Excess does not only apply to settings in a novel; it also applies to the characters in the novel. The most obvious characters to analyse in ‘Frankenstein’ are Dr. Victor Frankenstein and the Monster. Firstly the monster, which appears under many names in the novel, such as, ‘depraved wretch’ and ‘this fiend’. However the reader only fully understands just how horrific Victor’s creation is when they read of his reactions upon first seeing the dead body come to life, ‘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?’. In the respect that the creation was indeed hideous, perhaps ‘Frankenstein’ can be located within the Gothic genre, however, Shelley also presents the monster as a being with emotions and who is able to care. ‘Yet why were these gentle beings unhappy?’ Here the monster is showing empathy towards the family who live in the cottage, it is a very human thing to show selflessness and show caring for another person or thing. This in turn raises feelings of empathy for the creation, from the reader. This shows that although the creation is truly repulsive, he is not a true Gothic character as the reader still has compassion for the monster rather than loathing him. Although towards to the end of the novel, the creation as turned into a true monster, he turns his resentment for humans, due to the way he has been treated, into violence and commits a string of murders. This reaffirms the idea that the book can be located within the Gothic genre. Victor, on the other hand, commences his scientific pursuits with good intentions. He is creating his being to further medical science and for the benefit of mankind, ‘The world was to me a secret, which I desired to discover.’ ‘Wealth was an inferior object; but the glory would attend the discovery, if I could banish disease from the human frame, and render man invulnerable to any but violent death!’ These to quotations illustrate the previous point, that Victor only wanted to make advances in medical science. However these intentions quickly turned to a demented state of mind, ‘his eyes have generally an expression of wildness, and even madness’ here Walton is commenting on the crazed look in Victor’s eyes, when he took him on board. This could be attributed to the fact that Victor had been out in the cold, vast, frozen wasteland for several days alone, however the fact that Victor is battling with his own conscience over the atrocities his own creation has committed, has rendered him insane. This is an idiosyncratic of the Gothic character, the idea of Victor being a '‘mad scientist', concocting deranged experiments that mess with the natural order of the world.
Transgression is the other prominent constituent of the Gothic genre. Transgression is the idea of delving into the taboo, the unclean. Elements such as incest, dabbling with the supreme power of nature, and things which are more than taboo, more unmentionable, such as the scandalous act of necromancy. ‘Frankenstein’ has several taboo characteristics, perhaps the most obvious is the basic plot of the novel, the concept of Victor perverting the course of nature. However there are several subplots which are slightly perverse, such as the relationship between Elizabeth and Victor, they are cousins yet have more than just a familial love for each other. ‘My dear Victor,’ here when Elizabeth addresses Victor there seems to be a touch of desire and passion in her tone, something, which would not be apparent if the relationship were that of cousinly love. ‘Amiable cousin! Such were your thoughts, mild and gentle as your own dear eyes and voice.’ It is unusual for such affection to be present between only cousins. Incest is frowned upon in polite society as it is seen as unhealthy and unnatural, this is precisely what a Gothic novel tries to achieve. Something that is unacceptable, something which will entice and shock their readers, after all it is human nature to want to read about the forbidden and the actions which can only be talked about and carried out behind closed doors. This would explain why the Gothic genre was such a force in English literature for over fifty years. The factor that jumps out at the reader, which is obviously transgression, is of course the reanimation of inanimate organic material. In modern society, there is the debate of cloning human embryos to create eventually, an identical baby. The outrage towards this idea is quite overwhelming, the idea of essentially reanimating a dead body in 1818 would have provoked the same sort of reaction from the readers of Shelley’s novel back then. The reaction would probably have been even more ferocious as the majority of the public would have been very narrow minded and less open to the unknown and the uncertain. ‘I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. – I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.’ In this short extract the reader can see that Victor, who has spent so long and worked so hard creating this being, does not even accept it as a life form. To him he regards it as a lump of meet at this stage. He refer to the creation as ‘it’, the creation does not merit a gender or a name, so not even the creator can accept what he has done, how can society be expected to. However the monster becomes socially acceptable by showing that he is indeed a feeling, caring, thinking being. Although he kills the reader feels a certain pity for the creation due to the way he has been treated and is able to understand when the creation demands a companion, it is only normal for a being to want to be able to communicate opinions and thoughts. Spreading knowledge and communicating gossip is impulsive for the human mind. Without the capability of interaction the mind would surely go crazy. So under the category of transgression, once again, ‘Frankenstein’ is placed in a grey area. It is neither definitively taboo nor is it fully acceptable, and for this reason it is thus far neither placed firmly within the Gothic genre nor firmly outside it.
Shelley had much experience with death, Shelley’s mother died ten days after her birth; Shelley also gave premature birth to a daughter in February of 1815 who died a few days later. Shelley gave birth to a son in January of 1816, she named him William, sadly he only lived to the age of three. These difficult experiences would most definitely have had a profound affect on her novel, it would have given her an insight to the grim and gruesome, thus perhaps making her novel that bit more graphic. Although Shelley does give detailed descriptions of events and locations, she has written her novel in such a way that perhaps the mind is stimulated and drawn into imagining the picture Shelley is painting. ‘It might be interesting to distinguish between the novel of horror and the novel of terror. The terror novel is probably more sophisticated than the horror novel. In the horror novel, we see a corpse while in the terror novel we only smell a corpse.’ This is an adequate quote to describe ‘Frankenstein’, as it is an excellent stimulant for the mind and the imagination. However it is very descriptive yet just the right amount of descriptions are used to allow our minds to put in the details. This takes ‘Frankenstein’ away from the Gothic genre, as it tends to be very blunt and brutish. Gothic novels would tend to be read, shock, set down and not think books. ‘Frankenstein’ raises questions, which are still around in today’s society, it presents Shelley’s views on many political issues. For this reason it could be said that ‘Frankenstein’ could not be located firmly within the Gothic genre.
‘Distinctions between good and evil, darkness and light, reason and superstition, morality and corruption, real and fantastic, sacred and profane, supernatural and natural, past and present, civilised and barbaric, rational and fanciful were no longer for certain. In Gothic writing the individual at the edges of society is the main object.’
‘Frankenstein’ can definitely be identified with the above statement. Nothing is certain in ‘Frankenstein’; everything is a mixture of styles of writing and genres of literature. For this reason, ‘Frankenstein’ can certainly not be located firmly within the Gothic genre. Perhaps Shelley borrows heavily from the genre, however the novel also relies heavily on Romanticism, so ‘Frankenstein’ is not uniquely and firmly Gothic.
Michael McLean
Bibliography
Shelley, Mary ‘Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus’, 1818
Foucault, Michael ‘Language to Infinity’,
Cullins, Mark ‘Gothic Literature, Where did it come from?’, 2002
McLoughlin, Jonathan ‘Categories of Modern Literature.’
Blotting, Fred ‘Darkly romantic and Gothic Fantasy’
Mary Shelley, pg. 12,Fourth Letter to Mrs. Saville
Mary Shelley, pg. 39
Mark Cullins
Mary Shelley, pg. 14, Letter IV to Mrs. Saville
