THE MONSTER

According to Merriam Webster’s Dictionary the meaning of the word monster consists of three explanations. Firstly, it refers to “a strange or horrible imaginary creature,” secondly, it says that “something is extremely or unusually large,” and thirdly, it mentions “a powerful person or thing that cannot be controlled and causes many problems.” In this point of view, the monster is determined to shock and draw attention with its body at first sight.

Monsters have attracted and fascinated people’s minds of both children and adults for centuries and have become the leading characters in many fairy tales, ballads as well as horror stories. 

Starting with the typology of monsters, a basic division between two categories can be portrayed. On the one hand, monsters came into existence in stories as a result of people’s imagination as well as a means for the explanation of some unusual occurrences beyond their understanding. 

Another explanation is that a monster comes into the world because of a lack of perfection during its creation. If the beginnings of the monster ̓s life included all the necessary elements for a perfect life without any delayed effects, there would not be a monster, but a human. Adversely, the definition can be regarded as one of anyone who does not belongs to humans.

In different periods of history, the monster was related to different symbols in society to underline the importance of tradition and to strengthen the principles in society as well as to criticise them. 

Another definition that refers to cultural background, has been given in Jeffrey J. Cohen’s (1996) work “Monster Culture (Seven Thesis)”. He claims:

The monstrous body is pure culture. A construct and a projection, the monster exists only to be read: the monstrum is etymologically “that which reveals,” “that which warns,” a glyph that seeks a hierophant. Like a letter on the page, the monster signifies something other than itself: it is always a displacement, always inhabits the gap between the time of upheaval that created it and the moment into which it is received, to be born again. (p. 4)

In the case of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley used a man-made monster, which was invented to be read as well as to criticise the current state of society, to become a mirror of its life or of the world and to make people aware of it.

Monstrosity

The most important factor, that has to be mentioned, is that monsters like Frankenstein’s monster are given some character features that make them different from human beings and that have to be described as features of monstrosity. The monsters like Victor’s monster possess supernatural forces, however, they include some elements of horror and terror that make them monstrous as well.

Alexa Wright’s work Monstrosity: The Human Monster in Visual Culture, published in 2013, refers to the word monstrosity as to a “visual phenomenon” (p. 48) in a cultural and historical context. The author offers an explanation that the human body represents society and that there has been an instant modification of the body by society. To understand the “deviant or monstrous bodies” (p. 48), it is highly significant then to understand the “dynamic between body and society” (p. 48). She distinguishes between a “normal” (p. 48) human body as a “certainty and order in society” (p. 48), and a monster’s body “which is disproportionate, or out of place” (p. 48). In her opinion, “the body of the monster visibly manifests troubling boundary confusion in the form of excess, deficit or bizarre and illegal combinations” (p. 48).

The definition provided by Michel Foucault (1975) and transmitted by Wright (2013) outlines the monster as a mixture “displaying all kinds of morphological

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abnormalities” (p. 49) that is in some respect “unclassifiable” (p. 49). Foucault (1975) states:

From the middle ages to the eighteenth century [...] the monster is essentially a mixture. It is a mixture of two kingdoms, the animal and the human: the man with the head of an ox, the man with bird’s feet – monsters. It is the blending, the mixture of two species: the pig with a sheep’s head is a monster. It is the mixture of two individuals, the one who has two heads and one body, or two bodies and one head is a monster. It is the mixture of two sexes: the one who is both male and female is a monster. It is a mixture of life and death: the foetus born with a morphology such that it cannot live, but which however manages to live for a few minutes or days, is a monster. Finally, it is a mixture of forms”: the person who has no arms or legs, like a snake, is a monster. Consequently, the transgression of natural limits, the transgression of classification, of the table, transgression of the law as a table: this is the real question of monstrosity. (as cited in Wright, 2013, p. 48)

According to this classification, Foucault (1975) tries to highlight that the deformity of a monster merely reflects the state of societies around us. (as cited in Wright, 2013, p. 49)

Finally, the paragraph about monstrosity will reflect on Paul Youngquist’s book Monstrosities: Bodies and British Romanticism published in 2003, transmitted by Jeffrey Longacre (2005). The aim of the book is to introduce “the matter of normality” (p. 229), as Longacre (2005) argues. In his opinion, Youngquist’s main target is to define “a proper body” (p. 229) and “deviations” (p. 229) that highlight the normality. Longacre (2005) states that Youngquist (2003) tries to show the relationship between a normal body and deformations in connection to “the stability and power of culture” (p. 229). England of the 1790s represents the proper body, “dominating political and cultural discourses of the time” (p. 230), whether France is portrayed as a malformation, “threatening to infect England’s healthy body like a disease” (p. 230). The other problems of monstrosity discussed in Youngquist’s (2003) work are “the fate of monstrosities in liberal society” (p. 203) as a response to the notion of beauty and the matter of “proper law and embodiment” (p. 230).

To sum up all the above-mentioned ideas and definitions, a large number of them will be the matter of the interpretation of the novel Frankenstein

Frankenstein: The Conception of the Monster

The first thing to mention is that throughout the story, as well as this thesis, the narration has been about a nameless monster. The fact the monster does not have a proper name is personally connected with Mary Shelley’s name, as Robert Olorenshaw (1994) claims.

 The author states that the name Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley was a compilation of several parts of other people ̓s names and in reality Mary did not have her own family name. Olorenshaw (1994) compares this situation to that of the monster that was created of different parts of other bodies; both of them are a composition of other identities. (p. 169)

Following this aspect of namelessness, Chris Baldick (1987) introduces another explanation based on the denial of the monster’s monstrosity. The writer says that the monster ̓s namelessness “helps to dislodge him from that traditional notion of the monstrous which fixes its objects with a moral label or caption” (p. 45).

It is important to accept the existence of a monster, what the monster should be like, what shape it will take, the structure of its body and also the character features it should comprise. In Victor Frankensten ̓s opinion, the monster is intended to become a living thing or “one of simpler organisation,” so there is no trace of the idea in the novel that the monster could be a man in principle but a “being” (Shelley, 2012, p. 46) like Victor himself supposes. Doctor Frankenstein identically relays to the reader that the monster is similar to an “animal” (Shelley, 2012, p. 46). Equally, the monster also represents a kind of a machine that should be created from some specific “materials”

(Shelley, 2012, p. 46). Mr Walton experiences the first encounter with the monster who is referred to as “a being which had the shape of a man, but apparently of gigantic stature, sat in the sledge, and guided the dogs” (Shelley, 2012, p. 15), supporting the statement of a supernatural existence. Jackson Petche (2014) explains in his essay that the monster is “neither wholly human nor wholly animal” (p. 98) since it is a compilation of parts of human bodies as well as of a few “animal remains obtained from slaughterhouses” (p. 98). The author claims that the monster ̓s position is the same to that of a “hybrid” (p. 98).

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Another key point concerning the monster’s development is the time and the atmosphere when the monster was supposed to come into the world. Shelley (2012) depicts the atmosphere around midnight “on a dreary night of November, [...] the rain pattered dismally against the panes, [...] by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light” (p. 50), which possibly predetermines the monster to live in the darkness, because of his visage, when the darkness means night and ugliness and on the contrary the daylight symbolises beauty and companionship which the monster dreams about.

Although the monster was construed as a machine because he was not born like a child, the relationship of the creator and the monster corresponds to that of a father- child relationship. The father-child relationship can be finished entirely after their death, so under these conditions, one of them has to die, as the monster mentions; there are some “ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us” (Shelley, 2012, p. 97). The question of mortality introduces another, but not the last, feature supporting the monster’s existence in human nature; it evidently highlights the fact that the monster has been made of the parts of a human body.

Following the idea that Victor Frankenstein’s monster does not correspond with a technological end is supported by Chris Baldick (1987) in his study. He claims that the creature “has no mechanical characteristics, and is a fully human creature; [...] not as a machine, a robot, a helot, or any other labour-saving convenience, but as the Adam of a new race which will love and venerate its creator” (p. 44, 45).

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Another trait that makes the monster a human being is the use of his brain and the ability to think as well as to speak. The monster ̓s speech is, from Baldick’s (1987) point of view, one of the most typical features of a human being. However, Baldick (1987) tries to highlight that this extracts the monster from his monstrosity.

As we have seen, the traditional idea of the monstrous was strongly associated with visual display, and monsters were understood primarily as exhibitions of moral vices: they were to be seen and not to heard. For the readers of Frankenstein, though, as for the blind De Lacey, the visibility of the monster means nothing and his eloquence everything for his identity. (p. 45)

In his essay Robert Olorenshaw (1994) also supports the idea that the monster is a human being, suggesting “the monster is an ideal human being longing for the integration and recognition that are denied him on account of his appearance” (p. 158).

Actually, the monster is expelled from everyday life chiefly because of his appearance, so he has to stay alone in very poor conditions in distant parts of the mountains. The only source of his energy is his hate for people who do not accept his existence and who only live according to prejudices, which he regards as grievous and deserve to be punished. Shelly seemingly blames the society for its irresponsibility, showing its obsolescence, lethargy and imperfection of a man. According to Susan Tyler Hitchcock (2007), Mary Shelley’s criticism had arisen from Rousseau’s ideas that had been based on the declaration that “the imperfections and suffering in human life arose not from nature but from society. Human beings had only to free themselves from social oppression and prejudice” (p. 17).

The monster comes into the world with a pure mind, unaffected by education, without any knowledge of good or evil and uninfluenced by society. In regard to the idea of a pure mind, Susan Tyler Hitchcock (2007) considers that the novel is an experiment, “exploring the psychology of the abandoned newborn giant and borrowing principles from John Locke” (p. 47), the author of the idea “that the human mind begins as a tabula rasa, a blank slate” (p. 47). Knowledge influences a human ̓s mind as well as forms opinions and ideas, as the author refers to Locke’s theory (p. 48). The monster’s position is comparable to that of a newly born child who is given a chance to be good and whose role is to follow his parents and live according to the laws. However, the monster becomes an orphan at the beginning of his life because his parent recants him, so he loses his model of an honest, friendly as well as responsible man. In fact, there is no chance for the monster to become a responsible man who will be accepted by mankind, instead he has to copy behaviour of the other people he encounters. It is undisputable that his first experiences meet reluctance coupled with anger since he looks repulsive.

The most important character feature of the monster is his ability to use his brain, which enables him to copy gestures and behaviour of other people as well as to learn the language, that keeps him alive, but also “endeavouring to discover the motives which influenced their action” (Shelley, 2012, p. 109). Shun-Liang Chao (2010) sees the monster as “an ardours learner of human language” (p. 223) which is an essential element of integrating into society on the one hand, but on the other hand, the writer points out the fact that due to the knowledge and the pain the monster has to suffer, the monster realises that human beings are “monstrous as well” (p. 223). Shun-Liang Chao (2010) states that the monster regards the language as “a royal road to the family’s disregard for his deformity” (p. 224). The author assumes the language to be a “pharmakon: it is both medicinal and poisonous, [...] the more knowledge he is able to gain, and the sharper his awareness of his deformity and his friendless life” (p. 224).

The monster recognises all his basic senses and learns by virtue of trial and error. He also astonishes the reader with his cleverness, which makes him another kind of creature which is usually thought not to be so intelligent. Robert Olorenshaw (1994) argues that sense influences ethics, which he demonstrates on the first monster ̓s moral act. Experiencing hunger that caused his suffering, the monster decided not to steal food from the De Laceys, because the monster understands what the people feel. From this viewpoint Olorenshaw says that the monster can differentiate between good and evil (p. 165).

Concerning morality, Mary Shelley uses the monster as a means to criticise human character, but also people’s behaviour in general. The author asks a few philosophical questions due to the monster ̓s existence and expresses her surprise at the composition of a man based on opposition.

“Was man, indeed, at once so powerful, so virtuous, and magnificent, yet so vicious and base? He appeared at one time a mere scion of the evil principle, and at another as all that can be conceived as noble and godlike? For a long time I could not conceive how one man could go forth to murder his fellow, or even why there were laws and governments; but when I heard details of vice and bloodshed, my wonder ceased, and I

turned away with disgust and loathing.” (Shelley, 2012, p. 118-119)

The monster comes to the conclusion that there is no formula for a perfect man. Even, beauty, power and money do not equal a good and honest man, actually a good-looking man does not have to be a happy man, as Shelley (2012) states. At this moment, the monster refuses to be like the others and understands the differences between people, within societies. Shelley leads the monster through the depiction of the structure in society, but the monster does not know which category he belongs to. This moment offers two interesting insights. Firstly, the monster does not want to be compared to a man, secondly he realises he does not belong anywhere because he is not a man and the writer only strengthens her prime purpose of her writing to create a monster with supernatural forces.

To compare both, Mary Shelley’s and Victor Frankenstein’s aims, the monster simultaneously becomes a destroyer and an outcome of scientific enthusiasm.

 The Monster’s Monstrosity

Shelley evidently puts a lot of effort into creating a monster of such ugliness and she had to pay attention to all details to impress the reader as well as to evoke the atmosphere of supernatural forces. The writer of this novel reveals the detailed description of the monster as a whole within the fifth chapter and the following lines will acknowledge that the author does not hold back her imagination.

“His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! – Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips. “(Shelley, 2012, p. 50) Despite the fact the monster is the main means of the narration to evoke fear, the

reader must acknowledge the author ̓s mastery regarding the technique of writing because Shelley combines contradictions based on positive expressions, so called oxymoronic adjectives, such as the above mentioned “luxuriances” and “pearly whiteness” to underline the enormity of the monster. At one point of the novel, Shelley (2012) becomes a reviewer of her own writing and she evaluates the monster alone.

“Oh, no mortal could support the horror of that countenance. A mummy again endued with animation could not be so hideous as that wretch. I had gazed on him while unfinished; he was ugly then; but when those muscles and joints were rendered capable of motion, it became a thing such as even Dante could not have conceived.” (p. 51)

Mary Shelley presumably formulates her satisfaction about the stature of a monster, assuming her design of a monster is more marvellous and more shocking at the same time, comparing her work with Dante’s style of writing3. (p. 51)

The main root of the monster ̓s monstrosity is his appearance. Chris Baldick (1987) asks the question why the monster is considered to be ugly if his creator, Victor Frankenstein, aimed the creature to be perfect. The author states:

“The novel provides no explanation for the creature’s ugliness, and if we are tempted to account for it psychologically as a mere projection of Frankenstein ̓s guilty revulsion from his deed, we run up against the evidence of the other characters’ reactions. The monster appears frighteningly ugly not just to his creator but to all who see him, even to himself as he studies his reflection in water. (p. 33, 34)”

Another source of the monster ̓s “inexplicable” (p. 51) ugliness is supposed to be “the unhealthy conditions of production in which he is assembled” (p. 51), as Baldick (1987) highlights.

One of the features, concerning the monstrosity of the monster, is Victor’s attitude to his experiment and its final effects. Victor Frankenstein strenuously searches for appropriate materials, invents methods, however, he does not pay attention to the way the monster will use his energy and especially his brain. In the role of a scientist, Victor is more concerned with the shape and the possible existence of the monster than with his behaviour. Baldick (1987) highlights the difference between “the lifeless parts and living wholes” (p. 35), supporting the above mentioned idea that Victor was more impressed with the material rather than with the result. He claims:

“The parts, in a living being, can only be as beautiful as the animating principle which organizes them, and if this ͑ spark of life ͗ proceeds, as it does in Victor’s creation, from tormented isolation and guilty secrecy, the resulting assembly will only animate and body forth that condition and display its moral ugliness. “(p. 35)

It is remarkable that within a society there were usually some laws, unwritten rules, norms and traditions that had to be followed and because of prejudices all the exceptions were not acceptable. Regarding the stature and the shape of the monster, it is evident that the monster will hardly be accepted in the place where he was born. For centuries, people were usually afraid of extraordinary phenomena and they only believed in proven, ancient or traditional principles and doctrines. On the one hand, the monster is a product of modern science, based on new findings and knowledge and on the other hand, the society and its mentality is very conservative, so it is impossible for the monster to be welcomed in a world where people feared unusual things.

Make it clear, the creator himself feels insecure, even disgusted, seeing the fruit of his work, saying:

"The dissecting room and the slaughter-house furnished many of my materials; and often did my human nature turn with loathing from my occupation, whilst, still urged on by an eagerness which perpetually increased, I brought my work near to a conclusion. “(Shelley, 2012, p. 48)

In fact, the monster is unavoidably destined for endless loneliness since his creator Victor, and simultaneously his father, disturbs the most important principle and abandon the monster as well as his own child instead of bringing him up. That loneliness is regarded as the main source of the monster ̓s monstrosity and the monster calls upon Victor Frankenstein for responsibility for the evil that the monster has to prepare to innocent people: “I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed. Everywhere I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably excluded. [...]; misery made me a fiend” (Shelley, 2012, p. 98). In the monster’s opinion, Victor, in the position of the creator, is supposed to be his guide through the monster’s life and his supporter and father at the same time. Victor is supposed to introduce his invention into society, to explain its origin as well as his roots and he is supposed to help his invention to find its place in the world. In actual fact, the people mainly tend to react to new inventions and changes with disapproval and it usually takes time and a lot of energy to persuade them. Under these circumstances the monster accuses Victor of facilitating his exile and life without companionship.

As far as the matter of social exclusion is concerned, the creature is not only supposed to be an animal, but he also does not own any property. Jackson Petsche (2014) sees the connection between the lack of property and alienation very significantly as well as the connection between the lack of property and the monster’s monstrosity. Petsche (2014) states that the monster is part animal so he cannot possess property and is therefore excluded from human property relations as well as from human social relations. (p. 105)

In connection to the monster ̓s monstrosity, loneliness and exile, another point that cannot be overlooked is the fact the monster commits crimes on many occasions. Mary Shelley (2012) tries to explain that sometimes the reason for committing crime is simpler than it seems to be, such as in the case of a monster that only feels desperate (p. 134). His desperation rises from his creator ̓s irresponsibility; Victor did not take into account all possible after effects of his experiment and he did not know how to deal with this problem. A kind of warning and recommendation can be expressed by this example and it is obvious that the writer wanted to show us that it is convenient to face small problems when there is a chance to set them right than to see the consequences of fatal acts that cannot be rectified. Regarding the problem of the crimes comitted by the monster, Petsche (2014) asks whether the monster is a human being or an animal. 

The author demonstrates that from Victor’s point of view, killing the younger and innocent Victor’s brother, William, could have been done only by someone non-human. Although Victor wanted to create a human being, the fact the monster kills William is the moment when the creature is considered by Victor to be an animal, as it is stated by Petsche (2014) in his essay: “After William’s death the monster becomes an ͑ animal ͗ to Victor, and this designation of his creature as animal, of course, establishes the superiority of the human in the human-animal binary” (p. 103, 104). However, in Peter K. Garrett’s (2003) study Gothic Reflection: Narrative Force in Nineteenth-Century Fiction, William’s death has been regarded as a proof of the monster’s moral deformity but not of the physical (p. 84).

Another feature connected with the monster ̓s criminality is the fact the monster suffers injustice. According to Baldick (1987), the monster ̓s career of a criminal is the result of injustice he has to face and that is plainly based on his appearance. The author distinguishes between the “criminal madness” (p. 52) and “a method” (p. 52). He comments on “a satirical point” (p. 52) that the monster ̓s victims are generally innocent people, the same as the creature, which is considered by the author as “the arbitrary injustice of the human society which condemns him on sight” (p. 52). The monster conspicuously criticises society which is perfunctory, evaluating the people on behalf of their appearance instead of their inner qualities, and that is, in the monster ̓s opinion, more imperfect; denying the laws and principles of the society through his thoughts:

“The guilty are allowed, by human laws, bloody as they are, to speak in their own defence before they are condemned. [...] You accuse me of murder, and yet you would, with a satisfied conscience, destroy your own creature. Oh, praise the eternal justice of man!” (Shelley, 2012, p. 99).

It is undisputable that the monster is portrayed by the writer as a possible source of evil but it has to be taken into account that the roots of his actions rise from both, his unhappiness and misery. In actual fact, there are two ways the reader can perceive the monster ̓s behaviour. On the one hand, the reader thinks of the monster as an instrument of revenge because his creator did not maintain the bond to his child. For this reason the monster is right to chase Victor Frankenstein and to intervene in Victor ̓s family life and his relatives.

I will revenge my injuries: if I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear, and chiefly towards you my arch-enemy, because my creator, do I swear inextinguishable hatred. Have a care: I will work at your destruction, nor finish until I desolate your heart, so that you shall curse the hour of your birth. (Shelley, 2012, p. 146)

Only such a punishment is regarded by the monster to be satisfying, seeing that it is hard to lose a close person and to live in a total loneliness. 

The Monster’s Humanity

The novel begins with a very poetic citation about love according to Victor’s opinion, who thinks the highly appreciated love is when people “love strongly” (Shelley, p. 24). However, regarding the love of the monster, the thesis will deal with desperate love, seeking for love, the absence of love as well as the inability to love, instead of fulfilled feelings.

When children come into world, it is mostly because they are products of love and love is the first feeling they experience by their parents, who take care of them, worry about them and protect them against the wiles of the world. Parental love does not only mean to bring children to material luxury, however, to show their children friendliness, to support them as well as to understand them. This most essential but also inexpensive emotion is removed from the monster ̓s life. From the very beginning, the monster is excluded from family life, he does not even experience a single-parent family; he lacks a mother and his father is reverting his eyes when seeing a creature in front of him, instead of a child of his infernal effort. In other words, the first emotions that the monster unluckily encounters are misery and panic in his father ̓s eyes. The theme of loneliness has its roots in Mary Shelley’s own experience, as Radu Florescu (1996) mentions in his essay. Mary lost her mother within a few days after birth, so she was supposed to be her father’s lovely daughter and the source of his love. However, she failed this position and it was the maleficence she felt against her father, as stated by Florescu (1996, p. 180).

The monster blames his creator of lethargy and recklessness towards his child as well as of the absence of essential feelings that the monster suffers. The monster had to learn a lot about what people are like and according to his research, the monster realises he has been done brown:

I heard of the difference of sexes; and the birth and growth of children; how the father doated on the smiles of the infant, and the lively sallies of the older child; how all the life and cares of the mother were wrapped up in the precious charge; how the mind of youth expanded and gained knowledge; of brother, sister, and all the various relationships which bind one human being to another in mutual bonds. (Shelley, 2012, p. 120)

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Given this citation, the author evidently underlines love as the most important feeling in people’s lives that mainly influences their behaviour; love that forms their attitude and shows the quality of relationships between the people. The absence of love makes people sad; the most prevailing feeling that the monster experiences on his own. But in the monster’s opinion, love is the emotion that forms better people and cultivates their knowledge (Shelley, 2012, p. 120). So that, the closest fellowship that enables a man experience love is family, however, family also signifies the roots of a man. If people know they belong to a family and if they experience love and happiness within their families, then they are the richest beings in the world. Shelley (2012) seemingly criticises the current state of society where people prefer property to pure character as the most recognised criteria, she accuses society of a lack of love between people in general (p. 119).

Furthermore, Shelley evidently uses the theme of Adam’s creation from Milton’s Paradise lost4 that is in parts comparable to the situation of the monster, concerning the matter of love, as it is claimed by Chris Baldick (1978). Baldick demonstrates that after the monster learned to read, he compares his situation to that of Adam (p. 40). Adam was brought to life by his creator, in a similar way to the monster and since Adam felt alone and needed another being to share love, God decided to create Eve, Adam’s wife. The purpose of God was to create a man to pass on his message, so Adam’s structure consisted of beauty, nice character features and life in Paradise. God becomes Adam ̓s father who helps him, takes care of him as well as educates him. In contrast, Victor cannot stand the monster’s visage and abandons the creature, without help and a close person, who would love him, without a “link to any other being in existence” (Shelley, 2012, p. 129). In addition, Victor does not love his monster, he neither supports the monster nor fights for him. The monster was also neither given a chance to feel love from the very beginning of his life, nor was he given the opportunity to share his life with a being of the same origin as well as of the same shape. The monster dreams the same dream as that of Adam but he knows it cannot happen to him. Baldick (1987) argues that experiencing such conditions of life, the monster realises his life is similar to Satan’s life5 in Paradise lost, excluded from people’s joy, full of envy, bearing ideas of hell and war against human beings (p. 40).

4 See John Milton ̓s Paradise Lost, Book VIII.

5 See John Milton ̓s Paradise Lost, iv. 505 ff.; ix. 114 ff.

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After a few years spent in loneliness and observing people, their behaviour, their attitudes and the structure within society, Shelley’s monster is aware of the fact that it is impossible to be partner to an average woman, however, he needs someone in the same situation, with the same problem concerning his giant body, shape and visage. “You must create a female for me, with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being. [...] What I ask of you is reasonable and moderate; I demand a creature of another sex, but as hideous as myself; the gratification is small, but it is all that I can receive” (Shelley, 2012, p. 146-147). It is not only a satisfaction that the monster requires as a solution to his misery, but due to the experiences and knowledge regarding his attempts to join ordinary people, it is evident that the monster can share his life with the same creature of the same species because people neither adopt anybody of a lower origin nor accept strangers, when concerning the structure of their society.

The monster insists on creating a female so Victor Frankenstein finds himself in the situation where he has to consider all threats that could affect mankind. Victor’s thoughts deal with hesitation whether another monster will tranquilise the situation. On the one hand, the monsters could spend their mutual lives in distant parts of the world, without any impact on mankind, on the other hand, the doubts about the second monster ̓s mind and attitude towards people are a secret for Victor. Under permanent emotive pressure Victor agrees to fulfil such a horrible promise: “After a long pause of reflection, I concluded that the justice due both to him and my fellow creature ̓s demand of me that I should comply with this request” (Shelley, 2012, p. 148). This moment in the novel is considered by Jackson Petsche (2014) to be Victor’s experience of a “nightmarish vision” (p. 102). The fact Victor agrees to create a female monster is in Petsche’s (2014) opinion the illustration of “the centrality of the human treatment of non-human animal within the narrative of Frankenstein” (p. 102). Working on another experiment, Victor comes to the conclusion that he must destroy the fragment of the second monster after analysing several facts: Firstly, the monster will be able to reproduce and secondly the female creature did not swear to leave the parts of the world where people live, as Petsche (2010) claims. However, Petsche (2014) sees “the fear of becoming a subject of vivisection” (p. 102) in Victor’s refusal. Because there is also no certainty of a peaceful relationship between the monsters, then such hesitation results in

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Victor’s refusal, however, in particular it means a total end of the monster’s hopes of love.

Following the story, the monster emphasises the importance of love in his life and towards other people since love has the power to destroy all his loathing and misery, so it will help him to spend his life in peace without gloomy thoughts as well as without passion for revenge. He wants to eliminate the only feeling he has recognised since he was brought to life and to show that he can change his life and the lives of other innocent people.

My vices are the children of a forced solitude that I abhor; and my virtues will necessarily arise when I live in communion with an equal. I shall feel the affections of a sensitive being, and become linked to the chain of existence and events, from which I am now excluded. (Shelley, 2012, p. 148)

In connection with love, the author points out the link between love and heart. “To be friendless is indeed to be unfortunate; but the hearts of men, when unprejudiced by any obvious self-interest, are full of brotherly love and charity” (Shelley, 2012, p. 133). According to this statement, all the people are credited with love but it depends on a few circumstances such as background, companionship and education if they are able to love other people and whether money, prestige and the above-mentioned selfishness become mainstream for their behaviour.

Throughout the story the monster experiences the same situation while he tries to approach people and join them. Despite the fact people could change his misery and the monster’s attitude to people if only one of them loved him, his ugly appearance is the first thing the people see when meeting him, which naturally raises their inner impatience and fear. The monster puts a lot of effort into his hopes for a better life with love especially in connection to the De Lacey family. Living close to an old blind man and his children, listening to their conversation, observing them during the day and realising these people’s lives are based on love despite the poor conditions they live in, despite the circumstances that contributed to their misery, the monster lays his hopes on the acceptance of this family that could reciprocate his love. Analysing a few encounters with people, the monster is conscious of potential failure of his approach to them, so he highly prefers verbal communication to any eye contact. The fact the monster tries to analyse the De Lacey family as well as to get some knowledge is one of the reasons for the monster ̓s solitude, as Chris Baldick (1987) states (p. 46). The monster compares its

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situation with that of the De Laceys, in particular in connection with his appearance and it increases his sorrow; so the knowledge is considered to be the source of the monster’s solitude. In Baldick’s (1987) opinion, knowledge sharpens the monster’s solitude; “seeking knowledge in solitude” (p. 46) leads to “a more distressing knowledge of solitude” (p. 46).

The monster studies the life of the De Lacey family in detail, so he comes to the conclusion that the old man is the only, as well as possible, opportunity to join them because he is blind and will value him by virtue of his speech based on positive feelings and directness. The old man symbolises an intelligible bridge between the monster ̓s solitude and plausible friendship accompanied by love, therefore he waits for the moment when the old man is alone and tries his best. However, the author incorporates the principle of chance and destroys the monster ̓s expectations again when the old man ̓s children come home earlier than usual and the same scenario occurs when seeing a gigantic deformed stature. Radu Florescu (1996) comes to the conclusion that there are two very important moments in the monster ̓s life that certainly destine him for a life of solitude; the wall that is between him and the De Laceys and the destruction of the female monster that predicts his final solitude (p. 180). Jeanne M. Britton (2009) summarises in her essay “Novelistic Sympathy in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein” that the monster longs for love and for a “sympathetic companionship” (p. 3), however, the fact the monster cannot find it has been regarded as the result of “the failure of social sympathy” (p. 3).

To sum up, the monster desperately seeks love; however, he does not know what love is because he is not given the chance to learn it intuitively from his birth.

Victor Frankenstein’s Monstrosity

. Victor ̓s monstrosity mainly manifests his enthusiasm for his work and is also based on the absence of a few and very important aspects, like Victor’s inadequate experience when undertaking this experiment, the absence of a real friend that would be a professional in the same field of  study and would monitor his purposes as well as the lack of responsibility for hisactions that have to be mentioned in connection to this topic.

To find the roots of Victor’s monstrosity, it is highly important to start with Victor ̓s childhood because his passion for exploration goes back to this period of his life and has its origin in his personality, as Paul Cantor (1984) states in his study The Nightmare of Romantic Idealism. Doctor Frankenstein remembers his childhood when he was brought up together with Elizabeth and where he thinks the roots of his potential destruction were, saying:

While my companion contemplated with a serious and satisfied spirit the magnificent appearances of things, I delighted in investigating their causes. 

"The world was to me a secret which I desired to divine. Curiosity, earnest research to learn the hidden laws of nature, gladness askin to rapture, as they were unfolded to me, are among the earliest sensations I can remember. [...] It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn; and whether it was the outward substance of things, or the inner spirit of nature and the mysterious soul of man that occupied me, still my enquiries were directed to the metaphysical, or in its highest sense, the physical secrets of the world." (Shelley, 2012, p. 28-29)

While Elizabeth was more practically minded and adored the shape of things, he was the opposite, searching for the origin of things and for the secret of nature. Paul Cantor’s (1984) study demonstrates the same idea about Victor Frankenstein’s childhood, highlighting Victor’s two important character features: “aggressiveness” (p. 239) and “possessiveness” (p. 239). Cantor (1984) states that Victor ̓s temper and desire for knowledge are the main sources of his aggressiveness. (p. 239) “My temper was sometimes violent, and my passions vehement; but by some law in my temperature they were turned not towards childish pursuits but to an eager desire to learn, and not to learn all things indiscriminately” (Shelley, 2012, p. 29), as Victor claims himself. Cantor (1984) argues that Victor’s experiment as well as his desire for science “was originally a sublimation of his violence” (p. 239). 

As far as the matter of Victor’s possessiveness is concerned, Cantor (1984) argues that this feature developed in Victor’s life when Elizabeth became his present.

“And when, on the tomorrow, she presented Elizabeth to me as her promised gift, I, with childish seriousness, interpreted her words literally and looked upon Elizabeth as mine – mine to protect, love and cherish. All praises bestowed on her I received as made to a possession of my own.” (Shelley, 2012, p. 27)

According to Paul Cantor (1984), this is the moment that predetermined Victor to become a creator. “He creates a being because he wants someone to worship him with complete devotion” (p. 240), as Cantor (1984) claims.

"Another Victor’s feature that has its roots in his childhood is the lack of responsibility. He was “a single offspring” (Shelley, 2012, p. 25) for a long time and his parents’ duty was to take care of him, so the reader realises very early he was spoilt. In Victor’s opinion he was “their plaything and their idol, and something better – their child, the innocent and helpless creature bestowed on them by Heaven” (Shelley, 2012, p. 25) that “was guided by a silken cord” (Shelley, 2012, p. 25). 

In particular, the fact that he was “guided” means Victor had not been brought up to be responsible.

Victor’s family was “one of the most distinguished of that republic,” referring to his family background, which had an impact on his behaviour as well as on his career of a scientist. “My ancestors had been for many years counsellors and syndics; and my father had filled several public situations with honour and reputation. He was respected by all who knew him” (Shelley, 2012, p. 23), as Victor says. From this point of view he was also supposed to become a respectful man, however, he has decided to become famous and memorable in the field of science, which has designed his “future destiny” (Shelley, 2012, p. 42).

Dealing with Victor Frankenstein’s character features, Mary Shelley purposely created two characters in this novel, Victor Frankenstein and his counterpart Mr Walton, with the seemingly same life experiences and nearly the same personality, because they are “practically industrious – painstaking; a workman to execute with perseverance and labour” (Shelley, 2012, p. 12) but especially to compare Victor’s personality to that of Mr Walton and to portray Victor as a person prone to weaknesses. Imperfection of a man can be regarded as one of the most significant reasons for the doctor’s failure and Victor himself is aware of this deficiency, when he says: “I agree with you, [...], we are unfashioned creatures, but half made up, if one wiser, better, dearer than ourselves – such a friend ought to be – do not lend his aid to perfectionate our weak and faulty natures” (Shelley, 2012, p. 20). Victor realises too late that he could improve if there was somebody to share his sorrow and to help him with his decisions to be more objective rather than subjective, but he conveys:

 “But I – I have lost everything and cannot begin life anew” (Shelley, 2012, p. 20). From this point of view, Victor expresses his belief that there is some hope for Walton to influence his decision and to stop him from falling into hell.

Analysing Mr Walton ̓s role in this novel, he simultaneously becomes a means of relaying Victor Frankenstein’s story to the readers with incredible cruelty. What is more, both of the characters do not have anybody to trust and to discuss their aims with. As Mr Walton mentions, he does not have anybody “gentle yet courageous, possessed of a cultivated as well as of a capacious mind” (Shelley, p. 9) with the same interests “to approve or amend” (Shelley, p. 9) his ideas. These young men are associated with “love for the marvellous, a belief in the marvellous” (Shelley, 2012, p. 12) that “hurries” them “out of the common pathways of men” (Shelley, 2012, p. 12). Walton is aware of his insufficient personality and of the need of companionship and he opens his heart up to his sister in the letters sent to her: “How would such a friend repair the faults of your poor brother! I am too ardent in execution, and too impatient of difficulties” (Shelley, 2012, p. 9). While Walton knows he is a weak and an imperfect person, Victor Frankenstein is quite the opposite.

Victor aspires for honour, however, he realises he can merely achieve his dreams abroad, not in the place of his birth. Spending time with his family, in his father ̓s house, was for Victor a kind of a safe harbour where Victor could absorb old men ̓s fancies that “are a thousand years old and as musty as they are ancient” (Shelley, p. 38), therefore secure. Victor’s father ̓s house symbolises a place of convention and conservatism that was interwoven by tradition and resistance to new influences from outside that could interrupt the insistent family life. As Victor admits, the temptation and his destruction decidedly started when he left for Ingolstadt because “chance – or rather the evil influence, the Angel of Destruction, which asserted omnipotent sway over me from the moment I turned my reluctant steps from my father’s door” (Shelley, 2012, p. 38). 

Victor feels he wants to reveal the secrets of the world but he knows it is only possible within the walls of his home, in a distinct place without conventional prejudices and based on new principles of science. With this intention, Victor, of course, starts his discovery in a foreign country, since he does not want to become an ordinary man. According to Paul Cantor (1984), Victor “regards family life as dull and conventional, potentially stifling to his creativity” (p. 243), and he also fears “that a family will limit his creativity” (p. 243). If Victor wants to reach his goals, he has to stay in isolation. In Cantor’s (1984) opinion, his loneliness is not accidental but if he desires to achieve his goals he has to live a life of an eremite. (p. 242)

Knowledge, wisdom and curiosity seem to be highly appreciated by Doctor Frankenstein. However, the fulfilment of dreams is considered by the writer to be “a serpent to sting” (Shelley, 2012, p. 21) and “the acquirement of knowledge” is “dangerous” (Shelley, 2012, p. 46). Chris Baldick (1987) also expresses some hesitation about knowledge. Pointing out to its rewards, he argues that “knowledge is shown to be double-edged, its benefits and hazards depending upon the circumstances, and the spirit, in which it is pursued” (p. 45).

Shelley does not seem to be an advocate of the method Victor uses to get his desired goal. Both of the young men, Victor and Mr Walton, realise they have collected a lot of resources but they were not satisfied because the findings did not correspond to their aims. Victor Frankenstein admits that “natural philosophy is the genius that has regulated his “fate” (Shelley, 2012, p. 30) and calls his father for responsibility for his failure. As Victor claims, his father should explain to him that all the sources that Victor had studied were outdated “and that a modern system of science had been introduced” (Shelley, 2012, p. 31). 

However, Victor is too enthusiastic and he does not realise it is better to think realistically and to be honoured for his good personality and pure character; he mainly thinks that people only become famous for their epochal achievement as well as to be remembered in others ̓ memories and be revered. Pointing out to epochal achievements, it is significantly important to have in mind that science offers us a lot of ideas, devices, sources and possible ways to improve our life, but at the same time the scientist have to have in mind that they should avoid any misuse for the purpose of becoming well-known. Due to this awareness Victor says: “How much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow” (Shelley, 2012, p. 46). Shun-Liang Chao (2010) considers that in Victor Frankenstein’s case the education leads “not merely to self-improvement but rather self-destruction” (p. 223).

After a few attempts of searching for the secret of life, Victor accidentally experienced the results of a thunderstorm and was acquainted “with the more obvious laws of electricity” (Shelley, 2012, p. 33). This doubtlessly formed Victor’s decision to condemn his previous way of work based on natural philosophy and supported his decision to study “mathematics, and the branches of study appertaining to that science, as being built upon secure foundations, and so worthy of” his “consideration” (Shelley, 2012, p. 33). Shelley (2012) divides between “the ancient teachers” (p. 40), who “promised impossibilities, and performed nothing” (p. 40) and “the modern masters” (p. 40), who promise very little. Victor naturally tends to follow the modern professors, especially Mr Waldman, whose words about the importance of a scientist’s deal predestine Victor’s fate:

"They penetrate into the recesses of nature, and show how she works in her hiding- places. They ascend into the heavens: they have discovered how the blood circulates, and the nature of the air we breathe. They have acquired new and almost unlimited powers; they can command the thunders of heaven, mimic the earthquake, and even mock the invisible world with its own shadows."(Shelley, 2012, p. 40)

The Professor’s speech, highlighting the fact “they have discovered” (Shelley, 2012, p. 34), “can command” (Shelley, 2012, p. 34), or “even mock” (Shelley, 2012, p. 34), only consecrates as well as encourages Victor’s decision to come up with an epochal achievement in the field of science that will possibly be of the same importance in science as the previous above-mentioned efforts. In particular, Victor’s aim appeared to be forceless because “destiny was too potent, and her immutable laws had decreed” (Shelley, 2012, p. 34) his “utter and terrible destruction” (Shelley, 2012, p. 34). A point that cannot be overlooked is Victor’s self-confidence and his limitless belief in success as well as his fantasy. Victor himself admits this weakness after the reconstruction of the monster: “[...] but my imagination was too much exalted by my first success to permit me to doubt of my ability to give life to an animal as complex and wonderful as man” (Shelley, 2012, p. 46).

Concerning Victor’s monstrosity, it is important to point out his attitude towards death and towards the form of his work in connection with vivisection. Shelley (2012) portrays a hero who hardly ever defies either “a tale of superstition” or “the apparition of a spirit” (p. 44), so Victor equally emphasises his gamines when talking about darkness and his visits of the churchyard at night: “Darkness had no effect upon my fancy; and a churchyard was to me merely the receptacle of bodies deprived of life” (p. 44-45). For this reason, he had to spend some time “in vaults and charnel-houses” (p. 45), seeing “every object the most insupportable to the delicacy of the human feelings” (p. 45). Jackson Petsche (2014) states that vivisection is an entire part of Victor Frankenstein’s experiment. However, Petsche (2014) argues that the production of Victor’s monster is “essentially an act of vivisection in reverse: Victor experiments on his being by putting pieces of him together in order to bring him to life instead of cutting him apart” (p. 101).

At the centre of Victor Frankenstein’s enthusiasm is namely the search for the secret of life, so called “the elixir of life” (Shelley, 2012, p. 40), which was supposed to be “chimera” (Shelley, 2012, p. 40). Jackson Petsche (2014) compares Victor’s enthusiasm to “the ambition to master the nature” (p. 100). However, Mary Shelley affords opportunity to find a key for that secret. If Victor wants to resolve the rebus of life, he firstly has to “recourse to death” (Shelley, 2012, p. 44), to find the source of life. Victor ̓s efforts meet his expectations when he “succeeded in discovering the cause of generation and life” (Shelley, 2012, p. 45) and above all became “capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter” (Shelley, 2012, p. 45), which can be regarded as the impeachment of the doctrine of the principle of Nature by the author. As Cantor (1984) mentions, Victor “does God’s work, creating a man, but he has the devil’s motives: pride and the will to power” (p. 234). The author challenges his ideas and thinks Victor does it because of his rebellion; he rejects the prohibitions and takes the position of God, as Cantor (1984) supposes. Victor seems to be obsessed by his first success therefore he tries to escalate his possibilities and power. “Pursuing these reflections, I thought, 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” (Shelley, 2012. P. 47). In Cantor ̓s (1984) opinion, “ Frankenstein’s urge to create life by himself shows his titanism, his longing to do something never before attempted by man” (p. 242). However, Cantor (1984) also states that Victor’s aims to rule “a new race of beings” (p. 234). Pointing out to the way the monster came to the world, it is obvious that Victor provokes to destroy the conventional image of mother-father parentage and promotes a new type of single-parent family, excluding a mother. “Frankenstein portrays the consequences of the failure of the family, the damage wrought when the mother – or a nurturant parental love – is absent” (p. 39), as Anne K. Mellor ( 1989) claims in her book Mary Shelley, her Life, her Fiction, her Monsters. In Cantor’s (1984) opinion, Victor is “a true Romantic creator” (p. 241) because he “wants total responsibility – and total credit – for any of his creations” 

As has been noted above, it is highly dangerous to initiate new aspects in life only because it is possible, however, mankind has to be careful about the after effects

and also about stability in the world. Be that as it may, the aim of the story is to alert the reader to circumstances that appear after irresponsible and senseless acts, the same as Victor did. The main character apparently experiences a triumph in his field of study, on the contrary the writer promotes herself on the position of a God’s prolonged hand and punishes Victor for his way of thinking, cowardice and also for the lack of his own responsibility towards others. Neither the scientists nor the other people have the privilege to dominate the world, only Nature and God do. In addition, Victor himself deduces the nightmarish result of his work: “But the discovery was so great and overwhelming, that all the steps by which I had been progressively led to it were obliterated, and I beheld only the result” (Shelley, 2012, p. 45).

On the one hand, Victor experiences a triumph in the field of science, on the other hand, he celebrates his victory alone, because neither his family nor his teachers were involved in the secret of his work. Victor has been alone since he came to Ingolstadt, what is more he does not reply to his family and his friend Clerval and he does not even have a social life. In regard to his engagement with Elizabeth, there is no proof of his love seeing that he does not feel homesick and longing for Elizabeth’s love. Chris Baldick (1987) refers to the same idea in his study, mentioning Victor’s triumph as an evidence of his “ascetic masculine heroism,” a triumph “over his own social and sexual being, fulfilled in a creature to whom social and sexual ties are denied” (p. 51). Concerning this statement, Baldick (1987) argues that the monster is a result of Victor Frankenstein’s “asocial conduct” (p. 51). However, the author highlights the essential difference in the concept of Victor’s and the monster ̓s solitude; while Victor’s solitude is voluntary, the monster’s is captive. (p. 52)

In connection with the process that had led to the production of a monster, Jackson Petsche (2014) conversely writes about Victor ̓s ͑ human nature ͗. Petsche (2014) associates human nature with humanity and with the treatment of animals, so the most important aspect that arouses from that relationship is Victor’s treatment of the monster since the monster was created of animal parts. Petsche (2014) argues that Victor is a supporter of the hierarchy of the species; Victor as a human being is regarded to be above the non-human, which the monster in fact is. From this point of view, Petsche (2014) does not think Victor is human at all and he states:

Humans are truly human when being kind toward animals. The animal, and the treatment of animals, becomes a mere symbol or reflection of humanity. Victor’s relation to the nonhuman, including his monster, is emblematic of the problems that arise out of humanism ̓s project to master nature and simultaneously treat the nonhuman beneficently as a mark of humanity. (p. 100)

After finishing his own work, Victor makes the worst mistake he could ever

make when he denies to acceptt the result of his efforts. Victor does not think the monster is his own child since he has given life to the monster as a mother gives birth to her child. Paul Cantor (1984) states that Victor Frankenstein forgets his duties of a parent to his offspring as well as he lacks the qualities “he most praises his own parents for” (p. 244). Doctor Frankenstein refuses to take care of the monster and also to take the responsibility for the monster ̓s life. In Chris Baldick’s (1987) study Victor ̓s role at this moment has been criticised. Baldick (1987) argues that “the monster’s ͑ god ͗ comes to be seen as an ineptly negligent creator whose conduct towards his creation is callously unjust” (p. 43). Victor simply brings a creature to the world. However, in the position of a father, Victor has to accompany the monster on his journey through life, to bring up the monster to be a responsible man who will be accepted by society and who will accept the rules of society. According to Hitchcock (2007), Victor Frankenstein represents Mary Shelley’s husband Percy, who left his legal wife and two children. She defines Percy’s behaviour as “passion” (p. 17) which he had for “Mary, liberty, poetry, atheism” (p. 17) that surely “meant more to him than his responsibility for an estranged and earthly family” (p. 17).

The moment, when Victor Frankenstein abandons his creature without bringing him up, is very significant for Mary Shelley who was interested in the theory of education, as Chris Baldick (1987) says in his writing. In his opinion, Mary Shelley’s interest in education had arisen from her mother ̓s writings, where Mary Wollstonecraft stressed the importance of the influence of education on character at a very early age. (p. 38) On the contrary to this statement, Victor leaves the monster alone without any help, companionship, family and love, so the moment when Shelley highlights Victor’s egoism as a source of his enthusiasm as well as the lack of Victor ̓s responsibility, it is certainly the most important moment not only in the monster’s life, but also in that of Victor and for the whole story. There are at least two arguments regarding Victor’s decision to abandon the monster with the view of a silent life from a secure distance as short-sighted. Firstly, to make sure the monster will not endanger mankind, Victor was supposed to destroy his own creature as the sole possible solution to stop evil. Secondly, the only person that was in danger of the monster became the monster’s only victim and that was Victor himself. Victor becomes a target of the monster’s punishment although the creature bereaves a few of Victor’s relatives: Victor gets in the position of a victim because of his own selfishness since he knows about the evil happening to his family. However, he is more worried about other people’s reactions than about his relatives’ lives. “How they would, each and all, abhor me, and hunt me from the world, did they know my unhallowed acts and the crimes which had their source in me” (Shelley, 2012, p. 191). Victor Frankenstein suffers the consequences of his experiment, so his father considers it “as the offspring of delirium” (p. 191), claiming: “Justine, poor unhappy Justine, [...], she died for it; and I am the cause of this – I murdered her. William, Justine, and Henry – they all died by my hands” (p. 191). At this moment, Victor has to be considered to be a monster, as mentioned above since he knew the monster would kill Elizabeth on their wedding night. Victor could abandon his engagement to Elizabeth, however, he insisted on the marriage. Baldick (1987) argues that both, Victor’s father and Elizabeth, knew Victor wanted to cancel the engagement because of another bond from Ingolstadt, but he did not. The author also claims that Victor became Elizabeth’s assassin in the moment he destroyed the female monster, so Victor seems to be the true murderer. Baldick (1987) goes much deeper portraying Elizabeth’s death as a result of Victor’s fear of sexuality and calls it a single ͑ complex ͗: “if we remember that the creation of the monster is an attempt to create life without encountering female sexuality, we begin to see how this connection might work” (p. 49).

Summarizing all the impacts, Victor realises that nobody would believe him and there is also nobody to talk to because of the suspicion he is mad.

I avoided explanation, and maintained a continual silence concerning the wretch I had created. I had a persuasion that I should be supposed mad; and this in itself would forever have chained my tongue. [...] I could offer no explanation of them; but their truth in part relieved the burden of my mysterious woe. (Shelley, 2012, p. 192)

Victor seemingly tries to excuse his acts when he says: “A thousand times would I have shed my own blood, drop by drop, to have saved their lives; but I could not, my father, indeed I could not sacrifice the whole human race” (Shelley, 2012, p. 192). There is no reason to feel sympathy for Victor and to trust his regret; he did not have to invent an artificial life, he was given several opportunities to stop the monster instead of behaving cowardly.

After Elizabeth’s death, Victor’s attitude towards the monster changes and he starts blaming his monster for the responsibility for the death of his brother William, his friend Henry, his wife Elizabeth as well as for his father’s death.

By the sacred earth on which I kneel, by the shades that wander near me, by the deep and eternal grief that I feel, I swear; and by thee, O Night, and the spirits that preside over thee, to pursue the daemon, who caused this misery, until he or I shall perish in moral conflict. [...] Let the cursed and hellish monster drink deep of agony; let him feel the despair that now torments me. (Shelley, 2012, p. 209)

Regarding the words “the daemon, who caused the misery,” the reader has to validate Victor’s attitude to the incident because it is he who came up with the idea of an artificial man, so without his experiment there would be no monster. It is undisputable that a moral conflict between Victor and the monster is unavoidable but it is a matter of apprehension to decide who is the most dangerous in this conflict. Victor is the author of the idea and also of the final product. He has made a creature and on the basis of this fact Victor should be considered to be more dangerous for society than the monster. However, Victor Frankenstein does not put forward a hero crowned by fame and honour, but on the contrary, he inspires the reader’s sorrow for his inability to make proper decisions and also for his failure to oppose consequences; but above all, his position of an enthusiastic scientist evidently makes him a monster in a human form.

Victor Frankenstein is a perfect example of supporting the idea that everybody ultimately pays for his mistakes. In fact, Victor has been chastened for his monstrosity that was nodding in his heart and after some time when he starts studying a lot of resources to support his aims and self-confidence, the monstrosity breaks out in the form of his enthusiasm that destroys everything around him. Victor crosses the borders of the laws of nature and puts himself in the position of God who was allowed to create a human being and also to bring him to life according to Christian doctrine. To sum up the composition of Victor Frankenstein, Chris Baldick’s (1987) study of Frankenstein offers us three possible interpretations; it is a moral fable where Victor tries to “play God or usurp divine powers” (p. 43), or where Victor does not want “to rival God” (p. 43) but he wants “to be useful to humanity by eliminating disease, and all he creates is a single living creature” (p. 43). In fact, Victor Frankenstein avidly creates a monster that was intended to become his masterpiece but his invention has become the source of his misery that has broken “his spirit” (Shelley, 2012, p. 18). As Chris Baldick (1987) summarises; Victor becomes a slave of his own desire. (p. 48) Paul Cantor (1984) comes to the conclusion that “human creativity appears to be dangerous because it is unpredictable and uncontrollable in its results” (p. 238).

References:

Bc. Žaneta Skalošová, Monster and Monstrosity in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Diploma Thesis, 2015

Dhruv Purabiya, Monster’s Humanity in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley