Introduction
In the history of world literature, everyone can hear names and titles. Such is the novel “Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus” (1818) by the English writer Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851). The fate of the Swiss scientist Frankenstein, who created a living being from inanimate matter and eventually turned into a victim and, at the same time, an executioner of his invention, has become a particular sign that, over time, covers wider cultural layers, moving far away from the problem indicated by the writer.
An interesting metaphor has been created in this work – the autonomous existence of an artificial being. The monster not only exists in addition to Professor Frankenstein, but he discovers the possibilities of existence for himself; he learns to speak to use the fruits of human labor but cannot be useful to a person. The monster experiences rejection and alienation, which justifies his violent behavior, although they do not excuse it, making him a sympathetic character in the story.
The Philosophy of a Lonely Person
Victor Frankenstein appears to the reader as a young scientist eager to contribute to science with fire in his eyes. It is worth noting that the biblical motives that permeate the plot and the main characters of the novel are traced in the work. Victor’s monster was still different from Adam’s. Adam, created in the image and likeness of God, possessed incredible beauty; he was given a heavenly place in Eden for life, and the ugly monster was created from dead matter in a hurry and immediately abandoned by its creator (Bernatchez 206).
Thus, the creation of Frankenstein contrasts with the people who were ideally created by God. Comparing himself and Adam, the monster concludes that he looks more like Satan: “Many times I considered Satan as the fitter emblem of my condition; for often, like him, when I viewed the bliss of my protectors, the bitter gall of envy rose wit” (Shelley 131). Mary Shelley introduces the well-known thesis that appearance can be deceptive (Cottom 61). She creates a living image based on the contrast between a monstrous shell and a soul striving for goodness and light.
Living in a shepherd’s hut, the monster secretly watched the people in the neighborhood, adopted their way of life, listened to the words, and learned the language – considered them his “patrons”. It seemed to him that the De Lacy family should have loved and accepted him because he secretly helped them with homework and was a good person despite his disgusting appearance (Cottom 65). However, he was rejected and kicked out when he decided to open up to them.
The first people were surrounded by the affection and care of higher beings in the person of God and angels, who revealed to them the essence of this world. The monster understood all this and felt envy, transforming into satanic malice: “There was none among the myriads of men who would pity or assist me, and should I feel kindness towards my enemies? No: from that moment, I declared everlasting war against the species and, more than all, against him who had formed me and sent me forth to this insupportable misery” (Shelley 137). Going out into the light, he dreams of finding a friend and knowing this world; he enjoys the sunlight and is inspired by nature.
It is worth noting that, gradually, his hopes are crumbling. When he tries to get close to people, they see only a terrible monster in him, are disgusted, and run away. However, all this monster needed was a manifestation of love and care from at least someone; it was painful for him to be alone (Bernatchez 208). The turning point in his fate was an attempt to appear in front of the De Lacy family, which ended with the fact that the main people of his life at that time were stunned with horror and kicked him out of the house. After the experience, they decided to move forever.
Angered by people’s misunderstanding, the monster decides to burn down this house, and his desire to be friends with people turns into a desire to take revenge on them: “I, the miserable and the abandoned, am an abortion, to be spurned at, and kicked, and trampled on” (Shelley 216). The good beginning of the monster turns hatred and thirst for revenge, rage, and devilish anger. Mary Shelley raises one of the philosophical questions: Is a person inherently evil or kind?
The monster’s only dream was to find the same ugly creature nearby, and he had already completely rejected the opportunity to get together with people. The monster must have the same artificially created monster next to him, who could share the exile with him, like Adam and Eve after the fall (Bernatchez 207). Therefore, he threatens Victor with reprisals against his loved ones and, after refusing, puts his promises into practice, killing Frankenstein’s relatives and turning his existence into a pitch-black Hell: “You must create a female for me, with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being” (Shelley 145). Thus, the author reveals the essence of the fact that it was only necessary for the monster to have a life familiar to every person; however, he was rejected by society.
The Sin of Victor Frankenstein
In the novel, we meet Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist with burning eyes, overflowing with a sincere desire to know nature’s innermost secrets: “A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me. No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs” (Shelley 61). Mentioning one of the founders of occultism, Henry Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim, Mary Shelley, perhaps, refers readers to the legend associated with him about the naughty student. Agrippa’s contemporaries considered him a warlock and a sorcerer who sold his soul to Satan. It is said that during Agrippa’s stay in Louvain, one of his students broke into the teacher’s office, where he found a book of spells with which he summoned a demon.
However, having no power over the demon, he could not control it, and as a result, he became a victim of his arrogance. Thus, Frankenstein, having become acquainted with the works of Agrippa of Nettesheim, became a kind of “sorcerer’s disciple.” Before the monster was born, Victor dreamed of creating a new breed of people who would bless him as a creator (Bissonette 111). He does not disdain exhumation and conducting experiments on the dead, which are prohibited by morality and the church. He puts himself above this and assigns himself the place of God in the world of monsters created by him. Frankenstein is not able to control the creature he created (Cottom 62).
Moreover, it is disgusting and terrifies people. Throughout the story, Victor only feels fear and disgust toward him and does not try to understand and accept him: “There can be no community between you and me; we are enemies” (Shelley 104). Frankenstein’s anger is caused by his own failure to create a new life. He can be compared to a parent who abandoned his child because of his external genetic defects.
Victor’s hatred stems from his ruined hopes and son’s inconsistency with his ideas. This hatred is undeniable and pathological. In an attempt to hide his own “shame,” Frankenstein leads to the death of his entire family but does not blame himself for this and continues to justify his actions with the highest goal – the salvation of humanity (Cottom 68). In reality, his clouded mind cannot objectively assess the situation.
The real monster is Victor Frankenstein himself. Victor did not repent of his sin until the last day he harbored hatred for his creation, which, although it sowed evil, without pleasure: “As the memory of past misfortunes pressed upon me, I began to reflect upon their cause—the monster whom I had created, the miserable daemon whom I had sent abroad into the world” (Shelley 195). Having taken revenge on him, the monster loses the meaning of existence and decides to interrupt the series of sufferings that was his life. After Frankenstein’s death, he, like Hercules, tormented by the poison of the hydra, ascends to his own funeral pyre.
The story of the evolution of man from the primitive state in the novel is conveyed by the metaphor of darkness – consciousness is not born in a monster immediately but has arisen. Human consciousness’s maturation and improvement are made through observation and imitation (Hammond 182). The monster is not a spirit, not a devil in the guise of a hideous giant vampire, but a product of science, the creation of a person who realizes his complete failure if he breaks ties with a society of his kind, or rather, artificially deprived of these ties (Bissonette 110).
The monster had to discover some unique concepts because it was created according to the laws of nature and simultaneously contrary to them (Cottom 60). However, he is lonely and unhappy precisely because he cannot independently create a model of life and existence without copying it from the human one. The violation of harmony in nature and the immoral subordination of its power to human whim is associated with an active influence on the one who dared to act so unceremoniously with it.
Conclusion
Mary Shelley asserts the inexhaustibility of the immensity of the universe, showing man’s creative possibilities. She polemizes with Rousseau at the highest philosophical level. The natural man in the conditions of modern society turns out to be a utopia because he, in addition to his will and the will of his creator, is involved in the cycle of events peculiar to a particular historical period.
Shelley’s work can be considered a kind of artistic history, where the monster is a parody of Adam, Frankenstein is a parody of God, and they are often opposed to each other as entirely alien and even alien beings. The monster hero seems to belong to a devilish tribe without knowing it. The same can be attributed to a creative scientist who wants to break with the fruit of his creative work as soon as possible.
The monster in the novel is not a universal, timeless archetype. It contains many ideas peculiar to the age to which Shelley belonged, particularly the idea of crime and its moral assessment. The monster has its principles of life, just as Frankenstein has them. However, for Frankenstein, science turns into nonsense; he creates for the sake of curiosity, seeking to prove the unlimited possibilities of the human mind. The monster proves the senseless artificiality of its appearance and the impossibility of abstract existence for the sake of existence.
The long monologue that the monster utters, asking for help from its creator, reflects a complex, logically coherent, thoughtful course of his thoughts, framed in well-constructed sentences with emotionally colored oratorical turns, phrases coming from the depths of his heart tormented by loneliness. Shelley conveyed to his reader that this is no longer the speech of an artificially created robot, cold, rational, and dispassionate. This is the confession of a being with a highly developed mental organization. The pathetic style of the appeal, almost prayerful, alternates with simple, finely felt phrases designed for understanding.
Works Cited
Bernatchez, Josh. “Monstrosity, Suffering, Subjectivity, and Sympathetic Community in Frankenstein and ‘The Structure of Torture.’” Science Fiction Studies, vol. 36, no. 2, 2009, pp. 205–16. JSTOR, Web.
Bissonette, Melissa Bloom. “Teaching the Monster: Frankenstein and Critical Thinking.” College Literature, vol. 37, no. 3, 2010, pp. 106–20. JSTOR, Web.
Cottom, Daniel. “Frankenstein and the Monster of Representation.” SubStance, vol. 9, no. 3, Project Muse, 1980, p. 60-71.
Hammond, Kim. “Monsters of Modernity: Frankenstein and Modern Environmentalism.” Cultural Geographies, vol. 11, no. 2, 2004, pp. 181–98. JSTOR, Web.
Shelley, Mary. “Frankenstein.” A Norton Critical Edition, edited by J. Paul Hunter, 2nd ed., W. W. Norton and Company, 2012.
