Who is the real monster in Frankenstein?
Frankenstein is a classic horror novel, but with a twist of many other genres. Written by Mary Shelley, it was a novel which mixed many exciting elements, such as horror, drama and romance. The story follows a young doctor named Victor Frankenstein, who has an obsession to reincarnate the dead, but his attempts at this fail horribly, and Victor finds himself in deep peril, as the monster stalks him throughout the world. I aim to investigate the issue, however, of who is the true monster in Frankenstein. The monster or Frankenstein himself?
Mary Shelley, the creator of Frankenstein, was a highly intellectual and creative woman, one of the elite writers in Britain. Her inspiration for Frankenstein was taken from several things. The plan itself for Frankenstein was taken from a dream, but her theories of life and explanation of the human anatomy came from noted scientists, philosophers and alchemists from Europe. This spawned the seed of the monster of Frankenstein, an intellectual creature, a lover of music, poetry and other such sophisticated occupancies. The basis of the whole story in itself, however, is a result of a visit to the country and place where the actual book was based in itself. In the summer of 1816, nineteen-year-old Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin and her lover, the poet Percy Shelley (whom she married later that year), visited the poet Lord Byron at his villa beside Lake Geneva in Switzerland. Normally, poor weather conditions would entreat them to go into the house, where they would often entertain each other with a volume of ghost stories Lord Byron held in his possession. . One particularly stormy evening, Byron challenged his guests to each write one themselves. Mary's story, inspired by a dream, became Frankenstein. Shelley could relate to the experiences of Frankenstein personally regarding the matter of death. When Percy Shelley's (Shelley’s first lover then husband) first wife, Harriet, drowned in London in 1816, rescuers took her body to a “station” of sorts in London. Normally, smelling salts, electricity, shaking and artificial respiration had been used to restore drowning victims to life. Unfortunately, Harriet did not survive the treatments.
When Frankenstein began to make his creature, his dreams were of a beautiful creature (despite the graveyards and hospitals he had raided of dead corpses), a creature with intellectuality, strength and a capacity of love that would surpass man in all of these areas. Despite raiding graveyards, Frankenstein created the body with (what he thought to be) the finest body parts available at the time. However, when Frankenstein realizes that he has just looked at the body as individual parts, for example the “pearly teeth”, “blue eyes”, “lustrous black hair”, but he had not looked at the body as a whole. When he did, he realized he had created an abomination, “Beautiful-Great God! His Yellow skin barely covered the work of arteries and muscles beneath!” When Frankenstein comes to this realization, he flees, “now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart”. Frankenstein regarded the creature as ugly, evil, inhuman, unflattering to the eye, and vulgar, like a monster. He believes the creature is his to own or disown at will, without regard to the creature’s feelings. He thought of it as a mere specimen, a subject, if you will, to be done with as he saw fit. So, as a result of this, the monster became confused. It was attacked mercilessly because of its physical appearance, with no heed paid to its brilliant and capable mind. Frankenstein had failed to instruct the monster in the rights and wrongs of life. In essence, he had created a baby in a man’s body, and left it to fend for itself. The reader begins to become further appalled of Frankenstein somewhat later in the book. This is so, because of the lack of compassion, of care, or of humanity in which he refers to his “specimen”. He doesn’t care about it, he disregards it, in reality, and he hates it. After the death of his cousin and serving maid, he attempts to duel with Frankenstein, but, realizing that the monster is better than he ever could be at dueling, he resorts to petty threats “do you not fear the fierce vengeance of my arm wreaked upon your miserable head?!” his lack of care for the monster is shown even more acutely when he speaks further insults “Abhorred monster! Fiend that thou art! The tortures of hell are to mild a vengeance for thy crimes! Wretched Devil”, the power of these words is quite evident. Wretched Devil, for example, is a very powerful and hurtful set of words that could be said to a person. This obviously illustrates that Frankenstein hates the monster, and wishes to sever his connection to it. He has failed to realize, however, that the creature is his responsible, and he can never sever the connection of the creator and the created.
