Masaryk University

Faculty of Education

Department of English Language and Literature

Monster and Monstrosity in Mary Shelley’s

Frankenstein

Diploma Thesis

Brno 2015

Written by: Bc. Žaneta Skalošová

Supervisor: Mgr. Lucie Podroužková, Ph.D.

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Bibliografický záznam

Skalošová, Žaneta. Monster and Monstrosity in Mary Shelley s Frankenstein. Brno:

Masarykova univerzita, Fakulta pedagogická, Katedra anglického jazyka a literatury,

2015. Vedoucí diplomové práce Mgr, Lucie Podroužková, Ph.D.

Abstract

The diploma thesis Monster and Monstrosity in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein attempts

to determine the concept and the identity of the monster in the novel Frankenstein. The

thesis is divided into two main parts. The first part discusses various interpretations of

the monster in literary history and also deals with several features defining monstrosity

such as murder, fear, threat, hatred, misery and sorrow. The second part of the thesis

defines what kind of monstrosity is represented by the characters and the author in this

novel, as well as how their role is put forward in this writing. The analysis also

concentrates on the matter of love as well as the absence of love in connection with the

monster. Throughout the thesis evidence of some real events during Mary Shelley’s

time is provided. The thesis mainly focusses on extracts from Mary Shelley s

Frankenstein to support the statements and ideas of the author of this thesis, however,

highly important quotations from secondary sources are also included.

Key words: monster, creature, giant, daemon, murder, science, non- human,

experiment

Anotace

Diplomová práce Monster and Monstrosity in Mary Shelley s Frankenstein se zabývá

strukturou a definicí monstra v románu Frankenstein. Práce se skládá ze dvou hlavních

částí. První část se zaměřuje na různá pojetí monstra v literatuře, jakož i na definici a

aspekty slova monstróznost, jako jsou vražda, strach, hrozba, nenávist, bída a zármutek.

Druhá část se zaměřuje na výklad slova monstróznost v souvislosti s hlavními

postavami a autorkou románu, a především na jejich roli v tomto románu. Práce se

rovněž zaměřuje na pojetí lásky a nedostatek lásky v souvislosti s monstrem.

Diplomová práce nám také zprostředkovává důležité události z života Mary Shelley.

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Podstatná část práce je založena na citacích románu Frankenstein, které doplňují

myšlenky autorky této práce, ale zároveň i na citacích sekundárních zdrojů.

Klíčová slova: monstrum, stvůra, obr, démon, vražda, věda, nelidský, pokus

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Prohlášení

Prohlašuji, že jsem diplomovou práci vypracovala samostatně a uvedla v ní

předepsaným způsobem všechnu použitou literaturu.

Declaration

I hereby declare that the diploma thesis is my own work and that I only used sources

listed in the list of references.

Brno, 30. 11. 2015

………………………………………….

Bc. Žaneta Skalošová

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Acknowledgements

I would like to express my gratitude to Mgr. Lucie Podroužková, Ph.D. for her useful

comments and valuable advice.

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Contents

1 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 7

2 Monsters ......................................................................................................................... 9

2.1 Monstrosity ................................................................................................ 13

3 Frankenstein ................................................................................................................. 15

3.1 The Conception of the Monster ................................................................. 18

3.1.1 The Monster’s Monstrosity ................................................................ 23

3.1.2 The Monster’s Humanity ................................................................... 30

3.2 Victor Frankenstein’s Monstrosity ............................................................ 34

3.3 Mary Shelley’s Monstrosity ...................................................................... 45

4 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 54

5 Summary ...................................................................................................................... 57

6 List of sources .............................................................................................................. 58

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1 Introduction

The diploma thesis Monster and Monstrosity in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

will deal with a few elements of one of the best-selling books ever written by a woman,

the novel Frankenstein: or, the Modern Prometheus (first published 1818) by Mary

Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851).

Firstly, the thesis will deal with the definition of the word monster as well as the

concept of a monster and who exactly represents the monster in the novel Frankenstein.

It will try to depict the monster as the result of one man’s work that cannot find love so

it spreads evil. However, the thesis will also emphasise that the word monster not only

refers to the product of Victor Frankenstein’s work but also to Victor himself. The study

will also show the influence of the development in the field of science in Mary

Shelley’s Frankenstein.

Secondly, another point that will be discussed in the thesis is the meaning of the

words monstrous and monstrosity. The aim of this study is to define what kind of

monstrosity is represented by the characters in Mary Shelley’s novel, as well how their

role is put forward in the novel. Although both of the above-mentioned words are

mostly connected with negative attributes of people and things, the thesis will also shed

a positive light on Mary Shelley’s style of writing.

In regard to the aims of the thesis, it will deal with the techniques used by Mary

Shelley in her design of the main characters. It is important to point out that the novel

Frankenstein is considered to be written in the Gothic novel style. The novel certainly

uses the features of Gothic writing that are full of danger, threat, sadness, unusual

locations, such as churchyard, and dealings with corpses and coffins that will also be

analysed. However, the definitions provided by different authors will invalidate such a

single-sided argument. Furthermore, the thesis will refer to the area of science and its

acceptance by society at that time as well as the author’s own life experiences.

Another feature in the novel that cannot be overlooked is the matter of love and

the monster’s longing for love expressed throughout the story that will be one of the

desired goals of this study. In connection with the monster, the study will reveal why

love is so important for him as well as what the lack of love can cause in a general

sense.

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The thesis will try to interpret a collection of ideas about what Mary Shelley

wanted to express in her novel when using the monster as the main character as well as

what the reasons were behind the monster’s behaviour. In particular, this thesis will try

to ascertain if the story was merely a subject of fiction or if it was predominantly based

on real events of that time. Above all, it will attempt to show that a seemingly simple

monster story can be more than a fairy tale: it can be considered to provide evidence

regarding human relationships and principles.

Finally, the thesis will directly cite Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and those

works which will be relevant for the intended study, such as some more recent

secondary sources on monsters, monstrosities and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, her life

and work, providing information about science, medicine and the habits of society,

which will be summarised and evaluated throughout this thesis.

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2 Monsters

The aim of this part of the thesis is to define the word monster and provide an

overview of definitions by different authors in different periods. It will also focus on the

features that will be in connection with the novel Frankenstein.

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.

As suggested in Dana Bizuleanu’s (2015) essay “The Monster’s Myth: From

Ideology to Herta Müller’s Imaginary”, “the myth of the monster has been constantly

reformulated over centuries, especially due to causes leading to the emergence and

perception of what is monstrous” (p. 209). 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. The books about

dragons have been read to children, followed by “Polednice” at schools and ended with

films about Frankenstein and Dracula.

According to John Eppard’s book Monsters published in 2013, designed as a

book for children, “monsters have existed in myths, legends, and folktales for thousands

of years. While most people accept that monsters are not real, many insist that they

exist. Some even claim to have encountered them” (p. 4).

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. As Sue L. Hamilton depicts in her writing

Monsters published in 2007, “as people began to explore the world around them, the

unknown held both excitement and fear. […] Mariners returned from ports unknown

with tales of giant sea monsters” (p. 4). Such monster stories have naturally become a

part of a cultural tradition and folklore, transmitted through word of mouth and recorded

at a later date. The same idea is reminded to us by Hamilton (2007), considering that

“stories of never-before-seen creatures were often exaggerated, turning the animals into

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monsters of folklore and legend” (p. 4). On the other hand, many monsters have

purposely been invented by authors, such as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. However,

“as the centuries passed, scientific knowledge and understanding brought answers to

many of the questions surrounding unknown creatures,” as provided by Hamilton (2007,

p. 4).

Francesco Tonelli’s essay (2012) “Monsters of yesterday and today: from the

myth to the hybrids and cybrids” comes with an overview of the etymology of the word

monster. He refers to the Latin origin of the word that meant to show (monstrare) and

to warm (monere). The author reminds us that the word was later used in a different

meaning to describe “any dreadful or mysterious event, thing or person” (p. 121).

According to this statement, the monster can be regarded as “an unknown or imaginary

animal, often described in poems or mythological stories, as mermaids, sphinx, griffons,

harpies, centaurs and hags, all with metaphorical and symbolic significance” (p. 121), as

Tonelli (2012) suggests.

Another classification of monsters is presented by Cosmin Perta’s (2014) writing

“Pursuing a Subtle Monster in Philip K. Dick s Ubik”. He cites Ambroise Paré’s

division from the 16th

century of monsters consisting of marine, volatile, terrestrial and

celestial monsters. According to Perta (2014), Paré defined the reason why monsters

were born, as in the following statement:

God’s glory, God’s wrath, too high a quantity of man seed, too low a quantity of man

seed, imagination, too small a uterus, indecent actions of the mother during the

pregnancy, genetic or accidental diseases, degenerate man seed, mixture of man seeds,

daemons and devils. (as cited in Perta, 2014, p. 277)

The definition provides an explanation that a monster comes into 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. As suggested by Tonelli (2012), one of the features

that were very important for society in the Middle Ages were moral values, in particular

characterized by a complete obedience to authorities and to the Church. Therefore, in

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the Middle Ages, the monster expressed the principles of Christianity represented by

asceticism. The cathedrals were decorated by “snakes with two heads, or men with the

head of an animal” (p. 121), as presented by Tonelli (2012). He claims that “for the

candid eyes of the believers real and imaginary experiences got mixed up with no

distinction between true and fantastic animals, giving to each of them a precise

symbolic or moral value” (p. 121). The author introduces the idea of the development of

a medieval monster based on a mixture of “material from humans and different

animals” (p. 121) and the result of that process is defined as hybrid. (p. 121) On account

of the previous definition, the relationship between the structure of a medieval monster

and of Mary Shelley’s monster can be deduced.

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. In Mary Shelley’s case, the

novel has also been a criticism of her relatives, as will be explained in another part of

the thesis.

Going back to the typology of monsters in connection with the symbols they

have to incorporate, Chris Baldick (1987) presents a theory in his work In

Frankenstein’s Shadow. Myth, Monstrosity, and Nineteenth-century Writing. In his

opinion, nowadays, the term monster symbolises “something frighteningly unnatural or

of huge dimensions” (p. 10). He follows the definition of a monster corresponding to

the meaning of this word in the nineteenth century and states that “the word carries

further connotations essential of the development of the Frankenstein myth, the essence

of which is that they are not physiological but moral in their reference” (p. 10). As to

this point of view, the importance of the monster in Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein

is a criticism of society through the monster’s appearance but chiefly through his speech

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and deeds. He is not supposed to shock people because of his deformed and giant body,

but because of his reflection of the imperfect society.

Concerning the matter of moral value, Thomas Scott Cason (2015) introduces

his monster theory in the writing “Creature Features: Monstrosity and the Construction

of Human Identity in the Testament of Solomon”, where he points out:

Monsters do not exist outside of the spectrum of human identity but are in fact a

radicalized form of human identity. […] Monsters are like men in the sense that their

aim is to dominate others. […] Fittingly, it is this relentless hunger for hostility that

distinguishes monster from man. (p. 266)

The outcome of that definition is that the proof of the masculinity of the monster is his

domination, however, it is proof of the masculinity of Mary Shelley’s monster as well,

since the monster was assumed to be a male. However, the lack of hunger for hostility

makes him human, as Cason (2015) suggests.

The existence of a monster has usually been connected with evil, which

predominantly does not respect human laws and principles. The same idea is proposed

by David Gilmore (2003) in his work Monsters: Evil Beings, Mythical Beasts, and All

Manner of Imaginary Terrors, considering that monsters are horrible

exactly because they break the rules and do what humans can only imagine and dream

of. Since they observe no limits, respect no boundaries, and attack and kill without

compunction, monsters are also the spirit that says “yes” – to all that is forbidden. (p.

12)

Finally, a simple difference, although basic, should be mentioned. In general,

monsters consist of both good and evil creatures. Good monsters always defeat evil and

punish the injustice done to people and society while the bad ones are the

representatives of the wrong-doers’ negative attitudes and behaviour. Therefore, the

monsters are also to be considered as an educational means, especially in fairy tales, and

a warning against doing things that seem to break the rules, laws and traditions.

Nevertheless, the negative characters of the stories have to be destroyed in order to stop

their damning impact on people’s lives.

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2.1 Monstrosity

This part of the thesis will focus on some aspects of the words monstrosity and

monstrous but it will also introduce several authors’ definitions and ideas about what a

monstrosity is.

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.

According to Merriam Webster’s Dictionary, the word monstrosity defines “a

malformation of a plant or animal, something deviating from the normal, the quality or

state of being, an object of great and often frightening size, force, or complexity,” and

finally “an excessively bad or shocking example.” The on-line dictionary explains the

word monstrous as “extremely or unusually large, very wrong” and also “very ugly,

cruel, or vicious.” In accordance to these definitions, Merriam Webster’s classification

fits the description of the monster that is designed to be the target of this thesis

perfectly. As an example, Frankenstein’s monster incorporates all the points of the

definition; he comes to the world as a result of his creator’s experiment, deformed,

made of bones, with enormous strength as well as a huge frame and killing its creator’s

family members and friends. A detailed analysis of this will follow in another part of

the thesis.

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 that will be the

main target of this thesis.

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3 Frankenstein

It has been a general concensus that the history of the novel Frankenstein dates

back to 1816, when a group of representatives of the literary world, namely Lord Byron,

poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Polidori and Mary Godwin, spent some time together

in Geneva. To entertain themselves, they found interest in reading ghost stories. Susan

Tyler Hitchcock summarizes in her book Frankenstein: A Cultural History published in

2007 the atmosphere of the summer in Geneva: “Poetry and science, Gothic horror and

reanimation […] tingled in Geneva air that summer of 1816” (p. 34). To challenge the

atmosphere among the writers, Byron suggested that everybody could compose their

own ghost story, as the author claims. As a result of that invitation, Mary Shelley s

Frankenstein came to light and has become one of the most well-known novels all over

the world.

Concerning the classification of the novel Frankenstein, it is hard to say what

category the novel belongs to. Radu Florescu (1996) asks a question in his study In

search of Frankenstein as to whether the novel reflects the traits of a Gothic novel, a

moral tale, or it is a work of science fiction. He thinks that it is not so simple to classify

her extraordinary book and states:

Although the novel may play on some of the most archetypal obsessions of Western

man, it still belongs very much to its place and period. There is a slant, an angle of

vision to the work, that ties it firmly to the early nineteenth century, as does the tint of

its own particular melodrama. (p. 168)

In Florescu s (1996) opinion, the novel is not the most important writing of the

Romantic Age but “one of the most typical” (p. 168).

Following in the mood of the Romantic Movement, Shun-Liang Chao claims in

her study “Education as a Pharmakon in Mary Shelley s Frankenstein” published in

2010 that Mary Shelley is a representative of the Romantic Age because of the mention

of education that was typical of that time in many writings and that Shelley had

implemented in connection with Victor Frankenstein and her monster (p. 223). The

writer thinks that “Frankenstein is a kind of Bildungsroman1, or a novel of education, in

terms of the monster s development from ignorance to a solid understanding of the

human condition, from a natural state to a cultured one” (p. 224). Chao (2010) also

1 It has its origin in Germany; it is related to J. W. Goethe and his work Wilhelm Meister s Apprenticeship

in 1795-96.

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compares the monster s mind to a “tabula rasa”(p. 224) 2 to be written on by

observation and sensory experience” (p. 224). Included in the authors who claim the

novel Frankenstein is more a work of the Romantic period is Robert Olorenshaw, as

demonstrated in his essay “Narrating the Monster: From Mary Shelley to Bram Stoker”,

published in 1994. He suggest that the story is based on modern science, “or rather our

images of it” (p. 158). In his opinion, the interest in science in literature “shifted

radically towards the end of the eighteenth century” (p. 161), which can be seen in

Frankenstein as well. Olorenshaw (1994) admits there is a break with the Gothic listing

the means of thunderstorms and lightning, however, he also states that a new genre in

literature has appeared but it “has no name” (p. 159).

As far as the matter of the Gothic genre is concerned, there are elements of

Gothic novel writing throughout the story, such as secrecy, sadness, morbid elements,

murder, monstrosity and also the relationship of a monster and his creator. The novel

Frankenstein has been regarded to be a Gothic classic since it is a fantastical writing

about medical ambition, as Sara Wasson claims in her essay “Useful Darkness:

Intersections between Medical Humanities and Gothic Studies”, published in 2015:

“Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, for example, is a paradigmatic text of medical ambition

gone wrong” (p. 1), highlighting that medicine and the Gothic genre influenced each

other. Jackson Petsche also supports the idea that Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a

Gothic novel in his essay “An Already Alienated Animality: Frankenstein as a Gothic

Narrative of Carnivorism” published in 2014, chiefly because of the moment when

Victor s brother, William, fears the creature will kill and eat him. Petsche (2014) argues

that “William s reaction illustrates a symbolic confrontation with the horrors of

carnivorism” (p. 98). In contrast, Ronald Britton in his work “Mary Shelley s

Frankenstein: what made the Monster monstrous?”, published in 2015, about the novel

Frankenstein writes as about a new genre that turned “fashionable, superstitious, Gothic

novels into science fiction. […] Mary Shelley’s is not a Gothic novel; unlike them, it is

not a supernatural horror story: the creator s horror is the beginning of a natural

tragedy” (p. 8-9). Ronald Britton (2015) also highlights Mary Shelley’s experience of

childbirth and monster s mental development (p. 9). Another interpretation is that of

Chris Baldick (1987), whose writings claim that Shelley’s work is “a modern myth” (p.

1) because he finds such a story about an inventor and his creature an anomaly. From

2 John Locke s idea in his work Essay Concerning Human Understanding

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his point of view, Shelley’s Frankenstein is “a living myth because it contained more

fruitful possibilities in its story” (p. 3).

Secondly, regarding the novel Frankenstein and its structure, some specific

features have to be specified and assigned from the very beginning of this thesis. Firstly,

one of the most significant traits of this novel is the style of writing and the number of

first person narrators. Mary Shelley incorporates an epistolary form of writing in order

to accompany the story as well as to introduce the main story of the book. As previously

mentioned, the story of the book is narrated through the eyes of the three characters of

Shelley’s writing, namely captain Walton, who writes letters to his sister, Victor

Frankenstein, the scientist, and finally the monster, Victor s creation. Ronald Britton

(2015) views the structure of the novel Frankenstein as a “complex form” (p. 6) in his

study. In his opinion, Mary Shelley used the three characters because “she speaks for

them and they speak for her” (p. 7). Ronald Britton (2015) compares Robert Walton, the

adventurer, to an “old daydream character from her childhood years in Scotland” (p. 7).

Victor is supposed to be “the new Prometheus” (p. 7) representing Shelley, Byron and

William Lawrence, the professor of evolutionary anatomy. For Ronald Britton (2015),

the monster is Mary’s unconsciousness, “saying things she does not really know about

herself” (p. 7). As a matter of fact, the novel is predominantly told by Victor and the

monster, the main characters in the story. Both of them design the principle structure of

the plot, as Hitchcock (2007) claims in her study. “There could be no creature without a

creator – the myth requires them both” (p. 42).

Finally, some aspects that arise in the novel and simultaneously become the

main target of this thesis, are both the themes and the motifs, hidden in the story and

expressed through the monster s creation and the relationship to its inventor, Doctor

Frankenstein. It is obvious that due to the exploration of this relationship and their lives,

the novel asks for the responsibility of scientific experiments and its impacts on society,

reflects the current structure of society with its prejudices and imperfections, but also

highlights people s qualities such as love, longing for love, truth, bravery and

friendliness. The novel Frankenstein also represents an overview of the most significant

moments in Mary Shelley’s life that had become the main inspiration of her writing.

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3.1 The Conception of the Monster

The following chapter will try to analyse the concept of the main leading power

of the story, namely of Victor Frankenstein’s monster, from Mary Shelley’s and Victor

Frankenstein s point of view.

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).

Mary Shelley wanted her story to be similar to a ghostlike story and that is why

she needed a specific means for her own writing. Her monster is in some aspects

specific; it is not a ghost or another ethereal spirit but a man’s invention brought to life.

This monster is supposed to be unsightly and abhorrent, immediately evoking fear upon

first sight. To bring such a monster to life, Shelley requires her monster to have some

roots, so she employs Victor Frankenstein as another character in the story to make him

responsible for the monster s existence. Victor is a very young and unexperienced

scientist who “found so astonishing a power placed within his hands” (Shelley, 2012, p.

46), endowed with “the capacity of bestowing animation” (Shelley, 2012, p. 46).

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”

19

(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).

A point often overlooked and another key point to remember is the kind of diet

the monster lives on: surprisingly different from what the reader would expect of a

monster with a gigantic body. In many fairy tales, the giants usually eat people, so they

belong to carnivores or cannibals. However, the reader meets another kind of giant that

eats bread, cheese, milk and a variety of different berries in forests and never kills an

animal. “My food is not that of man; I do not destroy the lamb and the kid to glut my

appetite; acorns and berries afford me sufficient nourishment” (Shelley, 2012, p. 147).

From this viewpoint, Mary Shelley’s monster differs from creatures whose typical

features include cannibalism, as the main source of evil within the story, like in Jack

and the Beanstalk. Jackson Petsche (2014) highlights the fact that the monster is a

vegetarian as a significant moment for the narrative, particularly for the reason that the

monster was created of animal remains on the one hand, but of a human being s food on

the other. (p. 105, 106)

The fact that Victor Frankenstein s creation, the ostensibly frightening monster , refuses

to destroy nonhuman animals for sustenance calls into question the very destructive

habits of a meat-eating society. […] Thus, Frankenstein s monster, as a commodity of

industrial animal food production that was not consumed but resurrected only to reject

the human practice of meat-eating, endangers the speciesist and carnivorist social order.

(Petsche, 2014, p. 99)

The fact the monster rejects the principle of carnivorism is seen by Petsche (2014) to be

one of the reasons for his alienation, and “a rejection of the speciest treatment of

nonhuman animals but a challenge to the human-animal binary that underscores human-

animal relations to begin with” (p. 105). The author comes to the conclusion that

Victor’s monster is a creature because instead of being eaten he was brought back to life

(p. 107).

20

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.

The origin of the monster evokes the stadia of an experiment, when the scientist

studies all significant resources, collects specific materials, prepares the laboratory,

verifies its accuracy and finishes his intention. Victor Frankenstein purposely uses large

parts of human bodies, “as the minuteness of the parts formed a great hindrance to my

speed” (Shelley, 2012, p. 47), which is the most compelling evidence of the scientist’s

enthusiasm and the source of all further problems if there are hasty experiments

regardless of the consequences. As shown above, Victor stubbornly insists on his

decision “to make the being of a gigantic stature; that is to say, about eight feet in

height, and proportionally large” (Shelley, 2012, p. 47). It is obvious that Victor does

not think of the monster as of a man, so he does not see any problems concerning the

gigantic body in connection with the monster s appearance and his incorporation into

society, in so far that the monster is assumed to be a prototype hidden in a laboratory,

essentially to be at disposal for scientific aims.

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).

21

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

22

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

23

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.

3.1.1 The Monster’s Monstrosity

This chapter of the thesis will employ a few features to demonstrate and give

some evidence about the most important subject matter of monstrosity. The novel

detects characters that can be regarded as monstrous in connection to their behaviour,

but the most significant representative of the word monstrosity is namely the monster

itself since it, in particular, attracts the reader’s attention with its stature.

Mr Walton describes his first encounters with Victor Frankenstein who achingly

searches for someone that “fled” (Shelley, 2012, p. 17) from him. Victor talks about

someone who is supposed to be a “daemon” (Shelley, 2012, p. 18). From the moment

this sentence was uttered, the reader has to accept the fact the figure is a representative

of evil and will include all the negative features typical of such a character in many of

the narratives. Both of them, Mr Walton and Victor Frankenstein, express their fear and

attitude while labelling the monster a “being” (Shelley, 2012, p. 15) and a “daemon”

(Shelley, 2012, p. 18) and the reader feels that when following the lines of Mr Walton’s

letters to his sister. Although Victor calls the monster a daemon , he knows that there is

nothing demonic in connection with the structure of his monster; the creature “is not

24

literalilly a paid-up and fork-carrying member of that order” (p. 41), as Baldick (1987)

mentions.

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)

3 Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), Italian poet, the author of Divine Comedy.

25

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)

As Chris Baldick (1987) shows in his writing, the significant reason for the

monster’s loneliness is the fact that the monster was supposed to be a private project, so

the monster’s origin can be regarded entirely asocial, pointing out to his namelessness

as well. (p. 51)

26

Jackson Petsche (2014) sees the main reason for the monster’s exclusion from

society from the moment of his own birth, when Victor Frankenstein himself feels

frustrated seeing his eyes, which are yellow. The author claims that this is a highly

significant moment in the novel because Victor classifies the creature as an animal. In

his opinion, the monster’s eyes are similar to the eyes of an animal, so Victor regards

the monster to be non-human. “Thus, on the level, Victor appears disgusted by the

animality of his creation, and by the confrontation with that animality especially in the

form of its gaze” (p. 101). Petsche (2014) markedly diversifies between human nature,

represented by Victor’s eyes, described later by Walton, and the animality, depicting the

monster’s eyes. As a matter of fact, Petsche (2014) tries to define the origin of Victor’s

fear and abandonment and comes to the conclusion that it is “a reaction to the animal in

the human and the human in the animal. In fact, the only way Victor can distance

himself from the monster’s humanity is to identify him as monstrous” (p. 102).

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

27

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:

28

“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.

After having undergone terrible misery because of Victor’s irresponsibility, the

monster cannot understand how Victor, and people in general, can think of love and

pleasure when destroying another life. The monster feels injustice and the only idea of

satisfaction that comes to mind is to destroy Victor’s hopes of a happy life with his wife

Elizabeth. “I shall be with you on your wedding night” (Shelley, 2012, p. 197), are

regarded to be the most famous and monstrous words of the monster who promises

Victor that he will experience the most horrible seconds of his life, seeing his dead wife

in bed on their wedding night. According to Baldick’s (1987) interpretation, Elizabeth

gets in the position of the monster’s rival due to the monster s ties to Victor

Frankenstein, his father (p. 50).

The monster chases his creator, increases his sorrow and misery but also

challenges Victor’s animosity in order to encounter each other. “Prepare! Your toils

only begin; wrap yourself in furs, and provide food, for we shall soon enter upon a

journey where your sufferings will satisfy my everlasting hatred” (Shelley, 2012, p.

212). The main aim of the monster is to put pressure on Victor to experience the hard

conditions of his own life when inviting Victor to distant places of the world without

29

people. The monster seemingly tries to show Victor the consequences of his deeds as

well as the absurdity of Victor’s effort to destroy him. “My reign is not yet over - […] –

you live, and my power is complete. Follow me; I seek the everlasting ices of the north,

where you will feel the misery of cold and frost, to which I am impassive” (Shelley,

2012, p. 211). Inviting Victor Frankenstein to distant and uninhabited places, the

monster demonstrates what quality of life the creator has prepared for his child. On the

other hand, the monster’s fate evokes the reader’s sorrow because the monster could not

choose between the life he was offered and another one full of happiness; he obviously

could not choose between good and evil. On the other hand, the monster is depicted as a

possible danger that cannot be controlled even by his creator, so the monster has to be

stopped.

After such a long hunt, Victor Frankenstein, depleted of all energy, asks Mr

Walton to finish his revenge in case Victor is killed. Victor gives reasons for his

decision to kill the monster, supporting the justice of such an action: “He is eloquent

and persuasive; and once his words had even power over my heart: but thrust him not.

His soul is as hellish as his form, full of treachery and fiendlike malice” (Shelley, 2012,

p. 215). Although Mr Walton gets into a situation where he can kill the monster, Shelley

visibly enables the creature to vindicate himself in front of the reader and to clarify the

purposes for the work he is not proud of. “When I run over the frightful catalogue of my

sins, I cannot believe that I am the same creature whose thoughts were once filled with

sublime and transcendent visions of the beauty and the majesty of goodness” (Shelley,

2012, p. 228). At this point, the monster confesses his monstrosity, however, he does

not blame anybody but he feels the responsibility for his freak-like actions. The monster

wants to ensure the reader that he was pure as a newborn child at the beginning of his

indigent life but having undergone a few vicissitudes, the monster finds out he has

turned to an evil being and “abortion” (Shelley, 2012, p. 228) that has to “be spurned

at, and kicked, and trampled on” (Shelley, 2012, p. 228).

Misery that has its roots in loneliness causes the monstrosity of the monster, in

other words Victor Frankenstein’s attitude causes loneliness and misery at the same

time, so the Doctor is the main source of the monster’s monstrosity.

30

3.1.2 The Monster’s Humanity

This chapter of the theses will argue that the monster’s humanity is manifested

through his longing for love. 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)

31

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

33

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

34

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.

3.2 Victor Frankenstein’s Monstrosity

The main aim of this part of the thesis is to outline the concept of the

monstrosity of one of the main characters of the novel, of Victor’s monstrosity,

analysing his personality, interests and his work. 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

35

study and would monitor his purposes as well as the lack of responsibility for his

actions 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)

36

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

37

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

38

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,

39

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

40

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” (p. 241).

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

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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

42

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,

43

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.

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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)

45

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).

3.3 Mary Shelley’s Monstrosity

In this chapter, the thesis will simultaneously introduce and analyse a few

features of Mary Shelley’s monstrosity in her writing as well as give examples for its

claims to support them and to show why the author can be regarded to be monstrous.

One should explain that the word monstrosity has mostly been bound to ugliness

and frightening examples; murder and dangerous situations while the word monstrous

suggests that a thing or event can be both, terrible but also colossal. As far as Shelley’s

novel Frankenstein is concerned, the aim of this part of the thesis will be to show that

both concepts of the words, monstrosity and monstrous, are hidden in the story.

Furthermore, the presence of a monster, the large number of victims as well as the tragic

end of the novel, all of these elements have been hidden in the story and have become

the matter of this chapter of the thesis that are to be analysed.

As many writers have mentioned in their writings, Mary Shelley was the only

child of two writers, of Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, both of whom were

authors. However, she never saw her mother because she died after Mary’s birth. As

many of the minor characters, Mary Shelley also became an orphan. Chris Baldick

(1987) depicts in his study In Frankenstein’s Shadow: Myth, Monstrosity and

Nineteenth-century Writing Shelley’s relationship with her mother as very significant

for her writings. “Her relationship with her mother had then to become a textual one, in

rather morbid ways: she took to reading her mother s works at her graveside, and it was

here that she kept her tryst with Percy Shelley prior to their elopement in 1814” (p. 31).

Mary tried to find out some information about her mother. Her father wanted to create a

family for Mary, so he remarried when she was four. In Mary’s opinion, her father

prepared “a hell on earth” (Briton, 2015, p. 4) for her, including her step-mother and

stepsiblings, especially her step-sister Claire Clairmont. Mary’s first child, a girl, died a

few days after her birth; her second child, a son, got the name William after her father

which was the planned name for Mary as well, Mary gave the same name to Victor

Frankenstein’s youngest brother. Mary’s fiancé, Percy Shelley, abandoned his wife

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Harriett when she was pregnant for the second time. These conditions are regarded by

Ronald Britton (2015) as “background facts” (p. 4) to Mary Shelley’s nightmare.

As a matter of fact, Mary Shelley’s monstrosity or the monstrosity of the novel

undoubtedly arose from the author s technique of writing. Ronald Britton (2015)

describes Shelley’s method based on a beginning and an invention, created “out of

chaos” (p. 3). In Britton’s (2015) opinion, Shelley says that “the unconscious has to

provide the raw material for invention to shape a story. […] And I suggest that Mary’s

daydream of scientific experiment opened a door to unconscious phantasies of a

dreadful scene of childbirth” (p. 3). Ronald Britton (2015) follows his analysis

submitting it was not a daydream but “a night terror; a sleep-induced visual

hallucination that persists on waking” (p. 3). He tries to retell her dreams to portray the

basis of the novel:

Then she saw the artist rush away from his odious handy work, and she describes how

he hoped that sleep might abolish his horror and the silence of the grave abolish the

hideous, animated corpse. But when he opens his eyes, behold the horrid thing stands at

his bedside opening his curtains and looking at him with yellow, watery but expectant

eyes. She opened hers with terror at this point but could not rid herself of her phantom.

(Britton, 2015, p. 3)

Ronald Britton simply comes to the conclusion that if there was an idea that terrified

Shelley so it will also frighten the others (p. 3). Therefore Mary Shelley decided to

transform her “night terror” into a novel (p. 3).

Mary Shelley should be considered to be a master of writing regarding the use of

contrasting positive and negative expressions to underline the frightfulness within the

story and also the ability to incorporate ghostlike but very appealing narrative which can

be classified as one of the main reasons for the great success of the novel, which has

been printed and has become a basis for many film interpretations, but also from the

fellowship which she was a member of at that time. However, not only these aspects

contributed to the whole novel, like the surrounding and Shelley’s companionship, but

also the author s interest in tales and her excitement about their imitation, as

demonstrated in many studies about Mary Shelley.

Considering Mary Shelley’s monstrosity, it is obvious that she decided to write a

shocking as well as monstrous story to reflect some of the new aspects and events

influencing people s lifestyles, including discoveries in distant places of the world and

47

the use of new scientific advances. As Susan Tyler Hitchcock (2007) mentions, “early-

nineteenth-century advances in science opened up realms of thought as fantastic as any

coming from the imagination of a poet. In fact, to some, philosophy, poetry, and science

converged to promise revolutionary changes in human knowledge and worldview” (p.

32). She states that the highly significant moments for Mary Shelley’s writing were

Darwin’s theory of evolution that asks about the origins of life itself, and Luigi

Galvani’s experiment that “tested the effect of electrical current on the bodies of

animals” (p. 32), claiming that “electricity motivated living nerve and muscle” (p. 33).

It stands to reason that the definition of the word monstrous predominantly

represents the negative features of an object, a person, behaviour and also style, while it

similarly expresses that the subject matter can be supposed to be gigantic but also

unique, as mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, which Shelley’s Frankenstein

undoubtedly is. Mary Shelley not only implemented a hideous narration with

supernatural effects but she plainly highlighted eternal conflicts between good and evil,

use the positive as well as the negative means of language, allowed the fantasy to

accompany the reality, even included a large number of characters and victims whose

lives and fatality the readers encounter.

Regarding the main theme of the novel, Mary Shelley’s Frankestein does not

reflect any traces of monstrosity of Gothic writing based on the depiction of evil and

darkness from the very beginning, so the reader does not expect to read about one man’s

responsibility for mankind, about God, death nor murder. Shelley seemingly starts her

novel like Mr Walton’s epistolary book devoted to his sister Margaret; full of fantasy

that invites the reader on a potentially exciting trip to “a land surpassing in wonders and

in beauty every region hitherto discovered on the habitable globe. There, Margaret, the

sun is for ever visible, its broad disk just skirting the horizon, and diffusing a perpetual

splendour” (Shelley, 2012, p. 5). Following the other lines of the first letter, the author

expresses a lot of enthusiasm through Mr Walton’s words about the planned expedition

to distant parts of the earth, claiming it will be “the inestimable benefit” (Shelley, p. 6)

for “all the mankind to the last generation” (Shelley, p. 6). Shelley, like Mr Walton, is a

young dreamer who expresses her feelings, using a poetic and also romantic style of

writing, as well as a positive way of thinking and dreaming on the one hand, while on

the other hand she longs for knowledge, education and also “observations, that require

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only this voyage to render their seeming eccentricities consistent for ever” (Shelley, p.

6), as Mr Walton does.

This style of writing, presenting the author’s romantic as well as practical

thinking, is visible throughout the novel and can be regarded as a form of the author’s

inner fight as well as a contrast to the main but the most appalling plot of the story, to

weaken such hideous elements of the story and emphasising that she did not only want

to bring about “a series of supernatural terrors.” On the one hand, the author lets the

main characters live in their hopes about a fulfilment of their dreams, however, on the

other hand the author allows them to get into dangerous situations of “floating sheets of

ice” (Shelley, 2012, p. 13), “stiff gales” (Shelley, 2012, p. 13) and “the springing of a

leak” (Shelley, 2012, p. 13).

One of the most important moments for the genesis of this story, as mentioned

above, was the fact that Mary Shelley became a member of a group of erudite writers

who found an interest in telling ghost stories as well as portraying the atmosphere of

that time which they were experiencing. Jennifer Breen (1996) cites Mary Shelley’s

feelings in her study Women Romantics 1785-1832: Writing in Prose: “The thunder

storms that visit us are grander and more terrific than I have ever seen before” (p. 218).

Percy Bysshe Shelley highlights the atmosphere when “the season was cold and rainy,

and in the evenings we crowded around a blazing wood fire, and occasionally amused

ourselves with some German stories of ghosts which happened to fall into our hands,”

and the region “where the scene is principally laid” (Shelley, 2012, p. II), and which

they all spent some time in, as two of the main factors for the birth of this novel in the

Preface of this book. “She listened to a discussion between Byron and Shelley on the

basis of life and the hints of reanimation that galvanism had given by producing

movement in corpses” (Britton, 2015, p. 3).

Percy Bysshe Shelley particularly emphasises that the tales contributed to the

origin of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein because they “excited in us a playful desire of

imitation” (Shelley, 2012, p. II). However, in the Preface of the novel Frankenstein,

some doubts about the impossibility of the existence of such a fiction in the first three

lines are expressed, reflecting the reality of everyday life influenced by the

developments in science at that time. “The event on which this fiction is founded, has

been supposed, by Dr Darwin, and some of the physiological writers of Germany, as not

of impossible occurrence” (Shelley, 2012, p. I). In fact, Mary Shelley claims, it was “a

49

work of fancy […] according the remotest degree of serious faith to such an

imagination” (Shelley, 2012, p. I), supporting her aim, but she also incorporated some

aspects from the field of science in her novel that surely have their roots in that time.

As far as the matter of copying a tale is concerned, Mary Shelley simultaneously

implemented a monster as the main agent of the story and as a means of fiction, which

is typical of tales, intertwined with supernatural forces. Radu Florescu (1996) searches

for the answer to what the pattern for such a kind of monster was and he points out to

Mary Shelley’s own experiences. The idea of an artificial man could come to Shelley’s

mind after the death of her first baby, a daughter, “whom Mary later dreamt came back

to life” (p. 181). Florescu (1996) also states that there are other critics who link the

monster together with her step-sister Claire, “the bane of her life since she was three

years old, who constantly cohabited with Mary and Shelley, pursued her, never gave her

peace and, like the monster, was present on her wedding night” (p. 180).

Shelley implements the monster in the story as a sheer fact that it is here and she

slowly and retroactively explains the origin of its occurrence and the reasons for the

creature s behaviour. The monster mainly represents a negative element throughout the

story, especially because of its ugly appearance. Mary Shelley also lets it decide about

the people’s lives himself when he usually causes the death of the opponent’s dearest

friends and relatives.

In the same fashion, the writer significantly includes gloomy scenes in order to

enhance the drama of the novel so that she leads the reader to the churchyards for the

purpose of seeing the bare substantiality of a body decline, “deprived of life, which,

from being the seat of beauty and strength, had become food for the worm” (Shelley,

2012, p. 45). As an illustration, Shelley (2012) describes “a natural decay and

corruption of the human body” (p. 44) when depicting the life of a worm that “inherited

the wonders of the eye and brain” (p. 45), to clarify the mortality of a human being and

his/her importance after death.

Despite the fact the novel Frankenstein is supposed to shock the reader with its

monstrosity and murder, Mary Shelley certainly wrote a novel that is characteristic for

its longing for love and friends. However, this takes a long time to occur. The character

experiences an introduction to love as well as friendship, but after a short time the

author destroys their mutual hopes and also pleasures and abandons them. Neither

Victor, Mr Walton nor the man from Mr Walton s story about an arranged marriage, nor

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the monster have the chance to fulfil their dreams about love and a true relationship for

a longer period of their lives. Unhappiness and the feeling of isolation are spread

throughout the story, as Mr Walton commented:

But I have one want which I have never yet been able to satisfy; and the absence of the

object of which I now feel as a most severe evil. I have no friend, Margaret: When I am

glowing with the enthusiasm of success, there will be none to participate my joy; if I am

assailed by disappointment, no one will endeavour to sustain me in dejection. (Shelley,

2012, p. 9)

Both of the main characters, Victor Frankenstein and Mr Walton, have got some

close friends but there is nobody around them who understands them and is interested in

their business but also has the same aim to come up with new ways of thinking in the

field of science, so they are left alone with their dreams. In connection to dreams,

Shelley lets Victor suffer conditions of “madness” (Shelley, 2012, p. 19), “the paroxysm

of grief” (Shelley, 2012, p. 20) and “quelling the dark tyranny of despair” (Shelley,

2012, p. 20), he tries “the intoxicating draught” (Shelley, 2012, p. 19) and gets in the

position of “the slave of passion” (Shelley, 2012, p. 20).

Furthermore, another very important feature to discuss in the novel is the end

itself, particularly for the fact that the monster is the only one who survives the fight

against its creator Victor Frankenstein and, what is more, the author lets it alive. Mary

Shelley strongly expresses that it is impossible to overthrow the rules and the structure

of nature and also handle it as God, so therefore she does not hesitate to punish Victor

for his arrogance and to use him as a warning for the whole of mankind.

At the centre of Mary Shelley’s writing, a large number of victims within the

story have to be mentioned. It is obvious that the author demonstrates the reality that

there are certainly consequences to all the discoveries for the benefit of mankind, as Mr

Walton mentions: “One man’s life or death were but a small price to pay for the

acquirement of the knowledge which I sought for the dominion I should acquire and

transmit over the elemental foes for our race” (Shelley, 2012, p. 19). Through Mr

Walton’s speech Shelley consciously confesses the unavoidable amount of victims of all

the breaktroughts, nevertheless in the case of the novel Frankenstein the author prepares

a psychological terror for Doctor Frankenstein to punish him for his obsession which

led to the death of many people as a result of his recklessness towards society. Shelley

decided to strengthen the impact on the readers and prolongs Victor’s misery as long as

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possible. When the reader meets Victor for the first time, he is described as a survivor

whose “limbs were nearly frozen, and his body dreadfully emaciated by fatigue and

suffering” in a total “wretched condition. […] …his eyes have generally an expression

of wildness, and even madness” (Shelley, 2012, p. 16-17). The reader evidently

observes the author’s joy in life-threatening situations as one of the aspects of

monstrosity as well as in her detailed descriptions and the writer’s artistry to come up

with a colourful language, based mostly on negative equivalents to support the

intimidating plot of the story.

Mary Shelley purposely designs the misery of people, who are in connection to

the Frankenstein family, and many of them get into situations where they lose their

possessions, are left in uncertainty and also at risk of fatality as Mr Beaufort is, Victor’s

father’s friend. Under some circumstances, there does not seem to be any prevention of

such fatal situations and any other form of contiguous help to save the people and to

enable them a peaceful life. The author starts the history of the Frankenstein family

thanks to Beaufort’s death when his fatherless daughter becomes Mr Frankenstein’s

wife. So there can be two concepts of happiness of the family; the first one is based on

Caroline’s misery and the need to help her and the other approach is to find the reason

for Mr Frankenstein’s feeling of guilt.

Not only Caroline, but also the other victims suffer after effects of evil such as a

psychological breakdown, but also poverty or famine that Elizabeth, Victor’s adopted

sister, has experienced. Elizabeth, similarly to Caroline, gets involved with Victor’s

family by virtue of coincidence and simultaneously experiences the same fatality as

Caroline, because she had been abandoned without her closest relatives and in poor

conditions.

The author creates with different premises that lead to the fact the people suffer

an inescapable evil. However, in the end they die because it is a unique opportunity to

expand on the monstrosity of the story and to let the monster have the space to destruct

someone s life. Chris Baldick (1987) considers that the novel has been congested with

innocent characters who did not commit a crime. However, he emphasises Justine and

Victo’s injustice prepared by the monster. In Justine’s case the writer sees the crime as a

“fine art” (p. 53) He argues:

If the monster is denied the solace of a female companion, he can at least fabricate a

female partner-in-crime, with the help of the law s blindness. The Genevese court,

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indeed, is tricked into doing what Victor finally refuses to do for his creature: it makes a

female monster of Justine. ( Baldick, 1987, p. 53)

On the contrary, Mary Shelley portrays the monstrosity of society, referring to the

previous citation. The reader feels Shelley depicts the blindness of society as well as its

principles, indolence and the lack of interest in truth.

On the one hand, Shelley’s decision for the implementation of such a number of

victims can be considered as an obsession about such a kind of writing. On the other

hand she viewed the novel as her opportunity to incorporate one of her life experiences

and also the monstrosity of everyday life; when her mother died and she used this agony

and suffering to write this novel. Shelley lets Victor’s mother die but the reader feels the

author is more interested in this part of the story when she writes:

Yet from whom has not that rude hand rent away some dear connexion? And why

should I describe a sorrow which all have felt, and must feel? The time at length arrives

when grief is rather an indulgence than a necessity; and the smile that plays upon the

lips, although it may be deemed a sacrilege, is not banished. My mother was dead, but

we had still duties which we ought to perform; we must continue our course with the

rest, and learn to think ourselves fortunate, whilst one remains whom the spoiler had not

seized. (Shelley, 2012, p. 36)

Similarly to the author’s life, Victor has to accept the fact he cannot change the reality

that the people are dead as well as the fact he cannot bring them back to life the same as

Mary Shelley could not. The fact that people die and cannot come to life again is

undisputedly hard to accept and nobody has the power to change it. Respecting the

author s effort to include the sombre element of evil as a mainstream of her writing, the

reader comes to the conclusion that there has been a fight in the writer s heart that

allows her to subtilise the percussion of the maleficence. To minimize the impact of evil

in the story, Shelley offers a solution in the form of hope for the others and very often

the witnesses themselves not only have a lot of energy but also the chance of a better

future. They also support the others when giving advice and showing them how to live,

as Victor’s mother does when she talks to Elizabeth and Victor:

My children, […], my firmest hopes of future happiness were placed on the prospect of

your union. This expectation will now be the consolation of your father. Elizabeth, my

love, you must supply my place to my younger children. Alas! I regret then I am taken

from you; and, happy and beloved as I have been, it is not hard to quilt you all? But

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these are not thoughts befitting me; I will endeavour to resign myself cheerfully to

death, and will indulge a hope of meeting you in another world. (Shelley, p. 35-36)

At this point of the story, as the counterpart to the awfulness of the evil spread

throughout the story, the author seems to show her caring and female nature in a very

poetic way, portraying Victor mother’s face that “expressed affection even in death”

(Shelley, p. 36). The use of positive elements is proof that the author herself tries to put

up with her own situation and, on the other hand, she believes there must be something

on another world that allows us to meet our dearest friends and family who passed away

from our carnal world. Mary Shelley certainly used this part of her life as the basis of

the novel to cope with this fact and the only thing she could reasonably do was to write

about it, the same as Mr Walton does. “I shall commit my thoughts to paper, it is true;

but that is a poor medium for the communication of feeling” (Shelley, 2012, p. 9). It is

undisputable that this source of energy for such a kind of evil for Shelley’s story was

concealed somewhere in the author s inner-self and it is obvious that she managed to

include a few of her life experiences retroactively as well as effectively.

To summarize about Mary Shelley’s monstrosity, it is evident that the author

brought a highly significant work to life which incorporates a large number of features

connected with evil as well as topics considering the aforementioned problem of

monstrosity, but it is undisputed that depending on the readers fantasy there is no limit

to the other interpretations that can arise in one s mind. In Chris Baldick’s (1987)

opinion, the novel Frankenstein also became a monster for Mary Shelley:

She had unwittingly endowed it with quality even more monstrously ungovernable than

the deadly strength, size, and agility given to his creation by Frankenstein: an abundant

excess of meanings which the novel cannot stably accommodate, a surplus of

significance which overruns the enclosure of the novel’s form to attract new and

competing mythic revision. (p. 33)

Although the author herself claims that the story was primarily supposed to be

based on “casual conversation” ( Shelley, 2012, p. I) and “it was commenced partly as a

source of amusement, and partly as an expedient for exercising any untried resources of

mind” ( Shelley, 2012, p. I), the novel has generally left a distinctive dent in literature.

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4 Conclusion

The aim of the diploma thesis was to analyse the concept of the monster in the

novel Frankenstein written by Mary Shelley and to focus on the features in connection

with the themes of monstrosity that were the focal points of the thesis.

In the first part of the thesis an overview of the definitions has been provided,

considering the etymology of the word monster and monstrosity as well as their

meaning that has been constantly changing over the centuries. The study demonstrates

different ideas by different authors who regarded the monster as an interpreter of

unusual processes that became a part of folklore through the ages. The simplest

explanation was that the creature mainly expressed negative features and it usually came

to a fight between good and evil. Thanks to the development of the meaning of the word

monster, the creature turned into a hybrid; a combination of an animal and a human, and

it mostly reflected the state of society, with its problems and imperfections, as it is

represented in Mary Shelley s novel Frankenstein. The meaning of the word

monstrosity principally defines the shape of a body, with its deformation and huge

proportions, to spread fear but also to highlight the malformation of society and to warn

against its abnormality.

The main part of the thesis was designed to offer the interpretation of ideas by

the author of this thesis, based on the novel Frankenstein. The thesis chiefly focusses on

the structure of Mary Shelley s monster and it provides a large number of citations to

explain and highlight what has made the monster monstrous. An indisputable feature of

the monster’s monstrosity is his appearance, evoking fear from the first sight of it,

drawing attention to his large and deformed body. The thesis shows that the monster’s

birth reminds us of a process of scientific production with all the phases, including

research, the material components, laboratory work and finally accuracy in its

implementation. The monster’s body is a compilation of several identities, of human

and animal parts, which is where his namelessness arises from. The question that recurs

throughout the thesis is whether the monster is an animal or a human. After examining

all the sources and citations, the monster seems to be more than a human being yet he

refuses to become human. The monster thinks and uses his brain, which makes him

aware of all the imperfections in connection with human beings and society. He also

blames society for its insensibility, frivolity, recklessness and attitude towards the truth.

55

Another feature that strengthens the monster’s alienation is his diet, since he claims he

is vegetarian, pointing out to the fact that the people behave violently, killing animals

for their meat. The monster criticises the society without moral values, highlighting

property and perfection as a standard of life, where only the best can mingle and the

monster does not want to belong to such society. In connection to the monster, the thesis

also reveals the matter of love or the absence of love. Love is depicted as the main

emotion in a man’s life as well as the main source of good. The thesis explains that a

lack of love in the monster’s life predetermines him to become evil: he was born as

“Adam” and turned into “Satan”. Since he was abandoned early after his birth, he

experiences hate and prejudice, which influences his bad behaviour and negative

attitude towards people. All people are born good, however, it depends on chances that

the people are given which then go on to form their personalities.

The most significant person in the monster’s life and another item of the thesis is

his creator Victor Frankenstein, who is responsible for the monster’s misery and

sufferings. The thesis highlights that childhood is the most important period not only in

the monster’s life but also in Victor’s life. The roots of Victor’s fate and his background

lie in his childhood. Victor’s possessiveness, violent behaviour, irresponsibility,

daintiness, exaggerated enthusiasm and education contribute to his self-destruction.

Victor is portrayed as a young scientist who longs for fame and honour, dreaming about

epochal achievements and a man who does not worry notably about his family

members’ lives. Having created a monster, he dominates nature and God on the one

hand, but he does not think about humanity on the other hand. Victor is described as a

person regarding himself higher than non-humans when seeing “the yellow eyes” of the

monster.

The thesis regards Victor as a potential warning for mankind. He breaks the

image of the traditional family and introduces a new model based on a single-parent

family. However, he also provides evidence of a possible creation of human beings

without the necessity of a mother and other ideas such as vivisection and

transplantation.

Mary Shelley’s monstrosity mainly highlights her relationship with her family. It

reflects her unfulfilled love after her mother s death, the disharmony in her family after

her father’s second marriage as well as the absence of love. The thesis shows the

connection between the characters and her family members that she allows to die. It has

56

been a general concensus that Victor Frankenstein portrays her husband Percy B.

Shelley who abandoned his first wife and his two children. Another feature of Mary

Shelley’s monstrosity that the thesis demonstrates is her monstrous style that includes a

significant number of characters, copies the style of horror stories, uses oxymoronic

adjectives to underline the monstrosity in her novel and finally, she incorporates a

monster as the driving force of the story.

Finally, it has been symptomatic of the Gothic novel to deal with the scary topics

involving monsters, scenes in churchyards, dealing with corpses and many victims. As

far as the matter of the monster is concerned, the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

has been regarded to be a Gothic novel. It introduces the above-mentioned features of

this style of writing including fear, darkness, corpses and horror but also the matter of

carnivorism. However, because of the discourse about education and science, it

typically reflects the period of Romanticism. The definitions of the authors differ and

none of them claim that this is indisputably the case. The outcome of this discussion is

that Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a new kind of a novel.

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5 Summary

The aim of the diploma thesis is the analysis of the concept and the identity of

the monster in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. The thesis consists of two main parts, of a

theoretical and a practical. The Introduction as well as the part dealing with the concept

and the literary history of the monster is theoretical. The second part of the thesis

commenting on the kind of monstrosity and how the monstrosity is represented by the

characters and the author in this novel as well as how their role is put forward in this

writing is practical. The last part of the thesis is a conclusion summarising the main

targets of the diploma thesis. The diploma thesis mainly focusses on the highly

important citations from Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein and from secondary

sources at the same time, to support the statements and ideas of the author of this thesis.

Resumé

Hlavním cílem diplové práce je analýza struktury a pojetí monstra v románu

Frankenstein, který napsala Mary Shelley. Práce se skládá z dvou částí, teoretické a

praktické. Úvod a část zabývající se aspekty a pojetím monstra v literatuře jsou

teoretické. Části, které analyzují aspekty monstróznosti a jak je tato monstróznost

zachycena v souvislosti s jednotlivými postavami a také autorkou, jsou praktické.

Poslední částí je závěr, který shrnuje všechny dílčí cíle této práce. Diplomová práce je

především založena na citacích primární literatury, jakož i na sekundárních zdrojích,

které podporují a doplňují myšlenky autorky této práce.

58

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