Classic English literature: research essay
«Frankenstein» is a novel by an English writer Mary Shelley, which comprises the features of romantic and gothic literature. The book was published twice – in 1818 and in 1831 with a small but significant change in the second case, which influenced the plot, the main character to be more exact.
The idea to create a story about life and death put together in one person appeared when 18 year old Mary with her future husband Percy came to visit Lord Byron. While having the discussion in the living room, Byron offered to tell horror stories just to liven up the atmosphere. The first to talk was Miss Mary, but she did not manage to succeed much. However, her vivid imagination simply waited for the proper moment. Late at night she had a dream, a complete real horror story about the living dead. The next morning Mary wrote down her dream, which became the basis of the famous Frankenstein( Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein). What’s more, if not for her husband Percy, who insisted on creating the whole novel and even wrote a preface to it, the story could not have ever been published.
The novel is written in epistolary form – it was a kind of correspondence between Robert Walter and his sister, during the Walter’s journey to explore the North Pole in pursuit of recognition, fame and money of course. One of his expeditions set his life on the entirely different course. At first they saw a gigantic figure of an ugly man and later Walter became the bearer of a horror, tragic and at the same time mysterious story told by a nearly frozen and emaciated man Victor Frankenstein, who hovering at the edge of death decided to open up the non-trivial facts about his life. The strange creature and Victor turned out to be closely connected. A remarkable thing is that the author made the vision of an outcast at the very beginning by clashing these two men, who suffered from solitude, who had their hopes broken and perhaps saw no future – Victor created a superhuman, who ruined his life and left him die alone, whereas Walter experienced a similar situation, similar feelings when having failed in the aim of his lifetime (Walter wished to become a distinguished writer).
Mary Shelley created a story about an unthinkable achievement in science – an ability to resurrect the dead. Victor Frankenstein, a young promising scientist, experimenting in his laboratory created a living creature having pulled together parts of the dead body. The novel clearly contains the anti-religious themes. A man tried to reach the heights of God, made an attempt to substitute him, to take over his functions and having broken the natural course of things, paid a precious price. He lost his family, he was haunted by the product of his own creation and, finally, he became lost for the society. However, our intention is to analyze the theme of an outsider and the reasons which led him to reach such a state.
First of all, it is necessary to point out that the theme of an outsider refers to the Romanism as one of its vivid distinctive features. An unusual character finds himself in unusual circumstances. In one word, Mary Shelley created her novel using some major techniques ascribed to Romantic literature.
The story is written from the first person, which appears to be an important thing in terms of understanding the inner world of the main character and his motives to create a monster. Perhaps, it helps to understand the conflict that took place in Victor’s soul.
The story of Frankenstein seems to be quite an ordinary one from the very beginning: Victor was born in Geneva, had a loving and supportive family and younger brothers, his mother was an altruistic woman and could not but help people left down on their luck. Due to such an affectionate attachment to people’s destinies, an orphan girl called Elizabeth appeared in their house and played an important part in Victor’s further life. The boy had an idyllic childhood: «No human being could have possessed a happier childhood than myself. My parents were possessed with the very spirit of kindness and indulgence (Shelley)». However, having entered the university and having become deeply involved in chemistry, Victor created a terrible monster both in appearance and later in soul. Here the conflict, the controversial understanding of the topic of the social outsider begins.
Though having such a disgusting appearance and gigantic size, the newborn monster was a child to be taught what was good and bed, a child to be raised, cherished and developed. In other words, the moment the monster opened his eyes, Victor gained parental responsibility for him. However, the shocked and frightened young man simply ran away. Such an action became a turning point for the conflict and problems it led to. The monster left too, not shocked but offended.
Victor’s creation did not suspect that he would not fit in the human standards. Having been abandoned at early childhood he was bound to live alone, having no knowledge how to get by, no weapons to fight back the quandaries. Besides, people became discouraged by his appearance and simply got scared, considering that the ugly look hides an ugly nature: «but I had hardly placed my foot within the door before the children shrieked, and one of the women fainted». They throw stones and anything they could find at him and judge him for nothing but his looks.
However, the encounter with the De Lacey’s turned his vision of the world and his soul upside-down. Watching secretly this family through the hole in the wall for some time, he learned to speak, he got to know what literature, and history and music were like. In one word, he began to form as a personality, though in some bizarre and twisted form.
But still the monstrous creature was all alone, his master and creator developed a deeply rooted fear to him. That’s why, the only thing left to his luck was revenge. He haunted Victor all his life and left a bloody trace behind – one by one Victor lost his whole family and his wife Elizabeth, who was found dead in their first wedding night. The lonely creature was obsessed with the idea to make his creator feel what it felt like to be abandoned and forgotten. He succeeded, but their loneliness turned out to be different.
Victor consciously put himself in a kind of imprisonment, an exile. He tried to avoid people and had the only desire to kill that horrible creature. Whereas the monster did not have choice from the very beginning, he was doomed to loneliness the moment he opened his eyes: «His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shriveled complexion and straight black lips» (Shelley).
The creature, however, by all means tried to change his position, to escape an imminent demise in loneliness. At first it was an act of goodness and selflessness – an episode with a saved child, and later blackmailing Victor. He demanded to his master create a women for him, otherwise he would hurt Victor’s future wife Elizabeth. He was a person driven to the edge of everything a man can endure. Victor, on the other hand, had all the opportunities to live a happy life, but chose to lock in his shell. Not a soul knew about the created monster, Victor left his family, he stopped showing interest towards other people’s lives – in one word, he ceased to keep in touch with the world.
After analyzing the story, one can make a conclusion that both – Victor and the creature paid their price. Two outcasts could form a firm friendship, but instead they were bound to hate each other. A mere shade of compassion had never passed between them. But only having found himself on the edge of death, Frankenstein realizes how much trouble and sufferings he had caused. The master and the creature had never become true friends, but Frankenstein understood that his presence would cause only inconvenience – not only for him but for the society, because he was an abnormal exemplar of the human kind, which would never fit in the structure. The sad demise had Victor had, and the sad demise was bound the monster have. He departed to nothingness calmly obeying the unavoidable destiny.
It is becomes possible to claim about the conflict between the society on the one hand and a single person – Victor and the monster – on the other. They both experienced a great impact from its influence. The opportunities were completely different, the life scenarios should have had nothing in common too, but somehow the outcome turned out to be the same – both men were left alone. The cause in the monster’s case was simple instinctive fear on the behalf of the society and its unwillingness to try to discover the reality, to break the stereotype and stop judging «books by their covers». Victor’s case seems to be more complex. He, on the contrary, turns the society down, refuses to follow its stream. Here lies the fear of the society. Victor was frightened to reveal his creation because he presupposed the possible reaction. Though having developed the totally opposite attitudes towards the society, the result for both characters turned out to be the same. It can be claimed, that the society like a coin has two sides. It can act in different, contradicting each other ways, it can be a cause (or at least an opportunity) for the progress and at the same time the spur for the regress, as it can be clearly observed in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
Works cited
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. 1 Nov. 2012 http://kleunerteachingspring2012.wordpress.com/2012/02/20/mary-shelleys-frankenstein
Mary Shelley. Frankenstein . 1 Nov. 2012<http://www.literature.org/authors/shelley-mary/frankenstein/>
