Understanding the sublimity of the Romanticist literary movement related to nature's effect on the human psyche considers the method Mary Shelly embodies the concept in her story of the Monster creator, Victor, and the Monster in "Frankenstein". According to Gingold, the sublime seeks elevating human senses through a physical reaction causing shivers and emotionally lifting the soul. At the same time, Gingold cites Edmund Burke who proclaimed subliminal influence on the most profound human emotion was to create fear and thus leave an uncomfortable sense of awareness in humans of their "utter insignificance" (2013). The subliminal effect most prevalent in Shelley's "Frankenstein" include the abstract horror of Victor's "creation", the use of nature to extricate the Monster's sense of self, and finally, Branagh's contemporary film version use of nature in both the "birth" of the Monster juxtaposing the original concept to another layer but in total agreement with Shelley's view of the Monster's awakening to self through his experiences with the nature of man..
Taking the understanding of the sublime and Romanticism, it is nature that alters Victor's original scientific view as creator. It is nature that Branagh uses a great length to create his sense of the subliminal both in allowing it an escape for Victor from the problems of his own making and of course for the Monster who through the characterization provided by the acting abilities of De Niro reveals a subliminal journey to understanding his humanity (1994).
Both the characters Victor and the Monster bound by the emotions of what constitutes their souls evince astonishment in the nature of the Burke point of view. Victor's astonishment at what he accomplishes bringing life to the creature of his making, and the Monster (especially in the Branagh version) exalts his astonishment in the epiphany of his relationship to the natural order of things. Berardinelli's review on the Branagh movie, reminds how the director, unlike Shelley, puts enough into the story to let the audience know the plausibility of creating life from a scientific point of view (1994).
Again, the subliminal astonishes the viewer with the amazing aspects of the possibilities connected to this scientific fact both morally (as Shelley took on the idea of "creating" a man) and pragmatically (that remains a part of the individual viewer imagination). With the manner Branagh shows the "birth" of the Monster from his liquid embryonic stage into the world with his "father" assisting the subliminal moment for the creature by cradling him like a newborn baby, Branagh provides a moment of compassion for this act of "unnatural" nature (1994).
It cannot be overlooked how Shelley has the Monster giving some of the most significant dialogue in the story as he capitulates his view of the nature of man giving an astounding depth - a subliminal aspect to his understanding of the situation of his place among humans - or more rightly put - he has no place among humans. It is Victor's rejection of his "child" that sets the creature on his path of destruction. Working so diligently creating the creature then on the moment rejecting him takes its toll immediately. Victor narrates this process so that once the deed is completed; his verbal response includes "unable," he says "to endure the aspect of the being"(Shelley 56).
Using this "insight" Victor justifies his abandonment of his helpless child as well as Shelley's further abuse inflicted on the Monster throughout the story. Significantly, Shelley's blind De Lacey produces a symbolic testament to the concept of beauty as the judgment of who is the beholder and clearly in this case it is the blind not "seeing" the Monster's as Shelley spurs the dialogue of Victor describing the Monster as "ugly," a "thing such as even Dante could not have conceived" (56-57).
Only for a moment after listening to the creature's story of the suffering by the hands of people does Victor get a twinge of compassion for his creation. Shelley even has him entertaining the idea of giving him comfort that quickly return to "horror and hatred," as he gazes upon the Monster realizing "it" remains a "filthy mass that moved and talked" (140). Victor shouts, "Begone! Relieve me from the sight of your detested form" when he meets the Monster on the mountain top face to face (97) the subliminal contrast between the beauty of nature and the "unnatural" sublimity of the Monster creates a paradox of emotional excess for both Victor and the Monster.
Upon the mountain top meeting, Victor experiences the touch of his creation as the Monster puts both hands over his "father's" face explaining, ""Thus I relieve thee, my creator . . . thus I take from thee a sight which you abhor" (97). This subliminal moment of freedom and release gifted upon Victor by the Monster also sets another precedence created by Shelley asking who seems the more humane in this moment. It is the "wisdom" of the creature expressed over the villainy and rejection of Victor toward his creation.
The one sense of the injustice of the worth of a person as determined by physical appearance voiced solely by the Monster throughout the story presents a subliminal moment connected with another moral issue. It is as Shelley explains about the unjust treatment of the Monster as a process of beauty's arbitrary aspect. Further, the despair expressed by the Monster with the realization he will never have acceptance by humanity, that brings his astonishment connected to the subliminal of the "barbarity of man" (102), and "The human senses," he laments, "are insurmountable barriers to our union" (138).
Norton's offering from Burke explains how the obscure ads to the terribleness of an apprehension connected to the subliminal effects emotionally. Understanding or knowing the full expectation of a danger - as adjusting the eyes to the darkness- then the uneasiness disperses. Like the night, that causes many humans trepidation and anxiety because of the unknown and thus, heightening the emotions to a subliminal level of conscious effects (2013) it is this quality in Shelley's ability to do the same after the death of Elizabeth and Victor's pursuit of the creature in retaliation.
Shelley's ability to raise the reader's emotional senses connected to Burke's precept on obscurity that provides the subliminal drive to the story. The darkness that gives depth to the emotional connection to the subliminal uplift of the sensation puts Victor's quest for revenge into a state of anxiety of because of the unknown elements in the process. The darkness of the northern regions that the Monster takes Victor is Shelley's use of nature and the connection of darkness to the unknown (Norton 2013).
On the day the creature departs in response to the overt rebukes of his creator, Shelley brings the subliminal of nature to the darker subliminal undertones of how it can mirror human anxiety and despair. She writes giving to Victor's musings the context of nature:
"Morning, dismal and wet, at length dawned and discovered to my sleepless and aching eyes the church of Ingolstadt, its white steeple and clock, which indicated the sixth hour. The porter opened the gates of the court, which had that night been my asylum, and I issued into the streets, pacing them with quick steps, as if I sought to avoid the wretch whom I feared every turning of the street would present to my view. I did not dare return to the apartment which I inhabited, but felt impelled to hurry on, although drenched by the rain which poured from a black and comfortless sky" (42).
Later, when Victor hears of the murder of his little brother William, Shelley again equates the subliminal astonishment the mourning Victor expresses on his journey to his family home in Geneva. She writes showing Victor's state, "Fear overcame me; I dared no advance, dreading a thousand nameless evils that made me tremble, although I was unable to define them" (57). Again, there is the obscurity of the undefined as described by Burke. Shelley puts Victor's state of emotion in context with the lake at Lausanne, "I contemplated the lake: the waters were placid; all around was calm; and the snowy mountains, `the palaces of nature,' were not changed. By degrees the calm and heavenly scene restored me " (57).
The lengthy paragraph Shelley devotes to Victor's emotional state contrasted with nature upon arriving back in Geneva corresponds to the effects of night obscuring the mountains and meeting the gloom he feels. Victor describes, "The picture appeared a vast and dim scene of evil, and I foresaw obscurely that I was destined to become the most wretched of human beings" (58). Victor is unable to sleep and decides to go out into the night to visit the spot where William was murdered. His venture takes him on a short boat ride and he soon notices a rapidly appearing storm and amidst his misery he notices the beauty of the lightening and finds it appropriate to exalt the death of William and liken the moment as an aptly fitting funerary for his departed brother. Ironically, it is amid this moment of subliminal connection to the wonders of nature that Victor becomes horrified with the innate understanding of the murderer's identity - the Monster of his own creation.
The talent - the gift - Shelley provides in her writing in these paragraphs is the use of the subliminal attributes of nature to compose Victor's pain and mourning into a wondrous connection of the departed William with the beauty of the storm as a fit funeral for his personal remembrance of the child. In conclusion, Shelley, Norton, Branagh, and Burke provide the different approaches to the sublime effects connected with the Frankenstein narrative and how the creator Victor and the Monster both come to terms with the individual and intersecting realities through connections with the subliminal characteristics of nature and the nature of humans.
Works Cited
Berardinelli, James. Mary Shelly's Frankenstein. 1994. Web 25 August 2013
Branagh, Kenneth. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. 1994. DVD.
Gingold, Emma. "Sublime Ecstasy": Spirit and Snow in Shelley's Frankenstein. The Common Room. 15:1. 2013. Web. 25 August 2013
Norton Anthology of English Literature. "Edmund Burke, from a Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful" 2013. Web. 25 August 2013
Wollstonecraft Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein or, The Modern Prometheus. 1818 Web. 25 August 2013
