Frankenstein notes
Author’s introduction and before reading the rest of the text:
--The story of how the story came to be constitutes the outer frame of a frame narrative (mise en abyme,, or however you spell that). Mary Shelley tells of the dream she had when she, Shelley, Byron and Polidori engaged in a ghost story competition. The dream of the student of unhallowed arts (black magic/sacrilege) becomes the subject of her work, which she bids go forth and prosper…it is her hideous progeny.
She is 19 when she writes this.
--progeny and Mary Shelley…work on reanimation of dead tissue parallels Mary Shelley’s own life because she lost a child and dreamt that she rubbed it back to life.
--the power of dreams/nightmares: romantics explore the world of imagination. We are dealing with writers who work with the individual, with emotions and with the power of our dangerous imagination.
--Mary Shelley originally started the story with the words that will open chapter 5. She creates a frame narrative with Robert Walton, the true narrator of the work (even if we are extending it all back to her in the intro!)
--ghost tales hail all the way back to the Gothic novels of the 18th century, stories that take place in the moonlight of imagination, in the dark, in remote, ruinous castles in far away, foreign places (Germany and Eastern Europe, often) where creatures of the night lurk. The Romantics often used the mystery of the Middle Ages as a backdrop to their supernatural tales.
The Letters
-- Robert Walton writes to his sister, Margaret Saville (sa ville). This indicates that her world, the one he is in contact with, is the world of society that he is moving further and further away from as he explores the arctic climes, the world of dangerous, floating ice. He moves from St. Petersburg ( a saintly name), to Archangel (reference to Lucifer, the fallen angel) to …uncharted lands. He is disconnected from the world of men, pulled by the romantic impulse of the landscape and his own ardor and curiosity.
--Lucifer and Prometheus are huge romantic symbols. Both were lauded by the romantics as anti-heroes. Both rebelled against authority: Prometheus stole the fire from the gods and Lucifer rebelled against God. The romantics would have been inspired by Milton’s epic Paradise Lost, which intended to explain why there is evil in the world, but which they found inspirational because of Lucifer’s portrayal. This anti-hero motif runs through the book in the portrayal of all the fire stealers, those who have, as Frankenstein says to Walton drunk the poison in the draught…they are over-reachers with vaulting ambition. These types are loners. They are dangerous dreamers with a quixotic spirit (Don Quixote is the prototype of those who tilt at windmills or dream the impossible—of course, we need these types do. Walking on the moon was once a quixotic impulse) They seek kindred spirits.
The Romantics also had the rebelliousness of anarchists. They were against authority of all different kinds, radical thinkers who were inspired by the French revolution. Pushed to the extreme, this undermines the fabric of society.
--the next part of the narrative will be told by Victor Frankenstein as he takes up the work’s didactic purpose—a warning against overreaching, going beyond human limits and doing things without thinking about the consequences to others.
--question about narration—if Walton is the narrator, do we trust him? Does he lend authority to this ghost story because he is a witness or does he make everything less credible because he is the filter? Do we trust him more than Victor who seems mad? In following Walton to the icy climes, are we, in fact, also leaving the world of “sa ville” to follow a new reality, where we suspend our notions of credibility to go into the world of imagination? If that is true, we are entering a world of eerie reality on many different levels..beware of its dangers.
Frankenstein’s narrative: chapters 1-10
The Workshop of Filthy Creation
--this is the first work of science fiction, a genre that attempts to create the possible based on technological/scientific work currently being done. Mary Shelley overheard the conversation about galvanism, reanimation of the vermicelli (worm) by using electricity. Electricity in science and the taking on of the natural, God centered creation is a Promethean activity, fire stealing. That Mary Shelley, a 19 year old girl, should be having this conversation is ground breaking and foreshadowing of the snowball effect /exponential growth of scientific advancement: Frankenstein is an amateur, after all, working with dead tissue. We now work with cloning, genetic engineering, etc..
--Frankenstein, then, is a filthy creator…he, like Mary Shelley, is working on a hideous progeny. Being a filthy creator, he lacks the proper care a creator should have: he isn’t really thinking about his creation, but about himself and the fame he will get. He thinks that a future race will bless him, but he’s making it hideous. He works carelessly and like a hurricane…he compares himself to a destructive natural force. He is, in fact, moving away from positive sensitivity to nature and towards apocalyptic, destructive force. He is somewhat of an anti-Renaissance man, a parody.
--Creators make their creations in their image. This hideous progeny is his filthy image, eight foot tall, the size of his dangerous drive, his unstoppable impulse. He is caught up by an ardor which he knows is making him retreat into a solitary cell, one which he thinks he will emerge from to return to the world of men. But the paradox is clear, here: once he has made that force real, there will be no return to the world of men. The danger that lurks inside of him will be out in the world and his inner turmoil will be external…
--the monster is both real, but also metaphor, both double and representative of our own hideous progenies, our filthy brain children, the product of nightmares and of dark imagination.
--the real monster, then, is Frankenstein himself. Once in a while, he tries to put the brakes on this narrative to remind Walton and the reader that he hopes to warn us against such activity. This notion of hideous progeny and workshops of filthy creations ripple out to the writer in her intro: her book is her monster too and that world can be a dangerous one, away from one’s native town, sa ville…beware, beware. Are we listening to the warning or are we consumed by a similar drive?
--can the monster have to do with our selfish desires? Characters’ desires seem to be rewarded strangely: Walton wants a soul mate and one mysteriously materializes; Frankenstein’s father wants a wife and gets a child bride; Victor is an only child and gets a “play thing”…there is a strange thread, too, in the early part of this narrative: Frankenstein’s father marries his friend’s daughter and her story is a mirror to Elizabeth, also rescued from poverty; Elizabeth is given to Victor as a sister, plaything and then wife, but she also takes the mother’s place (and her mother wishes for this). There is a mix of objectifying of other human beings and surpassing healthy relationships. Frankenstein comes to disrespect human boundaries, then, on the most basic of levels.
11-16
Frankenstein operates as social commentary: Mary Shelley's parents were radicals who wrote about human rights. The discrimination of the creature based on his appearance, even by those who seem most socially liberal, is a commentary on how far we judge and reject those who cannot conform to our notions of humanity. What could creature represent,at this level? What sort of marginal being could he be for us not to accept him? The reader sympathizes with creature because we cannot actually see him.
Frankenstein's creature has a dual layer: one as Victor's hideous extension, made from his impulses and ready to act out his impulses. Watch how that develops as the novel evolves. Victor fled when he looked into the yellow eye of the creature and now the creature has killed William and framed Justine. What family dysfunction is the creature working out for Victor? Notice their similarities in appearance: Victor looks almost like a corpse before the creature awakens, and both gnash their teeth. This is a nightmare, by the way, because Victor can no longer control his desires. They are out of his body. See any witches?
If Creature is Victor's double, he is also an individual for us to sympathize with and the reverse version of Victor: creature on the outside, human on the inside; Victor is human on the outside and creature on the inside. Whereas Victor flees the companionship of men and family he was born into, creature was born alone and only wants/craves companionship. Creature's quest for companionship is one we sympathize with. Creature bears the burden of being outcast, misunderstood and alone, whereas Victor has alienated himself in his workshop of filthy creation. The outcome is that they are now both cut off from the wholesome world of men because creature will now threaten his ability to reintigrate within it. And Creature's wish to have the very thing Victor has thrown away will lead him to behave just like Victor: sport with life and think of his needs but not their consequences. How can we know the mate will take to creature? What if she becomes destructive? Is this truly responsible? On the other hand, can we blame creature for this request? How will Victor deal?
The theme of alienation, retreat into the self is one romantic trend--often one that takes place in nature which is seen as a wholesome and spiritual place, sublime. But surely this romantic pull takes us away from humans whom we also need. See Into The Wild…
The theme of alienation of the individual by society that casts out is also a romantic theme and explains the actions of the creature, the anti-hero of the book. The romantics really loved the characterization of Lucifer in Milton's Paradise Lost because they read him as the anti-hero who had rebelled against God and been cast out..Prometheus, Lucifer, Frankenstein, creature..all one big pattern.
Btw, the theory that everyone is really just a Walton fabrication is mine, but it makes sense to me. The act of creation, which Shelley is appropriating as literal making of children (remember her own that died and was rubbed back to life in the dream) is mirrored in the act of artistic creation. Both make hideous progenies, so why wouldn't Walton be one of these types as well?
Recap plus more notes:
Chapters 1-5: Victor's initial narration which details his sense of wonder, his heart "leaping up" at the sight of nature and its mysteries, until he follows nature to her secret hiding places and decides to create a filthy version, the creature.
Chapters 6-10: Victor's narrative continues. His wonder has turned into "vaulting ambition which o'erleaps and falls on the other" side. We are now in the aftermath of the creation of the creature and his first impulses have now gotten the best of him, and have escaped into the world.
Chapters 11-16: the inner narrative which includes the creature's narration and, at the very center of the story, the story of the De Laceys and of Safie. We are asked to shift sympathies now and focus from Victor to the creature, his essence, which is now taken as its own story of a human being, the evolution of man in its most conceptual, philosophical sense: either the stages of child development, or evolution from primitive, noble savage to fallen, corrupt, knowledgeable man whose understanding of the world brings pain of man's inhumanity to man. Creature goes from benevolence to malevolence as he discovers he is an outcast on the basis of his appearance. He is torn between the beauty of men and their base ways towards him, their potential for greatness and their vices. His hurt at being abandoned by all men, by his surrogate family (the DeLaceys) and ultimately by his father, whose notes he finds in the lab pocket he wears, has him turn to evil.
Creature's words are remarkably noble and eloquent and mark a great contrast with Victor's when they initially meet--Victor is caught up in calling him a vile insect whom he would like to crush (absurd when you consider creature's size) and Creature calmly responds: do you dare sport with life? Do your duty towards me and I will do mine towards you.
We are called upon to consider how Victor has done his duty as parent to Creature? He has abandoned him and not given him a name--without any nurturing, how was Creature supposed to grow into a socially adapted, good human being? A child who gets no love, no guidance and no direction--does he not become a self-fulfilling prophecy? Creature was born guilty--ugly and abandoned, he hides himself from humans and is guilty of being in the world--something he never asked for but for which he must suffer.
Creature is lonely--wants the one thing Victor has thrown away: love. He is, then, the flip version of Victor--beautiful on the inside, ugly on the outside; Victor is human on the outside, but creature on the inside, having allowed himself to become wretched by his obsessions with what were once wonders, he has lost the beauty of nature and the world of men. Creature is the product of that: outcast and wretched.
Chapters 17-22:Back to Victor's narration. creature and Victor become fused. Creature's request to have a mate, understandable because of his loneliness, makes him now like Victor--willing to sport with life. His mate, after all, like creature will not have asked to be born, cannot be assumed to want to go with him anywhere (South America is no man's land, a wilderness they can go to safely, lol)
Victor finally gets all of this and aborts the mate in the making, literally. It's quite horrible. But if Victor gets this, has finally grown up, it's too late. The creature is now the master and he is his slave--creature tells him this and he has to obey. This means he no longer has control over himself, even if he has decided to put an end to the enterprise. Like macbeth, he is too far in and there can be no gong back. Carnage and destruction and the fall of all around him must follow, beginning with the image of his former self, Clerval.
And now, creature will be with him on his wedding night…
