Mary Shelley grew up in a household composed of her father, noted rationalist philosopher and writer William Godwin, her step-sister Fanny (who was the 1st daughter of Mary's mother, Mary Wollstonecraft and her American lover, financier Gilbert Imlay) as well as Godwin's 2nd wife and her children. Her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, had died 10 days after Mary's birth, due to complications from the birth. According to Maurice Hindle's introduction, Mary grew up with a father who espoused the view that a "new system, based on 'universal benevolence', could create a just and virtuous society," maintaining that this virtue "would naturally emerge from the exercise of reason and free will, as developed in an 'enlightened' society." Hindle quotes Godwin's Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and writes "knowledge, and the enlargement of intellect, are poor, when unmixed with sentiments of benevolence and sympathy...and science and abstraction will soon become cold, unless they derive new attractions from ideas of society."
Hindle mentions the Gothic imagery popular at the time Shelley wrote Frankenstein, and the use of monster imagery to demonize anything challenging the status quo. Hindle notes that this style even permeated the writing of conservative political philosophers such as Edmund Burke, and in his introduction he includes a passage from Burke commenting on the French Revolution where he wrote that "vice assumes a new body. The spirit transmigrates; and, far from losing its principle of life by the change in its appearance, it is renovated in its new organs with the fresh vigour of a juvenile activity. It walks abroad; it continues its ravages..." Godwin himself was commonly described as a monster. Walpole described him as 'one of the greatest monsters exhibited by history' and Burke called Godwin's opinions "pure defecated atheism...the brood of that putrid carcase the French Revolution."
Hindle ends his introduction by quoting physicist Brian Easlea in Fathering the Unthinkable who raises the issue of "Mary Shelley's indictment of masculine ambition" and her exposure of "the compulsive character of masculine science." Hindle tells us that in her last novel, Shelley ends by having the hero say "This...is Power! Not to be strong of limb, hard of heart, ferocious and daring; but to be kind, compassionate and soft." In Frankenstein, Shelley certainly seems to want to highlight the hubris and the danger of the purely intellectual approach to science, something that still resonates today when the newspapers are full of reports of people trying to manipulate DNA to create new, "better" beings, implanting uteruii into women so that they can bear children, manipulating our environment on a scale that is truly earth-shattering and then proposing to mine the solar system for our short term benefit... The awareness that today these reckless experiments in the name of 'science' are being driven by greed rather than by the intellectual thrill of discovery, or by a thirst for power via domination over nature, just makes mankind's hubris that much more unbearable.
Hindle mentions the Gothic imagery popular at the time Shelley wrote Frankenstein, and the use of monster imagery to demonize anything challenging the status quo. Hindle notes that this style even permeated the writing of conservative political philosophers such as Edmund Burke, and in his introduction he includes a passage from Burke commenting on the French Revolution where he wrote that "vice assumes a new body. The spirit transmigrates; and, far from losing its principle of life by the change in its appearance, it is renovated in its new organs with the fresh vigour of a juvenile activity. It walks abroad; it continues its ravages..." Godwin himself was commonly described as a monster. Walpole described him as 'one of the greatest monsters exhibited by history' and Burke called Godwin's opinions "pure defecated atheism...the brood of that putrid carcase the French Revolution."
Hindle ends his introduction by quoting physicist Brian Easlea in Fathering the Unthinkable who raises the issue of "Mary Shelley's indictment of masculine ambition" and her exposure of "the compulsive character of masculine science." Hindle tells us that in her last novel, Shelley ends by having the hero say "This...is Power! Not to be strong of limb, hard of heart, ferocious and daring; but to be kind, compassionate and soft." In Frankenstein, Shelley certainly seems to want to highlight the hubris and the danger of the purely intellectual approach to science, something that still resonates today when the newspapers are full of reports of people trying to manipulate DNA to create new, "better" beings, implanting uteruii into women so that they can bear children, manipulating our environment on a scale that is truly earth-shattering and then proposing to mine the solar system for our short term benefit... The awareness that today these reckless experiments in the name of 'science' are being driven by greed rather than by the intellectual thrill of discovery, or by a thirst for power via domination over nature, just makes mankind's hubris that much more unbearable.
The original frontispiece for Frankenstein, contains a quote from Milton's Paradise Lost. This poem has been referenced in so many texts we've read the last couple of months that I am going to have to finally read it. Echoes of this poem come up again and again in this text.
pg 96 "Alas...when falsehood can look so like the truth, who can assure themselves of certain happiness?"
Shelley writes alot about nature. "When happy, inanimate nature had the power of bestowing on me the most delightful sensations. A serene sky and verdant fields filled me with ecstasy." [pg 71]. The nature in Switzerland, where she and P.B. Shelley were living when she conceived of and wrote Frankenstein, contributes an enormous amount to the Gothic - as well as the elemental - feel of the book. I couldn't help but compare her descriptions of the area around Geneva with her mother's descriptions of Denmark, Norway and Sweden when she travelled through those countries in the 1790s. I find her writing particularly her choices of adjectives (imperial, vast, glorious, immutable and especially the overused adjective 'sublime') overwrought but I did appreciate the scenery she evokes, and the sense of place.
Shelley was particularly affected by her hikes around the Mer de Glace near Chamonix.
Frankenstein is a Gothic story. Shelley describes the scientist's dark arts; and the original concept for the story came to her in a dream when she saw the image of the pale creator bent over his awful creation. She describes his research:
Even the 'monster' says that "Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it." [pg 102] - though he had far more reason than Frankenstein himself to find life unbearable. "So much does suffering blunt even the coarsest sensations of men." [pg 168]
At the end of the story the monster laments:
Society still judges people by appearance, forgiving the beautiful and engaging and condemning the ugly, the odd, the different.
Frankenstein is a good example of reason gone bad. His scientific curiosity and his hubris took him into dangerous territory and like the scientists today who push the envelope either to see if they can or because of greed, he didn't engage his intellect to consider what the results of his actions might be, nor his humanity to care about the consequences. Shelley seemed to want to offer a warning about the dangers of actions untempered by humanity or by those human feelings which we tend to think are desirable (compassion, fellow feeling, mercy, unselfishness, affection etc). She has Frankenstein say:
After moping around for years, worrying and depressing everyone around him, Frankenstein has the gall to say to Elizabeth, his patiently-waiting childhood companion, on their long-delayed wedding day:
Towards the end, Frankenstein speaks to Captain Walton about reason and passion. He asks him to "undertake [Frankenstein's] unfinished work; and I renew this request now, when I am only induced by reason and virtue. [...] I dare not ask you to do what I think right, for I may still be misled by passion.
Shelley also has the monster suffer the effects of passion:
At the end, Shelley imbues the monster with all the mixtures of qualities we find in mankind.
I didn't like Shelley's overwrought writing style but the situation she imagined and the themes she wove into her work still hold resonance today - and her imagery has endured and kept a firm place in people's imaginations and in our roster of bogeymen.
pg 96 "Alas...when falsehood can look so like the truth, who can assure themselves of certain happiness?"
Shelley writes alot about nature. "When happy, inanimate nature had the power of bestowing on me the most delightful sensations. A serene sky and verdant fields filled me with ecstasy." [pg 71]. The nature in Switzerland, where she and P.B. Shelley were living when she conceived of and wrote Frankenstein, contributes an enormous amount to the Gothic - as well as the elemental - feel of the book. I couldn't help but compare her descriptions of the area around Geneva with her mother's descriptions of Denmark, Norway and Sweden when she travelled through those countries in the 1790s. I find her writing particularly her choices of adjectives (imperial, vast, glorious, immutable and especially the overused adjective 'sublime') overwrought but I did appreciate the scenery she evokes, and the sense of place.
The abrupt sides of vast mountains were before me; a few shattered pines were scattered around; and the solemn silence of this glorious presence-chamber of imperial Nature was broken only by the brawling waves or the fall of some vast fragment, the thunder sound of the avalanche or the cracking, reverberated along the mountains, of the accumulated ice, which, through the silent working of immutable laws, was ever and anon rent and torn, as if it had been but a plaything in their hands. These sublime and magnificent scenes afforded me the greatest consolation ... [pg 99]
...Mont Blanc, the supreme and magnificent Mont Blanc, raised itself from the surrounding aiguilles, and it's tremendous dome overlooked the valley. [...] The very winds whispered in soothing accents, and maternal nature bade me weep no more. [pg 98]
Shelley was particularly affected by her hikes around the Mer de Glace near Chamonix.
The sea, or rather the vast river of ice, wound among its dependent mountains, whose aerial summits hung over its recesses. Their icy and glittering peaks shone in the sunlight over the clouds. My heart, which was before sorrowful, now swelled with something like joy; I exclaimed - 'Wandering spirits, if indeed ye wander, and do not rest in your narrow beds, allow me this faint happiness, or take me, as your companion, away from the joys of life.'I can't help but contrast this paean to the joys of life with the perspective Shelley offered some 25 pages earlier. Frankenstein's youngest brother William is murdered by Frankenstein's nameless monstrous creation. Frankenstein's friend Henry, in an excess of exclamation points and overblown sentiment, tries to console him:
Dear lovely child, he now sleeps with his angel mother! Who that had seen him bright and joyous in his young beauty, but must weep over his untimely loss! To die so miserably; the feel the murderer's grasp! How much more a murderer, that could destroy such radiant innocence! Poor little fellow! one only consolation have we; his friends mourn and weep but he is at rest. The pang is over, his sufferings are at an end forever. A sod covers his gentle form, and he knows no pain. He can no longer be a subject for pity; we must reserve that for his miserable survivors.Truly a bleak outlook on life. I'm not sure that I would have found Henry's words comforting in the face of the loss of a child. This is always something I have never understood about many religions: the Christian religions which preach about living your life in such a way that you may ascend to heaven but regardless you will have to spend time in purgatory (and as Dante showed us in his Inferno, there was no section except the outermost part of the circles of Hell where you would want to spend even one second); the Vedic texts and Buddhist philosophy which counsel people to aim for the almost unattainable Nirvana; the Greeks describing an unattainable perfection of forms; to the Islamic texts with their promises of the companionship of pure ones in paradise. Why should there be any sorrow or resistance to death if what comes later is what you are supposed to be aiming for, if life is just something to be endured and suffered through. I can understand that, if day-to-day life is hard, people would dream of something better after they die but in that case, why fear it or grieve its coming?
Frankenstein is a Gothic story. Shelley describes the scientist's dark arts; and the original concept for the story came to her in a dream when she saw the image of the pale creator bent over his awful creation. She describes his research:
Darkness had no effect upon my fancy; and a churchyard was to me merely the receptacle of bodies deprived of life, which, from being the seat of beauty and strength, had become food for the worm... I saw how the fine form of man was degraded and wasted; I beheld the corruption of death succeed to to the blooming cheek of life; I saw how the worm inherited the wonders of the eye and brain. [pg 52-53]
Even the 'monster' says that "Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it." [pg 102] - though he had far more reason than Frankenstein himself to find life unbearable. "So much does suffering blunt even the coarsest sensations of men." [pg 168]
Everywhere I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably excluded. I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy [he says to Frankenstein] and I shall again be virtuous. [pg 103]The monster pleads a good case for the torment of his misery and, aside from his quickness to wreak revenge, he seemed to have the possibility of goodness as well as baseness within him - just as mankind does. Yet Frankenstein, despite his initial agreement to create a companion for the monster, deems him "a fiend whose unparalleled barbarity had desolated [Frankenstein's] heart." [pg 170] I don't find the monster, other than his physical abilities, to be any more malignant, evil, depraved, barbarous etc than mankind. The media and history books are full of people far more evil, depraved and ill-intentioned than Frankenstein's monster. To this day. So far civilization does not seem to have extracted or cured any of these tendencies from human nature.
At the end of the story the monster laments:
Once my fancy was soothed with dreams of virtue, of fame, and of enjoyment. Once I falsely hoped to meet with beings who, pardoning my outward form, would love me for the excellent qualities which I was capable of unfolding. pg 223
Am I to be thought the only criminal, when all human kind has sinned against me? pg 224
Society still judges people by appearance, forgiving the beautiful and engaging and condemning the ugly, the odd, the different.
Frankenstein is a good example of reason gone bad. His scientific curiosity and his hubris took him into dangerous territory and like the scientists today who push the envelope either to see if they can or because of greed, he didn't engage his intellect to consider what the results of his actions might be, nor his humanity to care about the consequences. Shelley seemed to want to offer a warning about the dangers of actions untempered by humanity or by those human feelings which we tend to think are desirable (compassion, fellow feeling, mercy, unselfishness, affection etc). She has Frankenstein say:
A human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind, and never to allow passion or a transitory desire to disturb his tranquility. I do not think that the pursuit of knowledge is an exception to this rule. If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your affections, and to destroy your taste for those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind. pg 56He goes on to say that had this rule been observed Greece would not have been enslaved and the Americas would have been discovered more gradually and the existing empires (Mexico and Peru are the examples given) not destroyed. In Frankenstein's case he allowed his reason to be a slave to his passion (which Hume has said is how it always has to be). The consequences of reason being the slave of dark passions (greed, jealousy, hate, envy) often seem to be the most terrible. The narrator [pg 29] notes that Frankenstein "appeared to despise himself for being the slave of passion"but here he is just speaking about allowing his equanimity to be affected by despair or grief. In the rest of the book however, Frankenstein reminds me of Werther in his self-absorption and lamentations about how his feelings are affecting him. Page after page about his anguish, shame, guilt, despair, wretchedness, suffering, melancholy etc etc etc. Ah poor me!!
After moping around for years, worrying and depressing everyone around him, Frankenstein has the gall to say to Elizabeth, his patiently-waiting childhood companion, on their long-delayed wedding day:
You are sorrowful, my love. Ah! if you knew what I have suffered, and what I may yet endure you would endeavour to let me taste the quiet and freedom from despair that this one day at least permits me to enjoy. [pg 197]The self-absorbed, whiny, arrogant man! His sufferings?!? He caused the death of his youngest brother and allowed the execution of an innocent young family servant unjustly blamed for the murder. He's kept his family and especially Elizabeth waiting and in the dark about how he is doing - and WHAT he is doing - for almost his entire adult life. He has unleashed a monster and treated it in such a way that its only aim is to wreak revenge on Frankenstein by taking away anyone he loves (as Frankenstein has prevented the monster from having any loving companion in his life) - and he doesn't warn any of his 'loved' ones of the danger they are in because he is too afraid to own to the enormity and the consequences of his actions. And he then has the audacity to chastise Elizabeth for being melancholy on their wedding day.
Towards the end, Frankenstein speaks to Captain Walton about reason and passion. He asks him to "undertake [Frankenstein's] unfinished work; and I renew this request now, when I am only induced by reason and virtue. [...] I dare not ask you to do what I think right, for I may still be misled by passion.
Shelley also has the monster suffer the effects of passion:
I knew that I was preparing myself for a deadly torture; but I was the slave, not the master, of an impulse, which I detested, yet could not disobey. pg 222
Both Frankenstein and his monster allowed their passions to take over their lives and this weakness consumed their lives and laid waste to the lives of everyone around them.
At the end, Shelley imbues the monster with all the mixtures of qualities we find in mankind.
My heart was fashioned to be susceptible of love and sympathy; and when wrenched by misery to vice and hatred, it did not endure the violence of the change, without torture such as you cannot even imagine. [pg 222]Shelley wrote these words in 1816 yet today we are still trying to figure it all out. There was an article in the newspaper today reporting the results of some experiments into humans behaving in mean or bullying ways. Situations were set up with research subjects where they were told or induced to ostracize or gang up on or to make things difficult for a few other participants. When they assessed the feelings of the people who had been bullied and compared it to the people who had done the bullying behaviours, they found that it was psychologically more traumatic for the person acting badly or meanly than for the victimized or oppressed person.
I didn't like Shelley's overwrought writing style but the situation she imagined and the themes she wove into her work still hold resonance today - and her imagery has endured and kept a firm place in people's imaginations and in our roster of bogeymen.
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