I've been reading Frankenstein. It's made me think a little bit too much. While it isn't a web site I visited, it could be. Either way, this is what is on my brain.
Like many of you, I was asked to read Frankenstein in high school and again in college. It had been so long, however, that I felt like I’d never read it. I jumped in assuming that as I went along, it would start to feel familiar. Maybe the book changed on me, or I read a different version. I found myself really enjoying the language this time! I read and reread parts of it because I liked the way it sounded in my head. I don’t remember that from the first time. Or the second, come to think of it.
One of the times I read Frankenstein, I was told that this story was about science gone too far. I believed it. It made sense to me when I heard it. I imagine I have notes about it somewhere. It’s probably mostly true. The subtitle of “the Modern Prometheus” would certainly lend credence. I know that Prometheus was the trickster who created man from clay and stole fire from the Gods. I remember his story had themes about consequences of trying to over-reach your station in life. Victor certainly would be very much like that trickster. I was told it; I believed it; I took notes. Veni, vidi, noti. Or something like that. I thought I had the real and only truth about this book. Maybe the book changed on me here, too because, this time as I read, I could not stop seeing the story as an angry letter to God.
Have you read Mary Shelley’s biography? Shelley’s mother died when she was 11 days old, by the time she was finished writing Frankenstein in 1817, she had also begun to live in exile and in debt with a married lover, suffered the loss of a premature child and weathered the suicide of both her half sister and the wife of her lover (It’s complicated.). She was not yet 19. Less than that would have broken many. Don’t get me wrong; she’s got a right to be ticked off.
At 18, with so much trauma and drama shaping her world, she set out to write a ghost story that ended up being an indictment on the relationship and responsibly of a creator to the created. With her own life a model of pain and rejection and turmoil, what vision could she use for the Creator? Shelley creates, in Victor Frankenstein, a Creator who is weak, vindictive, doubtful, malevolent, maudlin, given to fits of depression and rage. He’s a terrible God figure! What, then, should the Creation be?
In Victor’s eyes, he has created a monster. But is he? Why is Shelley’s monster so articulate? If she was simply telling a scary story, the result of Victor’s work could be the mute, grunting green man of movie lore. Instead, he waxes “I am thy creature, and I will be even mild and docile to my natural lord and king, if thou wilt also perform thy part, the which thou owest me. Oh, Frankenstein, be not equitable to every other, and trample upon me alone, to whom thy justice, and even thy clemency and affection, is most due. Remember, that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam; but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed. Everywhere I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably excluded. I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous." This isn't exactly the machination of an evil demon fiend. in fact, this passage could read like a kind of prayer from a forsaken creation. This Creation is doomed in his own way, like Prometheus, to live a life of constant, renewed pain and isolation from the god/creator that could have opted to love and forgive him.
For his part as Creator, Frankenstein spends his days feeling wretched, guilty and depressed. He feels a sense of responsibility for his creation, but only in so far as he believes it falls to him to destroy it. Utterly selfish to the core, it never occurs to him that his Creation would have anything like a soul or feelings. When he finally meets his Creation again, he finally thinks that he might be responsible in another way. “For the first time, also, I felt what the duties of a creator towards his creature were, and that I ought to render him happy before I complained of his wickedness.” At last, Victor agrees to help the poor creature, and then recants and destroys all signs of progress. He gives his creation a chance at hope and happiness and then takes it away. As creators go, Victor is a pretty mean specimen. He can be seen here as the vengeful Zeus. Enraged that the Creation would dare ask to have a chance at the same happiness and companionship that Victor would have in Elizabeth, he dooms him to continued torment.
I think that I missed this reading of Frankenstein so long ago because I got caught up in the layers of voices. Walton is telling his sister Frankenstein’s story, who is telling the story of the Creation. I have to wonder if this story of a story of a story is another way to heighten the theme of this broken Garden of Eden. This third removed lens gets us away from the blasphemy. It also offers Victor Frankenstein a shot at redemption as the failed Creator. We get to see that Victor dies for us; to save us from the evil of his creation. The creature, too, gets his wish when Frankenstein finally becomes the constant companion and watchful eye that only a Creator can be. In the end, is the absence of his God figure that causes the Creation to despair and ultimately choose to kill himself.
It’s interesting. I've never thought about it this way. Maybe I should pull at it a bit more. There’s probably a reasonable paper in here somewhere. If I am ever asked to write one again, I could be ready. I will have the notes.
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