That a man should hate oneself is a common phenomenon, which everyone experiences once in a while, because of people’s intrinsic flaws. These flaws ramify into people’s creations such that there is not one thing a man has created, which does not have to endure a measure of hatred from the rest of society. The creature in Frankenstein is no different from men’s inventions, whose hideous nature was not apparent at the time of their inception, and abhorred for what passed as evil yet not appreciated for the utility its creator envisaged. The guiding question for this article shall be, “What does the character of the creature tell us about its creator?”
Frankenstein is a satirical piece of literature that bears parodic connotations, particularly with regard to the paragon of quantum physics and quantum mechanics, Albert Einstein. Right from the title of the fictional piece, one can visualize the author’s allusion to the scientists’ name within the name of her main character, Frankenstein. The name is suggestive of an exclamatory remark towards Einstein that leaves a lot of questions open to the reader’s mind. Chief among these likely questions is why Einstein had to think too deep and so abstractly as to lose his audience, but even more sinister than this is why his thoughts should have been the source of such scientific breakthrough as the discovery of atomic fission and atomic fusion. Otherwise, Shelley is simply trying to be “frank” towards “Einstein” by suggesting that her protagonist in the book is not very much unlike the products of Einstein’s scientific wit, namely the hydrogen bomb and the atomic bomb, for the ideas that gave life to the relationship between mass and energy seemed to be a godsend at first and held a lot of promise with bearing the solution to some of man’s most pressing problems at the time, but the ramifications of the breakthrough had not become entirely evident. Their monstrosity was yet to be realized.
Shelley’s being candid towards Einstein tells a number of things concerning her nature. First of all, the reader should be privy of whatever distance existence between her and the object of her scorn either geographically or chronologically, meaning that she could not easily access the scientist. However, even if these two issues were to be resolved, there still was the fact that the emancipation of womenfolk was still several decades away from being actualized. Therefore, Shelley had to look for another avenue through which her derision could be channeled. It has been said that the pen is mightier than the sword, and while Shelley could not wield a sword (that is very much unlike a woman), she had the mind to think and the skill with which she could put down her thoughts in writing. Shelley, therefore, was a woman who was not taken aback by seemingly insurmountable odds in her quest towards achieving her goals, but was rather the kind of person who would look for other ways of killing the proverbial rat when one way failed to lend itself to utility.
Secondly, whereas it has been implied that the woman stands lower than man in moral judgment (Woolf, p. 4), through Frankenstein, Shelley portrays oneself in a manner that stands in stark contrast to these generally accepted views. Her moral compass is indeed functional, because she does not only consider the here and now, but also considers the hereafter; questioning the possible consequences of the application of scientific knowledge to solving humanity’s problems, or better still, answering some of humanity’s questions about the nature of life. Through the book, Shelley walks the audience through an intricate maze of moral dilemmas, not necessarily resolving the dilemmas but opening up the audience’s minds to other ways of looking at these life’s issues. Particularly important in this regard is the issue of man striving towards self sufficiency to the point of cheating death by using scientific knowledge to bring back the dead to life.
Let the dead rest in peace
Many issues about life remain unresolved in man’s limited understanding, and people do not know why these issues happen, one of them being that all men eventually die. Through myths and legends people have endeavored to explain the phenomenon of death, and to assuage the frayed emotions of those who have lost their loved ones, life has often been described as a journey that does not end when one dies, but continues in the so-called afterlife, which still remains a mystery. While death remains a very painful and devastating experience to those left behind, none can plausibly relate the feelings of them that pass away during the event. Lot’s of questions arise like, “Did s/he pass on peacefully?” “Was s/he in unbearable pain?” and people would like to help their loved ones hold on to life however slim their chances of making it through a life threatening event might be. Shelley addresses this issue from another stand point whereby one is already considered deceased even medically, and under normal circumstances, this is considered a hopeless case, where there is not a chance of recovery. But, lo and behold, with scientific skill, a dead man can be brought back to life with a bit of intervention from the elements.
Shelley ’s rendition is not so much a rhapsody about how science can bring back people from the grave, as it is euphemistic of the manner in which nature can thwart human efforts to act contrary to the laws that govern nature itself. Through the story, Shelley tells people that nature shall let people have their way up to a point, and thereafter face the consequences of having been left to their own devices and using that opportunity to mock nature. Since nature does not like being mocked, she mocks human beings back in Frankenstein by allowing the man’s handiwork to flourish, up to a point. Frankenstein has a semblance to those that live, but is a mockery to life by his monstrous demeanor. The creator of Frankenstein does life some injustice by endeavoring to cause the dead to live among the living (if at all that can be regarded as living per se) and the consequences are anything but appealing. Therefore, Shelley appears to be one who upholds the sanctity of life, expects the same of her audiences, and would rather have the dead rest in peace.
Science and Art at a Crossroads
Frankenstein contributes to the debate concerning the better of the two, between art and science, but while it hails science and acknowledges its capacity for achieving the somewhat impossible, it still shows science and scientists in general to be aesthetically challenged. Specifically, Shelley tries to tell scientists in no uncertain terms that they cannot have their cake and eat it at the same time. This defiance to science and the scientific is a response to men trying to act as though they were gods who abrogate the state of women and take for granted the roles that womenfolk play especially with regard to bringing forth life. Accordingly, one author mentions the kind of language women use to express their disgust in this manner, and calls that language “l' ecriture feminine” (Hoeveler, p. 45-6). Be it as it may, however, Spivak holds a different point of view when he suggests that the story about “Frankenstein is not a battleground of male and female individualism articulated in terms of sexual reproduction” (Spivak, p. 263).
In retrospect, one may see how Shelley tries to weave the web around the thought that science and art can continue living their separate lives devoid of interaction one with the other, or of input and influence from one the other. Through Frankenstein, the protagonist, Shelley portrays science as a failure or a half-finished product unless its creative genius is juxtaposed with the finesse characteristic of master artists. If the grotesque appearance of Frankenstein is anything to go by, then science has a long way to go if it should continue to take such a one-sided (otherwise called biased) approach to solving life’s problems. Therefore, Shelley emerges as a woman who does not only have an eye for the beautiful things in life, but also reasons with the logical mind of a scientist who believes that there is no effect without a cause as there is no egg without a chicken. Therefore, contrary to what is suggested of women being of an inferior mental capacity relative to men (Woolf, p. 4), Shelley emerges as a great thinker in her own right.
Much as she advocates for the domains of science and art to be working alongside each other, another aspect of Shelley’s society also emerges, because while iron should sharpen iron, the mind of one person also sharpens the mind of another. Shelley must have enjoyed the social graces of people attuned to the arts, but with no bias towards them as she also intermingled with those of a fundamentally scientific predilection. As an individual who would have wanted the best of and for both worlds, she was faced with the dilemma of having one side of her life’s passions having a field day at the expense of the other. This viewpoint is supported by Spivak who says, “In this overly didactic text, Shelley’s point is that social engineering should not be based on pure, theoretical, or natural-scientific reason alone, which is her implicit critique of the utilitarian vision of an engineered society.” (p. 264)
It is no wonder therefore that she is enthusiastic about Frankenstein’s creation but at the same time has to downplay the product so that in the mind of the audience might be sparked the thought of what is amiss, and why. Indeed, she suggests that whereas art and science are giants in and of themselves, nature trumps them by being the melting pot from within which the best of each of them emanates. She is justified in her argument that reading when done in isolation is rather dangerous because it may cause a person to grow insane when such an individual does their reading while shunning the company of other people (Shelley, p. 274), and supports this point of view by portraying Victor as a person who loses his mind through intense ascetic study.
It is argued that a person is drawn much towards what he dislikes as he is towards the things he likes. There is no better representation of the things people like and dislike than aspects of their nature that are either known to them or hidden, but still part of what defines them as people all the same. In this respect, the reader is drawn to Victor’s hatred of his creation as a pointer to Victor’s hatred of himself. If this is not enough to prove the similarity between a creature and its creator, then even a cursory study of Frankenstein is enough to reveal how much hatred was in the creature that, rather paradoxically, had been created to have no emotion at all. It is apt to call the creature using the surname of its creator because this gives it an identity and links it with the source of its “life”. Therefore, it may be surmised that Victor’s obsession with trying to create the perfect human being was just the outward show of the turmoil going on within his heart as he tried to wrestle with his personal demons; as he grappled with the imperfections he saw in himself.
Again one cannot help but envision the tag of war between Victor and nature when out of hatred for what he sees in himself and other human beings he embarks on the quest for a superhuman, but since he views all humans as imperfect, there is the poetic justice that comes into play when nature draws him back to the flawed fundamental reasoning that he harbors and asks him how it can be that one who is not perfect can create a perfect other. According to the laws of nature, like begets like, and an imperfect Victor Frankenstein can only create one like unto himself; an imperfect creature that is the epitome of all Victor’s imperfections and some.
Conclusion
Any creature will bear some semblance to its creator in form or essence, but never entirely so. As man grapples with questions about nature and strives to fight against his nature, nature can only look back and do what it knows how best to do and that is to put man back in his place. Man can only go so far as nature will allow, and no amount of study or experimentation can bring man any closer to finding the proverbial elixir of life when he chooses to look disdainfully at whatever nature has so intricately fashioned. Through Frankenstein, and although this might have been missed in many other discourses on the same story, Shelley takes readers on a journey to understand nature more intimately and to regard it with the reverence it deserves.
In this article, art and science have been discussed as some of the avenues man uses to try and understand nature, and it has been observed that neither of these approaches in isolation is perfect, nor can anything perfect emanate from one without the other, if at all perfection should be achieved, because the essence of nature comprises not only one or the other, but both and some more, which man’s knowledge cannot as yet fathom.
It has also shown that even that which people abhor should be regarded with a different attitude, because even these are part and parcel of what makes them whoever they are. With regard to the guiding question for this work, it may be said that the extent to which the character can tell about the creator is a function of the freedom with which a person is willing to think.
Works Cited
Hoeveler, D. L. "Frankenstein, Feminism, and Literary Theory." The Cambridge Companion to Mary Shelley. Ed. E Schor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. 45-62.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein, Second edition. Ontario: Broadview Press., 2005.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. Frankenstein and a Critique of Imperialism. Vol. 12. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1990. Web
Woolf, V. "A room of one's own, by Virginia Woolf." 2016. Adelaide University. 14 May 2016 <https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/w/woolf/virginia/w91r/chapter2.html>.
