Lucas Blogs About Frankenstein

Now Pictured: Me holding a copy of Frankenstein in front of my face. Somehow while looking for my grounded outlet adapter, I came across my copy of the book somewhere in my house. I don't regret my previous laziness.

Not Pictured: Me holding a copy of Frankenstein in front of my face. Somehow between finishing the book and getting ready to post this, I misplaced my copy of the book somewhere in my house. I'm too lazy to look for it.

So, what's this book's de—OH! You read Frankenstein again!

I read Frankenstein again!

Oh, man! Frankenstein is so good!

I know, right? End of blog.

You're the worst, Lucas.

J/K LOL!

Deffo the worst!

But seriously, Hypothetical Reader, do you wanna talk about Frankenstein?

You know I do!

Then let's talk about Frankenstein! Oh, and I don't think it's possible to SPOIL a book that's been in print for over two hundred years. However, if you are operating under that misapprehension, consider this your SPOILER warning. The deal with Frankenstein; or, The Modern Promethus is that it's the first novel by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Let's give a rough sketch of the novel, shall we?

I'll allow it.

Okay, in case you're like me and haven't read Frankenstein since your junior year of college, here's the quick and dirty version: We begin with a series of letters from Robert Walton, a polar explorer determined to discover what lies beyond the polar ice surround the North Pole: is it a hidden tropic continent? a more efficient shipping route between arctic ports? just more fucking ice? Who can say? Anyway, one day Walton sees a massive human figure on a dog sled, but writes it off as a hallucination until he discovers another sled floating on the ice. Turns out the owner of this sled is a man named Victor Frankenstein who's about to die of exposure, but is still in okay enough health to tell Walton his life story — which Walton then faithfully records for the benefit of his sister back in England.

As one does.

Anyway, Frankenstein is a spoiled rich kid from Geneva whose parents always encouraged him to do two things: 1) study science, and B) marry his adopted sister, Elizabeth Lavenza. Anyway, when he's away at college he discovers the secret to imbuing inanimate matter with life and immediately sets out to create a beautiful (maybe too beautiful, like where it circles around to being uncanny) eight foot tall man. However, his creation so frightens him that he immediately abandons it. After he recovers from a two year bout of brain fever, he starts to notice a lot of really bad things are happening to his family, like when his baby brother is brutally murdered, or when a family servant is framed for said murder and he can't shake the feeling that he's being stalked by his abandoned Creature.

Is he?

You know it! Frankenstein tries to find peace in the tranquility of unspoiled nature when he's confronted by the Creature. It turns out that two years of being universally rejected and outcast by human society has twisted him into a murderer. He actually describes several incidents, but the most significant was the time he spent spying on the De Lacey family. Hold on, I know what you're thinking, not like creepy, stalker-type spying. Just, you know, watching them in secret, getting to know the details of their personal lives, learning how to read and write by observing them and then coming up with a plan to insert himself in their family dynamic.

You know when you say it like that. . . 

Huh, yeah, but the point is that it doesn't work, they're just as frightened of him as anyone else. So he decides to track down Frankenstein in order to exact vengeance for dooming him to a life of eternal loneliness. By serendipity, he happens to stumble across young William Frankenstein and well . . . looks like we've caught up. So basically the Creature tells Frankenstein that the murders will continue until Frankenstein makes him a companion (so basically an Eve to his Adam), and that once that's done the two Creatures will hide themselves away in the wilds of South America. So, Frankenstein goes to London to do more research (insert joke about science nerd not knowing anything about female anatomy here), and eventually sets up a lab in the Orkneys but realizes at the last minute he can't go through with it. He destroys the Creature's mate and rushes back to Geneva to marry Elizabeth (after briefly getting sidetracked in Ireland where the Creature has framed him for the murder of his best bud, Henry Clerval). Oh, also, the Creature threatens Frankenstein by saying, "I'll see you on your wedding night."

So obviously Frankenstein takes this to be a threat against Eli—

Himself, yes. Frankenstein and Elizabeth are married and that very night the Creature strangles her to death. Frankenstein then vows to hunt the Creature down and track it to the ends of the Earth, which basically brings us back to where we started.

Walton's letters?

Walton's letters. Things are not looking good, the ship's frozen in ice and Walton's worried that there's gonna be a mutiny and is starting to feel like he can't in good conscience risk the lives of his crew for the sake of scientific discovery. Frankenstein's all in, by the way. He thinks Walton should stay the course, because when has the pursuit of knowledge without a thought for consequences ever been a problem? Frankenstein dies after insisting that Walton has to take up his quest to find and destroy the Creature. However, immediately afterward, Walton is visited by the Creature himself who exhibits remorse for his terrible actions and even seems to forgive Frankenstein before announcing his attention to immolate himself in the ice fields. Free of the ice, Walton sails for England.

So . . . where do we want to start?

Start what?

Talking about Frankenstein!

Right. It's a good book. I like it.

You're the worst, Lucas.

Right back at ya! But for serious, on this reading I was struck by Shelley's prescience in writing the creature's embrace of evil following his complete social rejection.

Would you like to expand on that?

Yeah, he's basically an incel, heck he's even black-pilled himself (if you don't know what an incel or the black pill are, this is one of those cases where ignorance is bliss). I mean, he never really talks about his throbbing biological urges or anything, but he's certainly fixated on how beautiful women are, and comparing the relative beauty of different women, and his despair that he'll never be loved by a woman as beautiful as the picture of Frankenstein's mother in the locket, and instead of asking why Frankenstein rejected and abhorred him rather than showing him affection and nurturing, he demands that Frankenstein make him a mate or he'll murder more of his creator's family.

Speaking of which, did you notice that Ernest, the middle Frankenstein brother isn't mentioned when their father dies and Victor sets off on his own to hunt down the creature?

I did, but let's save that for later because I've got a few other nitpick-y things to say.

Okay, but I think you're being too simplistic in your description of the Creature as incel-like.

Maybe. The Creature isn't only reacting to romantic or sexual rejection, but wholesale rejection by humanity based solely upon his physical appearance. And instead of being directed at those who have rejected him, his violence is directed at those whose deaths would most cause his creator pain. And while it's certainly possible to sympathize with the Creature for the fact that he is greeted with not just rejection but violence everywhere he goes (again based solely upon his monstrous appearance), the reader only learns his story after Frankenstein names him as the prime suspect in the murder of a child and the framing of a family servant (who is hanged), so any sympathy you might feel is already constrained by this narrative. In any case, the Creature's stated motivations do bear a more than passing resemblance to those of the Isla Vista shooter. Which brings me to this article by Germaine Greer which I read after re-reading Frankenstein. I disagree with a lot of the specific points that Greer makes (I mean, I don't want to insult her by saying that she's missing the point in some of her critique, but I it does seem like she defaults to the least charitable interpretation due to her dislike of the novel: for example, I think her critique that Walton, Frankenstein and the Creature all have the same voice isn't that damning because the whole thing is actually Walton transcribing Frankenstein's story, so the whole thing is written in Walton's voice, although maybe I'm just being defensive because I like the book), but I do think she has a point when she talks about Frankenstein as embodying a female "dread of gestating a monster."

Is this meant to be a segue into talking about Victor Frankenstein?

Yeah, because that's another big thing in the novel: Frankenstein's abdication of responsibility. Both as a scientist and as a parent. He discovers the secret of creating life but doesn't think through the consequences of his actions. He has no apparent plan in place for if things go wrong (for example, what if there was some defect in the Creature that caused him to be in such agonizing pain that the only humane thing would be to euthanize him), nor does he seem to have a plan for what to do if things go right (How is he going to feed, shelter, and educate the Creature? How will he go about integrating the Creature into society?). Well, maybe that isn't fair, after all, the Creature does apparently find a set of clothes that fit him in Frankenstein's chamber. Frankenstein's reckless disregard for the consequences of his actions basically extends to the moment when he vows to hunt the Creature down. Although he knows that the Creature will target his friends after he destroys the companion he was creating, he's surprised to find out that Clerval has been murdered, and he's too conceited to even consider the fact that the Creature's threat to see him on his wedding night is a threat against Elizabeth. Up to that point he avoids responsibility for his creation with the excuse that if he told people that he made an uncanny flesh golem they would think he was mad.

I mean, he's not wrong about that.

Not entirely, but then again when does actually tell a magistrate the whole story, the magistrate believes him. At least, in the version of the story he tells to Walton.

Oh yeah, are we going to address the question of how reliable Frankenstein and the Creature are as narrators?

Well, I guess the whole thing is complicated by the fact that the whole thing is meant to be transcribed by Walton based on his interviews with Frankenstein. But I think on the whole we're meant to accept the narration of both Frankenstein and the Creature on face value. Partly because the Creature admits that his relationship to the DeLacey family was entirely one-sided and invented, which he learns when he actually reveals himself to them. In any case, following his encounters with both, Walton seems to find both of them credible.

What about Walton?

What about him?

Isn't it possible that he fabricated the whole thing to explain to his sister why he chickened out on his polar expedition?

I don't think that's suggested by the text. And really, the potential of mutiny would probably be enough of an explanation in itself. Obviously, both the Creature and Frankenstein try and present themselves in the best possible light. However, Shelley undercuts this by showing that the Creature is presenting a self-serving argument after committing horrific crimes and that Frankenstein still hasn't learned anything about responsibility to other people because he's disappointed that Walton is turning back because he doesn't want to get his crew killed (or be killed in a mutiny).

Okay, so it seems like you still found the novel pretty engaging this time around.

I did, and I had to angrily defend it to a co-worker who saw me reading it in the break-room and called it, and I quote, "The worst book." In spite of the existence of Dracula.

Wait, you think Dracula is the worst book?

No, but it's definitely a worse book than Frankenstein.

So . . . is this your segue to talk about the novel's failings?

Yeah. More like the nitpick-y stuff that I couldn't help but notice. Oh, and plot contrivances. So many plot contrivances.

Yeah, there's definitely a lot of those in Frankenstein.

I know, right? Like the abandoned portmanteau with clothes that fit the Creature and books that are thematically appropriate to the novel. Though I will say that since I read this book in the same class as The Sorrows of Young Werther it was cool to see that the Creature was reading it too. I mean, everyone in Europe was so it's nice that the Creature wasn't left out.

Or the fact that the Creature stumbled upon the DeLacey family right when Felix was marrying a Turkish woman who needed to be taught how to speak, read, and write in French.

Or how he the stuff he happened to grab when he left Frankenstein's chambers included all of his creator's notes on his own creation.

Or the fact that after he murders William Frankenstein, the Creature just so happens to stumble upon Justine in time to frame her for the murder. Oh, and what about Ernest Frankenstein?

Oh yeah! When Frankenstein goes to hunt down the Creature, he leaves behind his younger brother, Ernest. Who's gonna help Ernest process the grief of having his little brother, family friend, sister-in-law, father, and older brother die within a few years of each other while he's in his teens? But let's get really nitpick-y. According to the dates on Walton's letters, the whole story takes place in the year 17XX.

You mean 17—, right? This isn't a Mega Man game.

Fine, 17—. Anyway, so Walton talks about how Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" made a really strong impression on him in his childhood.

So?

So! "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" wasn't published until 1798! So unless Walton is still a child at the time of the expedition, this doesn't add up!

That is a very nitpick-y thing to complain about.

Also, the text quotes a Percy Shelley poem that wasn't published until 1816! Although, the context doesn't make it entirely clear that it's a quotation, like maybe it's a poem that Victor Frankenstein composed and shared with Walton. I mean, I guess I won't fault Mary Shelley for being a booster of her husband's poetry, but that poem definitely didn't exist in the year 17— when that scene takes place.

Okay . . . do you have any substantive criticisms to make?

Well, no.

Anything to say about the quality of the writing?

I mean, Shelley definitely does all of the things that people generally say you're not supposed to do as a writer. Lots of compound sentences and adverbs. But that was sort of the style at the time. What really resonates with readers (or maybe doesn't, given that it's apparently, "The worst book!") are the novels themes and ideas: obsession, the effects of isolation, responsibility, &c. I still enjoyed it this time around. It's definitely not perfect, but it did spark my interest in reading another of Shelley's books.

Oh?

Yeah, The Last Man which is about a plague that strikes in the 21st century.

And that's a book you want to read now of all times?

‾\_(ツ)_/‾

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Oxford World Classics trade paperback edition, based on the text of the second edition of 1831, 223 pages, pairs well with

Links:

Obviously Mary Shelley does not have a website. Here's a lengthy Guardian article examining the ways in which Shelley and her writing have been dismissed in the 200 years since the publication of Frankenstein.

Fun fact: Mary Shelley's father, William Godwin, was a political philosopher who advocated for utilitarianism and anarchism. Also, since Frankenstein is dedicated to him, I have a feeling that his relationship with his daughter may have been a little rocky. Okay, I know it definitely was, particularly when he temporarily disowned her after she ran off with Percy Shelley without marrying him when she was sixteen. (to be fair, Shelley was still married to his first wife who later committed suicide, also, Shelley had previously been an associate of Godwin's and was five years older than Mary)

Another fact: Mary Shelley's mother was Mary Wollstonecraft. Like Godwin, Wollstonecraft was something of a political radical, best known for her book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. She died of an infection eleven days after giving birth to Mary Shelley.