Date: 05/05/2000
In 1818, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein or, the Modern Prometheus
was released. She revised it in
1823, and again in 1831. I used the Signet Classic version of the 1831 edition as the
source for this essay.
Jacques Derrida once said,
"Monsters cannot be announced. One cannot say: 'here are our monsters',
without immediately turning the monsters into pets." (The States of Theory,
80) He is, of course, not referring
to a literal, physical monster like the one fabricated by Mary Shelley in Frankenstein,
but to a text that is new enough to startle, and possibly frighten, its
community of discourse. It is
perhaps fitting, then, to apply Derrida’s philosophy of deconstruction to a
novel that is heralded alternatively as both the first true “horror” novel,
and the first work of Science Fiction.
Cultural Materialist Warren Montag reads Frankenstein as a
commentery on the French Revolution and the subsequent era of social crisis in
England. (The Workshop of Filthy Creation).
Feminist critics read the novel as a study in forced domesticity, gender
separation and submission. Psychoanalytic
critic David Collins sees Victor Frankenstein desperately searching for an
“imaginary mother”. Borrowing
reading tactics from the school of New Historicism, he examines Mary Shelley’s
own life-experiences with pregnancy for clues to the secret of the
“birth-myth” (Collings, Imaginary Mother).
None of these readings of Frankenstein can be correct.
They all search for a single set of elusive truths, presuming that one
resides within the pages of the text. Each
of these critical theorists scrutinizes this work through glasses fogged by the
constrictions of their particular agenda. Each
claims to seek the “meaning” within the text.
Some claim to uncover the intentions of the author, intentions of which
even she may have been unaware. The
only truth that can, or should, be applied to Shelley’s Frankenstein is
that there is no single truth hidden here, or in any text.
The Frankenstein that Montag reads is a completely different novel than
the one that Collings reads. The
text is not static. It is
perceptively altered by its reader, and can only be read correctly by seeking
what Derrida calls differance. The
absolutes that critics claim to see are not absolutes at all.
To search for an absolute, as these critics do, is to search for truth,
and the only truth is one achieved through a virtue of difference, existing
outside of space and time. Looking
for a thing’s essence must be preceded by first determining its existence. By applying this basic tenet of existentialism, the reader
becomes a detective, closely reading the text to verify or debunk the presence
of absolute binaries accepted by critical theorists.
Shelley
herself casts doubts upon the reliability of Walton (the initial narrator)
within the first few pages of the book. In
the first letter to his sister, Walton says,
“There,
Margaret, the sun is forever visible, its broad disk just skirting the horizon
and diffusing a perpetual splendour.” (15)
Walton's claim is a deliberate untruth. At the North Pole, day and night
alternate in a six-month cycle. In
fact, Walton writes this letter in December, when the North Pole would be dark.
A few lines later, Walton writes of the North Pole, “Its productions
and features
may be without example, as the phenomena of the heavenly bodies undoubtedly
are in
those undiscovered solitudes.” (15) If,
as Walton claims, the pole is eternally in daylight, how is he to see stars, or
any “phenomena of the heavenly bodies”? To make sure the reader knows this is not a mistake, Walton
spends quite a bit of time discussing his knowledge, and how he prepared for the
voyage:
I often worked harder than the common sailors during the day and
devoted my nights to the study of mathematics, the theory of medicine,
and those branches of physical science from which a naval
adventurer might derive the greatest practical advantage. (18)
The
slippery nature of this first letter causes the studious reader to become
suspicious of everything said throughout the rest of the novel, thus casting the
text as problematic throughout the work.
A
need to attain glory is professed to by Walton repeatedly as when he says, “My
life might have been passed in ease and luxury, but I preferred glory to every
enticement that wealth placed in my path”. (17) He
admires the quality in his lieutenant,
saying, “My lieutenant, for instance, is a man of wonderful courage and
enterprise; he is madly desirous of glory, or rather, to word my phrase more
characteristically, of advancement in his profession”.
(19) Victor Frankenstein, too, desires glory, saying of his newly discovered
ability to create life, “A new species would bless me as its creator and
source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me”. (52)
and “It was very different when the masters of the science sought immortality
and power; such views, although futile, were grand; but now the scene was
changed”. (46) This privileging of glory over even wealth appears to be a
transparent attempt to invent a parable teaching the downfall of greed, but the
text collapses under its own weight. Frankenstein
does create life. In fact, he
creates life that has greater physical power than he, the creator.
If, by striving for glory, Victor is able to create a being that is his
own superior, where is the lesson? He
has succeeded in his quest. It is
only his mishandling of the creature that causes him to become violent.
If we examine the binary opposition of “glory versus infamy” (and
that must be the binary, because the hierarchy must be of equal power… it
cannot be simply glory versus a lack of glory) we see that there is never a
chance for the doctor to achieve glory, because infamy would be assigned to any
creator that is not god, but man. In
all of western culture, the “creator” is automatically ascribed the
condition of goodness. Therefore,
Victor Frankenstein would either succeed and become an anti-god, or fail and
live a life of anonymity. Either way, the removal of “glory” from the
hierarchy negates it, causing the text to deconstruct itself.
Similarly,
the hierarchy of “good versus evil” is easily disassembled.
There can be no good if there is no evil… and what can be said to be
good about Victor Frankenstein? Even
when he claims to be searching for the secret to re-animation to better mankind,
he has none but his own interest at heart:
Under
the guidance of my new preceptors I entered with the greatest diligence into the
search of the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life; but the latter soon
obtained my undivided attention. Wealth was an
inferior
object, but what glory would attend the discovery if I
could
banish disease from the human frame and render man invulnerable
to any but a violent
death! (40)
Frankenstein
seeks only glory for himself. That
being the case, there is no “good” here.
In fact, the only good demonstrated by any character is the Monster, and
that is short-lived, lasting only until he becomes familiar with the human race,
which, it would seem, Shelley considers to have virtually no redeeming value.
From the self-made Walton to the Frankenstein-made Monster, “good” is
a concept that, within this text, never attaches itself to anything fully,
leaving the reader with only evil, and therefore only evil possibilities.
The
quest for glory is not innately evil, but the signs that always surround the
text where glorious ambition is expressed consistently qualify it as exactly
that in these characters, causing a lack of stability so great that the text is
always falling apart within itself, even as the reader tries to hold it
together.
If there is no good in Dr.
Frankenstein, and he cannot therefore ever achieve the status of God, we are
left with only characters of evil. The
Monster himself says:
Like
Adam, I was apparently united by no link to any other
being
in existence; but his state was far different from mine in every
other
respect. He had come forth from the
hands of God a perfect creature, happy and prosperous, guarded by the especial
care of his Creator; he was allowed to converse with and acquire knowledge from
beings of a superior nature, but I was wretched, helpless, and alone.
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 within me. (124)
Here, the Monster explains how
he is like both Adam and Satan in Paradise Lost. He says that like Adam, he is completely alone, and like
Satan, he is envious of those who are good, and therefore have happiness. A few
lines later, the Monster laments that even Satan is in a better position than
he. He says, "Satan had his companions, fellow-devils, to admire and
encourage him; but I am solitary and detested."
The binaries I will call “alienation” and “acceptance” suffer a
similar fate. Shelley privileges acceptance without ever showing it.
It is treated as an ethereal concept, one that no one in the novel has a
chance of achieving. Throughout the text, characters feel alienated from others.
Captain Walton expresses this in his second letter when he writes to his
sister:
But I have one want which I have
never yet been able to satisfy,
and
the absence of the object of which I now feel as a most
severe
evil, I have no friend, Margaret: when I am glowing with the
enthusiasm
of success, there will be none to participate my joy;
if
I am assailed by disappointment, no one will endeavour to sustain me
in
dejection. (18)
Walton
has chosen this life. He has
bragged about all he accomplished to achieve it, and yet he complains of having
no friend, of being completely alone.
Conversely,
the Monster has not chosen to exist separate from humanity, but can not
otherwise exist. He laments:
And
what was I? Of my creation and
creator I was absolutely ignorant,
but
I knew that I possessed no money, no friends, no kind of property.
I
was, besides, endued with a figure hideously deformed and loathsome;
I
was not even of the same nature as man. I was more agile than they
and
could subsist upon coarser diet; I bore the extremes of heat and
cold
with less injury to my frame; my stature far exceeded theirs.
When
I looked around I saw and heard of none like me.
Was I, then,
a
monster, a blot upon the earth, from which all men fled and whom
all
men disowned? (115)
This passage clearly shows the
privilege Shelley assigns to association with (and acceptance by) humanity.
The monster could roam free and live an unencumbered life, but, like his
creator, he expresses a need and desire to interact with the “human family”.
This passage also makes it clear that the Monster will never be accepted.
Why is acceptance by and association with the human race presumed here to
be a good and necessary thing? This
sophomoric implication would seek to base the value of an individual not on what
he, she, or it can achieve for the greater good, but on the recognition by,
acceptance into, and association with others.
The
central 20th century principle of The Other plays an important role
in both Shelley’s text, and any attempt to deconstruct it.
The Other, in deconstructive, existentialist and Lacanian thought is the
key to existence. One cannot live
without the Other. The Monster
realizes this, yet sabotages any chance of its occurrence by constructing a
relational paradox, closing out the Other as does his creator.
To use the terms of J. Hillis Miller, we have here a parasite with no
host.
“Light
and darkness” is a traditional binary representation of good and evil in
Western culture. In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley frequently makes use of
light and dark imagery, but the absence of goodness nullifies the attempt to
illustrate an Other. Victor, upon
discovering the secret to creation, is struck by:
a
light so brilliant and wondrous, yet so simple, that while I
became
dizzy with the immensity of the prospect which it illustrated,
I
was surprised that among so many men of genius who had directed
their
inquiries towards the same science, that I alone should be
reserved
to discover so astonishing a secret. (51)
The light would be
representative of the good inherent in the god-like power the doctor has
discovered, were it not for his immediate utterance of a greedy, self-important
delight at being the only one to discover it.
Once again, the text deconstructs itself by supplying only one side of a
coin, becoming two-dimensional, and therefore non-existent.
Finally,
the hierarchy of “life and death” must be addressed.
The concept of life, through its presence in all of us, is privileged,
but in this text who is ever alive? The
alienated Walton pines for companionship even as he lives his life’s dream,
exploring northern waters. Similarly,
Victor Frankenstein is alone, and dead to the world of society, goodness and
love. The Monster is dead in a
literal sense and yet shows the only brief signs of life, attempting to make
contact with society. He is quickly
rebuffed, however because he is, in fact, physically dead, and no longer a
member of the human race. The mother-figure is the source of life. In Frankenstein, mothers tend to die prematurely, are
absent, or simply reject their children. The mothers of Victor, Safie, Agatha
and Felix, Justine, and Elizabeth all fit into this category.
The Monster’s mother-figure is Victor, and he too can be said to belong
in this group. The privileging of
life is rendered incoherent by its very absence.
Frankenstein is not as complex as many critics would have readers believe. A close reading exposes a consistent lack of binary oppositions, and when they do exist, they are flawed. The slippage of these hierarchies creates constant confusion and doubt in the mind of the reader, which often results in the reader marveling at the complexity of the work. What is mistaken for complexity is often the impossibility of grappling with one thing devoid of the Other. Difference is not achieved, and through its absence the text falls apart. The text as a whole has the same disheveled feel that does the Monster, poorly created for all the wrong reasons, yet more powerful than others like it when looked at in isolation.
Collings,
David. “The Monster and the Imaginary Mother: A Lacanian Reading of
Frankenstein” in Frankenstein or, The Modern Prometheus, ed. Johanna M.
Smith, New York: Bedford Books of St. Martin’s Press, 1992
Derrida,
Jacques. “Some Statements, etc." The States of Theory , ed.
David Carroll, Stanford: 1990, p. 80
Montag,
Warren. “The Workshop of Filthy Creation” in Frankenstein or, The Modern
Prometheus, ed. Johanna M. Smith, New York: Bedford Books of St.
Martin’s Press, 1992
Shelley,
Mary. Frankenstein or, The
Modern Prometheus. New York: Signet, 1963.