He spoke of wandering the woods at night reveling in the sounds and sights.  An incident in the life of his unwitting hosts further reveals how his “soul” could be touched by beauty.  It involved the old blind man, his daughter Agatha; and an exotic newcomer, a beautiful woman Manlike called “the Arabian.”  From his hiding place, he observes this scene:

               The next morning Felix went out to his work, and after

the usual occupations of Agatha were finished, the Arabian

sat at the feet of the old man, and taking his guitar, played

some airs so entrancingly beautiful that they at once drew

tears of sorrow and delight from my eyes. She sang, and her

voice flowed in a rich cadence, swelling or dying away like a

nightingale of the woods.

From culture to culture, around the world, men and women appreciate beauty whether visual or aural.  Long before William Congreve (1670-1729) put the idea into words, we have known “music has charms to soothe the savage breast.”  Manlike would even attempt to produce music himself as he “… tried to imitate the pleasant songs of the birds but was unable.”  Yet, in the end, his rage drowned out the soothing sound of music and made him destructive.   He burned down the house where he had heard the soothing music, perhaps even destroying the old man’s guitar.

Manlike vented his rage so indiscriminately even innocents were injured.  He mercilessly kills Frankenstein’s pre-adolescent, “angelic” brother William, whom he accidentally encountered, he kills Frankenstein’s friend Henry; and he kills Frankenstein’s bride Elizabeth on their wedding night—fulfilling a veiled threat made months before.  While Manlike’s anger at Victor Frankenstein may have been justified, these victims had done him no harm—in fact, they didn’t know he existed!  Of course, most of humanity’s wars have brought death and destruction to the innocent.  But the concept of innocence seems foreign to the creature.

Manlike readily blames others for his pain.  Certainly Victor Frankenstein did nothing to impede the growing anger and resentment in the heart of his creature but it seems too easy to let Manlike off the hook by pointing to his ignorance or to his lack of proper upbringing (none at all, actually).  Some have tried to exonerate the creature; they claim, for example, Manlike did not know William was a mere child since he had never been a child.  Yet, the novel presents Manlike as one capable of learning and using his keen powers of observation to understand life.   The creature Robert Walton meets on the night of Victor Frankenstein’s death was not mentally deficient.  He should have known, as most of us eventually know, you can get only so much mileage out of having had bad parents.

In many ways, Frankenstein’s creation shows the telltale signs of what the Bible and Christian theology calls sin.

Indeed, the monster may have been more manlike than we might wish to admit.

Abandoned: Thoughts About Frankenstein

I recently read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.  Of course, I knew the story; but had never read the novel inspiring so many books, movies, plays, and TV programs. (The International Movie Database lists nearly 200 entries with “Frankenstein” in the title, including such curious entries as “Saint Frankenstein” and “Bikini Frankenstein.” Yes, some must conflate the monster with his creator.)  I won’t explain why I picked up this classic of the horror genera so late in life.  Instead, I’ll just offer some observations.

I’ll skip issuing any “spoiler alerts.” If you’ve grown up in the movie and television era and don’t know Shelley’s story, you’d probably be surprised to discover the blockbuster Titanic includes a shipwreck.

My first thought after reading the book was, “Would this get published today?”  Long passages are punctuated by long passages.  There are too many unanswered questions, too many coincidences.  The monster’s moment of animation is told in a brief, detail-free paragraph—no antennae rising into the sky to capture lightning in this story.  Perhaps we are to simply say, “Of course, it’s alive; it’s science, after all.”

More important than the trifling details of its creation is the creature’s rage at a world that sees him as a monster.  The focus of that rage is Victor Frankenstein who, repulsed by his creation, rejects the creature on the very day of his “birth.”

… I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.

How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips. ….  I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body.   …. but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart.  Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created, I rushed out of the room….

Shelley was the daughter of pioneer feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, who believed it unjust to judge the worth of a woman by her physical beauty (a view she shared with evangelical Hannah More, incidentally). Frankenstein is guilty of immediately judging his own creation by its failure to exhibit the beauty he expected.  Frankenstein might have learned from humanity’s Creator, of whom it was said, “People look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (I Samuel 16:7) How different the story would have been if the doctor had looked beyond the creature’s appearance to see a being capable of learning, thinking; and, early on, acts of kindness and courage. 

Frankenstein retreats to his bedroom where he spends hours pacing; wondering how so much could have gone wrong.  Finally, he sleeps.  But he awakens to find the creature standing over him.

I started from my sleep with horror; a cold dew covered my

forehead, my teeth chattered, and every limb became convulsed;

when, by the dim and yellow light of the moon, as

it forced its way through the window shutters, I beheld the

wretch— the miserable monster whom I had created. He

held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they may

be called, were fixed on me. His jaws opened, and he muttered

some inarticulate sounds, while a grin wrinkled his

cheeks. He might have spoken, but I did not hear; one hand

was stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped

and rushed downstairs.

Rather than respond to the creature’s pathetic attempt to communicate, the scientist flees. Frankenstein spends the rest of the night huddled in the garden.  At daybreak, he leaves his refuge and wanders the streets.  He ultimately discovers the creature has gone.  And he doesn’t care where.

In fact, the creature has started down a path to further rejection, rejection answered with acts violence and murder, inspired by rage and revenge—ultimately directed at its creator, Victor Frankenstein.

Along the way the creature will learn to speak and to understand something to the larger world. 

Before the story ends, we discover Shelley’s monster—unlike most unleashed by Hollywood—can discuss philosophy (and theology?).  But he always comes back to Frankenstein’s failure.  Again and again, the creature reprimands the doctor for rejecting his creation.  At one point he cries out to Frankenstein, “Unfeeling, heartless creator! You had endowed me with perceptions and passions and then cast me abroad an object for the scorn and horror of mankind.”

And Frankenstein, like his creation, is consumed with rage and revenge; he seeks only to destroy the creature.  But he fails.

The Arctic explorer Robert Walton rescued the sick and weary Frankenstein, who has pursued the monster beyond the Artic circle.  It is Walton who tells Frankenstein’s story in letters to his sister.

The novel ends with Frankenstein dead (not, by the way, at the hands of the creature).  That night the monster creeps onboard the ship to view the body (to say he wishes to pay his respects seems inappropriate).  Here Walton encounters the monster for the first time and, like so many others, is initially repulsed. But he finds himself in a discussion with monster. As the beast attempts to explain his actions, Walton moves from rage, to pity, to distrust, to rage again, and finally to a kind of wonderment.

As Frankenstein’s still-unnamed creation looks on the body of his creator, he begins to speak of his own future.  His creator dead, the creature as no will to live.

     

   I shall collect my funeral pile and consume to ashes this miserable frame, that its remains may afford no light to any curious and unhallowed wretch who would create such another as I have been. I shall die. I shall no longer feel the agonies which now consume me or be the prey of feelings unsatisfied, yet unquenched. He is dead who called me into being; and when I shall be no more, the very remembrance of us both will speedily vanish. (Emphasis mine.)

The creature’s final words hold the hope of a better future, oblivion.

   ‘But soon,’ he cried with sad and solemn enthusiasm, ‘I shall die, and what I now feel be no longer felt. Soon these burning miseries will be extinct. I shall ascend my funeral pile triumphantly and exult in the agony of the torturing flames. The light of that conflagration will fade away; my ashes will be swept into the sea by the winds. My spirit will sleep in peace, or if it thinks, it will not surely think thus. Farewell.’

   He sprang from the cabin window as he said this, upon the ice raft which lay close to the vessel. He was soon borne away by the waves and lost in darkness and distance.

We are left to believe the monster died in the barren wilderness of the Arctic; though Shelley doesn’t actually say the monster died, she probably didn’t have a sequel in mind. Why did the monster plan a “funeral pile” so his ashes might “be swept into the sea by the winds?”  Apparently so his remains might not inspire some “curious and unhallowed wretch” of a scientist to imitate Frankenstein.  Curiously, in the Middle Ages, the bodies of witches were burned to prevent their resurrection.  Frankenstein’s monster wanted no resurrection; he wanted his painful life to end.

Though the creature seemingly prefers oblivion to the life he has known, with its consuming agonies, “feelings unsatisfied,” and bitter guilt, his final words hint at a yearning for some consciousness beyond death. 

*****

Why did Shelley tell this strange story?  I’m not equipped to fully answer that question. The simplest answer was to win an impromptu story-telling contest conducted to pass the time during an 1818 visit to Switzerland with her husband Percy Shelley and their friend Lord Byron.  More thoughtful answers suggest:

--She wrote to challenge the “celebration of science and technology” that marked the Enlightenment. (Anne K. Mellor, The Making of a Monster: An Introduction to Frankenstein, http://www4.ncsu.edu/~leila/documents/Mellor-MakingaMonster.pdf.)

--She wrote from a feminist perspective to suggest would happen should a man attempt to create life without a woman (curious how scientists now hope to help women create life without men). 

--She wrote from a quasi-theological perspective to address God’s abandoning his creation, humankind.

Let’s think about that last suggestion.

Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein (1818) during a time of intellectual tumult and change.  While the evangelical movement was inspiring many to “serious,” experiential faith, others were questioning the very foundations of culture.  The heyday of deism was past but its impact remained and some writers had boldly taken the next step in declaring their atheism.  Thus, long before Shelley wrote, thinkers were, in one way or another, denying the existence of a God involved in the affairs of the world. 

Across the Atlantic, in the still new United States, college students were embracing skepticism.  Not even the fires to the Second Great Awakening would eradicate the appeal of unbelief.

On 1 November 1755, an earthquake estimated to have been about 8.5 to 9.0 magnitude shook Lisbon; the estimated death toll in Portugal, Morocco, and Spain was between 40,000 and 50,000. Some have suggested a death toll approaching 100,000.  Because it was All Saints’ Day many worshippers were killed when churches collapsed on them.  Voltaire, Hume, and others used the Lisbon earthquake to debunk the notion of a benevolent God who cares for the world.

Erasmus Darwin (1701-1802), whose rumored experiments Shelley mentions in the opening paragraph of her novel, had already proposed a theory of evolution his grandson would later refine.  Charles’s grandfather had little use for religion.  “Man has but five gates of knowledge,” Erasmus wrote, “the five senses; he can know nothing but through them; all else is a vain fancy, and as for the being of a God, the existence of a soul, or a world to come, who can know anything about them? Depend upon it … these are only the bugbears by which men of sense govern fools.”

If Mary Shelley wrote to deny God’s existence or to besmirch God’s character, she was walking already-trodden ground. 

As it happens, Shelley’s book didn’t create much of a stir among religious types. Some may not have read it—indeed, some believed reading novels was frivolous (if not sinful, at least a poor use of God-given time).  Some who did read it might have simply thought it a scary book no one would take seriously.

Whatever Shelley’s intention, the novel allows us to contrast Victor Frankenstein as creator and God as Creator.

-Frankenstein the creator produced an imperfect creation—though he “had selected his features as beautiful” Frankenstein was repulsed by the living thing before him.  God the Creator produced a perfect creation—when the newly made human stood before Him, God used the words “very good” to describe his handiwork, meaning “He validated it completely.”

-Frankenstein created to feed his ego, to prove what he could do. God created to produce an entity upon whom He might bestow His love, giving humankind His greatest gift, Himself.

-Frankenstein abandoned his creation when it proved imperfect; God’s creation—humankind—abandoned Him, spurning the innocence of perfection He had bestowed upon the man and the woman.

-Frankenstein pursued his creation to destroy it, ultimately failing in his vengeful quest.  God pursued His creation to rescue it, ultimately taking on human nature in the Incarnation, and to reverse the effect of humankind’s self-chosen imperfection.

-Frankenstein’s failure to truly love his imperfect creation turned his work into a monster fueled by vengeance and committed to violence.  God’s relentless love for his imperfect creation has turned monsters into men and women of peace, benevolence, and goodness, saints.

*****

In recognition of the bicentennial of Frankenstein, Hollywood will release a biopic Mary Shelley starring Elle Fanning in the title role. Doubtless the film will deal with her controversial romance with and marriage to Percy Shelley, who drowned two years after the novel was written, and with the inner and familial dynamics shaping her personality and imagination.  She will be portrayed as a woman who defied convention (though there were certainly others doing so at the time, including Hannah More).  In her brief marriage, Mary would face heartbreak due to Percy’s repeated infidelity and the loss of three children.  Shelley, who died in 1851, would write other novels but none would be as famous as the one she wrote when she was eighteen.

Looking back, I suppose there is little doubt who won the story-telling contest.

By the way, if you live near central Ohio you might check out the website for Actors’ Theatre of Columbus.  They will be staging Frankenstein this summer, using Richard B. Peake’s 1823 adaptation of Shelley’s novel.  Find out more at http://theactorstheatre.org/2018-season/frankenstein/.