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The Reason for the Nameless Monster Mary Shelleys Frankenstein contains an interesting blend of writing styles and genres. Its complexity becomes extremely apparent when one attempts to classify this novel. This is due to the numerous content of which Frankenstein includes. Frankenstein is a novel composed in the eighteenth century and has often been considered by critics as a phenomenon of popular culture (Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley. 15). Some aspects of this novel include gothic fiction, science fiction, and fantasies of all kinds.
There are also many elements of romance including components of lust. For example, the question exists whether the sexy villain would rather rape or murder the heroine. The gothic elements include Victor's interest is the supernatural and his use of science, particularly chemistry to support this. Shelley also uniquely used double fiction in her novel. This a technique that links two characters together as essentially the same character. Mary Shelleys Frankenstein is a difficult book to classify but there are some specific genres that appear in it such as Gothic Fiction, Romanticism, and the theory of doubles.
In the dramatic story, Frankenstein, one mans search for the creation of a human being is depicted. This book, by Mary Shelly, is a Gothic story whose primary characters are all male and there is no central protagonist. However, it may be considered a feminine novel, for there are many subtexts in the story of Frankenstein that have to do with reproducing human life, and giving birth. Frankenstein is a very much a novel about giving birth. As Anne Miller writes, By stealing the females control over reproduction, Frankenstein has eliminated the females primary biological function and source of cultural power (Mellor 274). According to Mellor, only a female gives birth, but Frankenstein, the male scientist is trying to change this by playing with the order of nature.
He wants to give birth in the same way that women do, and thus, change the role of the female in nature. He fears what women can do by giving birth to a child and wishes to change this to control nature and triumph over it. His entire objective is focused on one single event; the birth of the child. As we analyze the themes that confront Victor in this story we look at trust, conflict, commitment and choice in the way the decision making process is done.
The story challenges the traditional ways of life, the bond of love and hate between creator and creation. Frankenstein would thus become the novel that most accurately represents the condition of both men and women. The monsters tragedy is his confinement to the intensities of a one-to-one relationship with his maker, and his separation from other relations. Victor Frankenstein, who has spent two long years laboring in Ingolstadt to create this scientific marvel known only as the monster, wrongly assumes that his creation is pure evil.
Frankenstein reaches this conclusion without even allowing the monster to demonstrate his kind heart. Eventually, the monster goes on a mass killing spree because of Victors detrimental psychological neglect. Victors neglect is caused by his hatred of anyone who is unlike himself. Victor also disregards the monsters right to a true name, only referring to him using despicable names, such as wretch, thing, and catastrophe.
Thus, the monsters humane qualities, including compassion, loyalty, and intelligence contrast to the wretched traits of his creator, making the horrible references much more suitable for Victor. Unlike Victor, the monster shows great compassion despite his appalling appearance. For instance, he demonstrates his love for others during his time spent observing Felix and Agatha while in the village. He wishes to return to the cottagers, whose story excited in [him] such various feelings of indignation, delight, and wonder, but which all terminated in additional love and reverence for [his] protectors (106) Even though the monster had never actually met the De Lacey family, his ability to feel compassion is proven through his love of them only for their wonderful hearts and kind actions. In doing this, he shows more love for a family of strangers than Victor could ever have for his own family.
He also demonstrates unconditional love for these protectors by not killing Felix during their fight. On the contrary, Victor shows a lack of compassion for his creation after the monster requested a female companion. In response to the monsters patient, rational inquiry, Victor exclaims, Shall I create another like yourself, whose joint wickedness might desolate the world. Begone! (130) In this senseless refusal of a sincere request, Victor proves once and for all that his true feelings for the monster are those of unjustified hatred and scorn. He has no basis for these feelings other than that of his undying prejudice against the monster.
As a result of the opposing emotions illustrated by maker and creation, both are in constant conflict with each other and therefore can never live in harmony. Thus, the monster is very much unlike Frankenstein, the true wretch. Shelley did not give any particular name to her monster. In the book he is not a father, sister, son, or brother. Mary Shelley once commented on that, This nameless mode of naming the unnameable is rather good. She admitted that name has a tremendous powerful effect on her, often meaning everything.
This effect she communicated in Frankenstein, where the names themselves have a huge meaning. For instance, Felix means happiness, and Agatha represents goodness, while Sophie represents wisdom. The monster is left asking, What is I? . note, that he says not who but what? This symbolizes that the whole existence of him is undefined, and he has no role in the society where he was produced and tried to attach himself to. Although he has committed a few heinous crimes, the monster feels extremely sincere feelings of regret towards his sins.
When looking back on his rash actions, he proclaims, But it is true that I am a wretch. I have murdered the lovely and helpless; I have strangled the innocent as they slept and grasped to death his throat who never injured me or any other living thing. (204) In making this bold realization, the monster confirms that he is truly regretful for what he has brought about. Furthermore, he recognizes that not one of his victims has had the slightest inclination to harm him or any other being. While the monster demonstrates guilty emotions for his crimes, Victor instead feels anger toward his creation and does not take any responsibility nor demonstrates guilt for the deaths of his loved ones. Frankenstein instead lays all blame on the monster for the murders and seeks only revenge, not forgiveness.
My revenge is of no moment to you; yet, while I allow it to be a vice, I confess that it is the devouring and only passion I have but one resource, and I devote myself, either in my life or death, to his destruction. (184) By dedicating the remainder of his existence to the annihilation of his own creation while in turn neglecting his responsibility to be with his family in this time of despair, Frankenstein dishonors the victims of his own negligence. Although Victor is right in believing that the monster was immoral in committing the murders, he fails to take his rightful share of the blame in the deaths of those close to him. The absence of remorse in Victors actions and the constant pleas for forgiveness given by the monster further verify Victors evil ways and the pure heart possessed by his creation. Yet another example of the monsters humane qualities is his superior intellect and extraordinary level of self-awareness. In fact, he knows more about himself than Victor, who had studied the monsters features for years in order to create him. The monster teaches himself to hunt, read, and communicate without the proper maturation process, which Victor should have supplied in the first place.
This reading puzzled me extremely at first, but by degrees I discovered that he uttered many of the same sounds when he read as when he talked. I conjectured, therefore, that he found on the paper signs for speech which he understood (98) While observing De Lacey, the monster uses his powers of induction in order to teach himself to read and speak entirely from scratch. It also becomes apparent that he has gained a superior understanding of written and spoken communication skills. Because he has shown his proficiency in mastering the French language, it becomes apparent that the monster is in possession of an intellect much more advanced than that of Victor. Mary Shelly's book is interesting, powerful and feminist in its motif of revulsion against new-born life, and the drama of guilt, and flight surrounding birth and its consequences. She presents Frankenstein as having distinguishable traits of a womans mind on the subject of birth because its emphasis is set upon what is before birth, but what follows it as well as the worries and traumas of the after birth.
These traumas, are traumas that the monster simply acts out by Frankenstein murdering his family, so the monster literally murders Frankenstein's domestic relationships. The creation that contains both a quest for the origins of life and the bond of love and hate between creator and creation has according to Mary Shelleys Frankenstein, a motherly role. Victor Frankenstein follows the three main interaction patterns with many individual characteristics, mostly ambition, stress and very high levels of need. He wanted the pride of being the first man to accomplish the birth or construction of a human being. In the end he dies from his fantasy. He was intoxicated with the so-called greatness of wanting to be a mother and giving birth to a child.
Bibliography: 1. Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein, The Modern Prometheus (the 1818 version). Edited by D. L.
Macdonald & Kathleen Scheme. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 1998. 2. Mellor, Anne K. Possessing Nature: The Female in Frankenstein. Frankenstein. By Mary Shelley.
New York: W. W. Norton and Co. , 1996. 274 - 286. 3. Top, Martin. Mary Shelleys Monster. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1976.
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