Frankenstein (1818)
Mary Shelley (1797-1851)
326 pages
Many years ago, I watched the 1931 movie of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. At some point later, I heard that the novel differed significantly from that version, which left me curious; only now, however, have I finally gotten around to reading it. Not surprisingly, I suppose, given its fame, the story is much more engaging and intriguing than I had expected from what I had seen.
While I (vaguely) recall the movie featuring a monster – Frankenstein’ monster – chased by mobs of fearful and angry townspeople, the novel presents a much more intimate struggle of deadly sparring between Dr. Frankenstein and the being (as Shelley refers to him) he has created. Shelley’s full title – Frankenstein; or the Modern Prometheus – points toward her main theme here: a scientist, Victor Frankenstein, who becomes so fixated on his quest of “bestowing animation upon lifeless matter” (64) that only after he succeeds in his work do its implications finally, too late, become clear to him.
The story opens with a series of letters another scientist, Robert Walton, writes to his sister, seeking to alleviate her concern for his safety as he pursues his dream of discovery. Walton describes his desire to sail north from Europe to the still unknown North Pole, where he believes the long days have created a land in which
snow and frost are banished; and, sailing over a calm sea, we may be wafted to a land surpassing in wonders and in beauty every region hitherto discovered on the habitable globe. Its productions and features may be without example, as the phenomena of the heavenly bodies undoubtedly are in those undiscovered solitudes. What may not be expected in a country of eternal light? … I shall satiate my ardent curiosity with the sight of a part of the world never before visited, and may tread a land never before imprinted by the foot of man. (8)
Given that most readers will come to the novel familiar with its broad outlines, it’s hard not to see in these opening letters from Walton the dangerous hubris of Frankenstein – well ahead of the point in the story at which Shelley makes it evident.
As Walton’s ship flounders in increasingly thick ice and his crew begin begging him to turn around, they spot “a being which had the shape of a man, but apparently of gigantic stature, [who] sat in [a] sledge and guided the dogs, [and] we watched … until he was lost among the distant inequalities of ice.” (22) Shortly after, a second sled comes along, driven by a traveler struggling with the cold who introduces himself as Victor Frankenstein. The balance of the novel consists of Frankenstein – having recognized in Walton a fellow soul in the dogged pursuit of a seemingly impossible dream – telling his tale, the heartrending, cautionary story of his own obsession.
Frankenstein relates the events that led to his creation of the being, lamenting the passions that overtook him and that prevented him from considering the potential ramifications of achieving his goal. Then, telling of his revulsion at the appearance of what he had created, he goes on to describe the increasingly bitter conflict between them that results and the traumas he has experienced.
As Prometheus suffers for having provided fire to humankind by being chained to a rock and having an eagle arrive each day to eat his immortal liver, Frankenstein’s story reveals how he has been chained, figuratively if no less irrevocably, to the being he created. Yet, Shelley does not settle for a simple story of good versus evil. Frankenstein feels he’s brought forth a monster, but at the same time comes to recognize the humanity underneath the exterior that he finds so revolting, and his own responsibility for the suffering his creation faces.
The being himself in fact reveals, toward the end of the story, sentiments not so distant from those of so many who have travelled to foreign places and been met as the other:
'Once my fancy was soothed with dreams of virtue, of fame, and of enjoyment. Once I falsely hoped to meet with beings who, pardoning my outward form, would love me for the excellent qualities which I was capable of unfolding. I was nourished with high thoughts of honor and devotion …
I desired love and fellowship, and I was still spurned. Was there no injustice in this? Am I to be thought the only criminal, when all humankind sinned against me?' (320-1)
Far from the movie’s presentation of a lumbering, unwitting brute scarcely aware of its own strength, readers encounter in Frankenstein’s creation someone self-educated and full of feeling, but also profoundly traumatized by the repeatedly hostile reactions of everyone he encounters.
Ultimately, however, Shelley’s novel revolves around its title character and the seemingly bottomless depths of his passion for discovering the unknown. Frankenstein spends long days describing to his newfound companion Walton the “great and unparalleled misfortunes” (29) he has suffered from the moment he completed his creation, including the family and friends who have died because of him, because of his actions. And, hearing Walton’s own plans, he repeatedly implores him to not make the same mistake he has: “Unhappy man! Do you share my madness? Have you drunk also of the intoxicating draught/ Hear me – let me reveal my tale, and you will dash the cup from your lips!” (27)
And yet, toward the end of the story, Shelley makes evident the full extent of the obsession that drove Frankenstein to create the being. Despite all he has experienced and suffered, despite lamenting his own audacity, and despite all his repeated cautions to Walton, when the ship’s crew again agitates for turning back, seemingly on the point of mutiny, Frankenstein browbeats them, saying
'What do you mean? What do you demand of your captain? Are you, then, so easily turned from your design? Did you not call this a glorious expedition? And wherefore was it glorious? Not because the way was smooth and placid as a southern sea, but because it was full of dangers and terror; because, at every new incident, your fortitude was to be called forth, and your courage exhibited; because danger and death surround it, and these you were to brave and overcome. For this was it a glorious, for this was it an honourable undertaking. You were hereafter to be hailed as the benefactors of your species; your names adored, as belonging to brave men who encountered death for honor and the benefit of mankind. And now, behold, with the first imagination of danger, or, if you will, the first mighty and terrific trial of your courage, you shrink away, and content to be handed down as men who had not strength enough to endure cold and peril; and so, poor souls, they were chilly and returned to their warm firesides. Why, that requires not this preparation; ye need not have come thus far, and dragged your captain to the shame of a defeat, merely to prove yourselves cowards. Oh! Be men, or be more than men. Be steady to your purposes and firm as a rock. This ice is not made of such stuff as our hearts may be; it is mutable and cannot withstand you, if you say that it shall not. Do not return to your families with the stigma of disgrace marked on your brows. Return as heroes who have fought and conquered, and who know not what it is to turn their backs on the foe.' (311-2)
There lies a thin line between the passion needed to achieve new discoveries and understandings, and what Shelley lays bare in Frankenstein: the blindness of obsession and the destructive consequences that can result. If you’ve only ever seen that old black and white movie version of her novel, please do crack open the book.
Other notes and information:
Thomas Piketty, in his amazing work Capital in the 21st Century, describes how, in order to compensate for the lack of hard economic data from earlier centuries, he uses literature of different periods to interpret how people lived and worked, and what they could afford.
Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
Other of my book reviews: FICTION Bookshelf and NON-FICTION Bookshelf
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