Frankenstein In Context

Margaret Lind

Cline

ENG 102

15 October 2011

Frankenstein: Shelley’s Creation

            Frankenstein is a book with a central theme of creation and reproduction, specifically of unknown creation. The book also ventures into the world of fear of the unknown, revenge & blackmail, and love & companionship. When analyzing a piece of literature, it is valuable to put the story in context, and to examine the author’s life and the time period in which it was written. For instance, the discoveries and milestones in science in 1818 were new and exciting. Shelley used science as a major support to her story. Victor Frankenstein’s creation is meant to be a scientific breakthrough. The monster which he tirelessly fashions, turns out to be nothing as he had hoped. His disappointment quickly turns to fear as his monster comes to life, representing emotions that readers across the centuries have been able to relate to. What if what we have looked forward to doesn’t turn out the way it’s supposed to? What if this turns out to be horribly, horribly wrong? Mary Shelley is able to capture the precarious moments and emotions of creation, though “its emphasis is not upon what precedes birth, not upon birth itself, but upon what follows birth: the trauma of the after-birth” (page 218, para 2). Shelley painted a story of creation and its consequences.

Mary Shelley created this piece of work during a time in her life when she herself was creating life, growing uncertain beings inside of her (page 220, para 4). This fact almost certainly contributed to the novel. An author with a passion, knowledge, or curiosity of a subject is sure to have fuel in writing a story. Shelley was extremely unlucky, losing all of her infant children to death. If grief over the death of a child isn’t enough to spurn a great classic novel, the world doesn’t know what is. Shelley expressed “that if I could bestow animation upon lifeless matter, I might in process of time renew life where death had apparently devoted the body to corruption” (page 222, para 1). There is so much connection here to the story of Frankenstein. Victor suffers the loss of his mother, and shortly thereafter sets off on his quest to create a new human being. Though more implied than anything, he would love to be able to bring his mother back to life. To have this power would end much of human suffering. It is interesting that the very thing with which Victor wishes to end suffering is what brings about most of the suffering in his life that ensues, therefore demonstrating creation and its consequences.

Frankenstein has quite a complexity about it. The reader gets the privilege of hearing several characters narrate the story, with the bulk of it being Victor Frankenstein’s duty. One character we hear from to start the novel off is Robert Walton. As he sets out on adventure at sea, he writes letters to his sister. Walton’s most pressing desire during this time is to have a friend, a companion. He writes, “I have no friend, Margaret: when I am glowing with the enthusiasm of disappointment, no one will endeavor to sustain me in dejection… I desire the company of a man who could sympathize with me; whose eyes would reply to mine” (Shelley, pg. 10, para 1). This very much foreshadows the coming events of the novel. The monster that Frankenstein creates ends up confronting his creator and asking for a companion, for that very reason- he has no one’s eyes to reply to his own, being a frightening monster. If he had a companion that looked like him, it would be different. “You must create a female for me, with whom I can live in interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being. This alone you can do; and I demand it of you as a right which you must not refuse” (Shelley, pg. 98, para. 2). Companionship is displayed here, or the desire for it, throughout the novel.

Victor learns hard lessons in the revenge department. The monster kills William, and then Justine, the family’s servant, is blamed for the murder and sentenced to death. The monster first kills William, not knowing his own strength, sort of a state of confusion about his identity and where he has come from. The monster kills Victor’s dear friend, and his bride Elizabeth at the end of the novel. So many people near and dear to his heart, all dead. Victor experiences intense regret because of this. “A bad conscience! Yes, I surely had one. William, Justine, and Clerval, had died through my infernal machinations” (Shelley, pg. 127, para. 2). Perhaps Mary Shelley felt some guilt and regret over not being able to sustain life in her babies. She definitely felt strange about the fact that it was her own birth that ultimately killed her own mother (Moers, pg. 222, para. 2)

Fear of the unknown weaves through the novel in several places. Robert Walton, at sea, is searching for the North Pole. He wants to be the first to discover it and though he is extremely ambitious, he is often weary of the trek. The unknown comes up again when Victor’s mother dies. Grief as an emotion is an unknown realm, even to those who have experienced it before. Victor has to deal with the loss of his mother, flying by the seat of his pants. Next, Victor creates the monster. Upon seeing him, he feels fear and flees. “I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; 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, and continued  a long time traversing my bed-chamber, unable to compose my mind to sleep” (Shelley, pg. 34, para. 4). Here it is, things not turning out the way he had hoped. How do we as human beings deal with this?  Victor reacts by running away, which ultimately proves to fail when his problems catch up with him. Did Mary Shelley feel this way, a desire to run from a slew of tragedy in her early life?  Lastly, fear of the unknown, or fear of what we do not understand, is demonstrated in the fact that the monster does not know who he is, and he is scared. He is received adversely by all he comes in contact with, because they do not understand why he appears so frightening.

Love and companionship are important themes in Frankenstein. In some moments, it is a love story, in others a tragedy. Shelly blended early science fiction with romance and gothic styles, achieving a work for which “there is perhaps no reader who will not feel a responsive string touched in his inmost soul.” We as humans feel love for our families, friends, and lovers. Each relationship is explored in the novel, as were they in Mary Shelley’s life. When the monster retreats to the mountains, he educates himself by learning to read. This is when he is able to realize that he desires love in his life. Mary Shelley had a similar experience, reading the works of her parents, especially her mother’s, during her childhood (Gilbert & Gubar, pg. 227, para. 2). Perhaps she formulated some of her own ideas about love by reading these works, later pouring them out into the pages of Frankenstein. Several characters in the novel want a companion, some romantically and some for friendship. All characters love their family members. The monster weeps over the dead body of Victor at the end of the story, basically meaning that he realizes that Victor is kind of the only family he has. Victor is his creator, his mother. The novel shows that that we all need human interaction and love, whether or not we are of this natural world or not.

Mary Shelley’s creation, Frankenstein, is truly an impressive work of literature. When we look at it in its context, it makes more sense, and the pieces fall together. It was said that Shelley essentially wrote a story that was first created by the people she surrounded herself with during the time she was writing it, specifically her husband Percy, and Byron. This cannot be true, in examining her life. She was influenced by her life and was able to produce a classic in the midst of that. Classic novels don’t become this way for no reason. She wrote the novel “with a firm and steady hand” (Shelly, Percy, pg. 185, para. 1), ad we are happy she did.

Work Cited

Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, and J. Paul Hunter. Mary Shelley, Frankenstein: the 1818 Text,

Contexts, Nineteenth-century Responses, Criticism. New York: W.W. Norton, 1996. Print.

Critical essays:

Moers, Ellen. Literary Women. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976.

Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar: Mary Shelley’s Monstrous Eve. The Madwomen in the

            Attic. New Haven: Yale UP, 1979.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe: On Frankenstein. The Athenaeum Journal of Literature, Science and the Fine Arts. 1832.