Frankenstein: A Pillar of Light into our Dark World

Michael White April 2013

Table of Contents Abstract 3

Introduction

Feminist Interpretation

Marxist Interpretation

25

Interpretive Comparisons

37

Works Cited

43

Abstract:
Frankenstein has been an intellectually stimulating and disturbing novel for many who read it. I believe the generated sense of urgency in the novel's readership stems from the aporetic textual binds which Shelley illustrates. This urgency has played out in a plethora of critical interpretations of the text. I plan to explain and investigate the nature of Frankenstein's unresolved conflicts through the examination of two categories of literary analysis: The Marxist and the feminist. Through these critical examinations of the text, I will discuss the role of women, the isolation and misery of the characters within the text, and nature of the critical approaches themselves. I will also address the seeming nature of the novel to be read as intertextual, that is, as a text that calls forand interacts withcritical interpretations. In doing so, I will examine and expound upon the problematic circumstances that Shelley demands her readers experience.

I.

Introduction:
In the nearly 200 years since its publication, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818, 1831)

has been unquestionably successful in attaining readership. I have studied Frankenstein over the course of two terms at the University of Vermont. I also came into contact with the text during my high school years. Over these three structured readings, I have wrestled with the conception of just what it is about the text that makes such a powerful indent upon the mind of its readers. I also question the nature of a text that has produced a veritable mountain of critical interpretations, even from its very beginning. In the reading of Frankenstein and its interpretations, I have been fascinated by the novel's seeming ability to elicit critical response. The first response came from its original editor, Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley's husband. He wrote his critical response to Frankenstein in 1817. This critical response came one year before the book's anonymous publication in 1818 (Smith 238-244). Frankenstein began as a ghost story writing-challenge between Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, John Polidori, and Mary Shelley in June of 1816 (Small 100). The fiction quickly became a well-known, and oft re-published work that has been read and interpreted thoroughly over the past two centuries (Small 100). Frankenstein cuts across critical literary paradigms in a way that highlights the critics' response to the text itself. What becomes evidence for some interpretations is left out in other readings, and importantly, what is not included in the text serves as evidence for others. The vastness of the spectrum of interpretations of the novel presents the challenge of selecting lenses through which a reader, like myself, is to focus his studies. The essential division in the critical tactics of approaching the massively read Frankenstein urged my studies towards 4

two schools of interpretation which starkly highlight the differences I intend to explore. The two critical fields that I have focused my studies upon are the Marxist and the Feminist Schools of interpretation. I have chosen these two approaches as they share an important critical technique, if differing in practice and in outcome. This technique is the assignment of meaning to a resonant feature of the novel. Feminist critics assign meaning to the connections that characters, and actions, share with biographical information concerning Mary Shelley. Marxist critics look for similar resonance, but in terms of the social forces which were at work during the writing of the text, and are also considered to be structurally and historically antagonistic to social relations. In my examination of these two modes of literary criticism, I've found that both work towards providing future readers with a clearer understanding of the way in which Shelley shaped her fictional world. These interpretations function as lenses through which readers can better estimate the scope of the tension that, I believe, is the crux of Frankenstein: this crux being the transgressive nature of the textual tension surrounding the decision of whether Victor should produce a mate, which is the singular request of his first creature.

II. Feminist Interpretation:

I will begin my examination of Frankenstein through the investigation of the process of selected feminist criticisms of the text. As stated previously, the wealth of textual examinations of Frankenstein means that a researcher must first limit the scope their research. In discussing feminist criticism, I have used the Frankenstein (Bedford Second Edition) text to begin my research. From there, I have expanded my research to those critics who build upon similar evidence as the editor, Johanna M. Smith, focuses her work upon. Through this method, my feminist scholarship has mostly been focused upon second-wave feminism, entailing issues of the home, the workplace, and sexuality.1 The feminist critics I work with tend to focus upon biographic evidence from Shelley's life to build their interpretation of Frankenstein. They argue that Shelley's relationships in terms of the death of Mary Wollstonecraft, Percy Shelley, and her own children, give form to the universe that is reflected by, and in some ways actually creates, her fiction. These events are seen as facets of Shelley's subconscious, revealing themselves as accessible in Frankenstein when combining Mary Shelley's biographic information with details of the text. The combination of Shelley's literary pedigree and Percy Shelley's influence on the editorializing of the text, create a text that has can be read as the illumination of the performative nature of gender (Smith 316-317). As Anne K. Mellor argues in chapter 3 of Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley thought he had the right to speak for his wife is clear from his comment to

1 "Womens movement." Encyclopdia Britannica. Encyclopdia Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclopdia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web.

Lackington, Allen &Co. that he was 'authorized to amend'2 her text (Mellor 68). Therefore to understand the text in conjunction with Shelley's biography, and the tensions dealing with gender politics within them both, is to understand how Mary Shelley imagined the world. For feminist critics, the evidence of Shelley's own struggle with gender identity springs forth from the text's negotiations of public and private [life], between masculine understanding and feminine expression, between domestic ideology and domestic practice (Smith 317). Therefore, it is essential in the understanding of Frankenstein as a text to understand the complex and uneasy set of gendered negotiations in Shelley's own life. Within Victor's initial discussion with Walton concerning the formation of the Frankenstein household, the reader finds the first pieces of biographical interconnection between the text and the life of Mary Shelley. The familial setting of Victor is strikingly reminiscent of what we know of the Godwin household. First, the class status of the fictional and non fictional families are similar; as Victor tells Walton, my family is one of the most distinguished of [Geneva] (Shelley 40). Shelley's own family, both mother and father, were of tremendous literary fame. Victor's mother dies when he is only 17 years old. Victor's mother dies as the result of her own insistence that she personally attend Elizabeth, a cousin of the household who is deeply sickened by scarlet fever. Caroline's death, and subsequently, the duties of child rearing being foisted into the hands of Alphonse Frankenstein, are reflective of Mary Shelley's own childhood. Her own mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, died as a result of complications stemming from the birth of Mary Shelley. The anxieties that are produced by an overreaching father figure like William Godwin are also perhaps reflected in Alphonse's rejection of Victor's choice of

2 Letters of Percy Shelley, ed. Fredrick L. Jones, I:565.

studies, early in the novel. For Godwin, upon discovering the burgeoning love interest between his daughter Mary and Percy Shelley, forbade Mary to continue seeing the married Shelley (Lederer 6). When Victor reaches the age of 17, he leaves the protection of his father's home and sets off for university at Ingolstadt. At the age of 17, in July of 1814, Mary Shelley similarly fled her father's household. So, in the cases of both Mary Shelley and Victor Frankenstein, the young person leaves the protection of a single father home, in order to pursue what the father had specifically warned against. Also, in both cases, the protectionism of the fathers can be said to be in response to the cultural pressures that lay upon the domestic sphere to produce children of similar ideological statures. Importantly for Mary Shelley and the text, she became pregnant with her first child during the summer of 1814, which was spent with Percy. I will return to these biographical parallels later in my analyses. Further addressing the onset of the text, the first detail nearly every reader can recognize about Frankenstein is that it is told through the framework of a double narration. That is to say, the story is necessarily affected by the distance between the telling of the actions and the actions themselves. This two-fold distance is explained in the knowledge that Walton is the captain aboard a boat upon which the outside frame of the story takes place. Walton is sending messages home to his sister, Margaret Saville, and in these letters Frankenstein is told. The second layer of Frankenstein is being narrated to Walton by Victor Frankenstein himself. Victor tells his story, having already experienced what it is that Walton, and the reader, will experience during Victor's narration. The space between the fabula of Frankenstein and the narrative telling is described by critic William Veeder as evaluative distance (Verdeer 39). This distance becomes unavoidably affects the text. Any information that the reader can glean from Frankenstein will have already 8

been first experienced and adapted by Victor, and then re-experienced and adapted by Walton. Victor relates to Walton the story of how he came to be aboard Walton's boat from before Victor was born. He begins with tales of his father and mother, taking the reader through an exposition of family genealogy and quasi-lore upon which I have previously elaborated. The epistolary style of Frankensteinthat is the novel's linguistic conveyance as a series of letters from Walton to Margaret Savillealso serves as a total separation from femininity within the narration. No woman speaks directly in the text, and any female voice that is heard must be read first through the lens of Victor Frankenstein, and then the writings of Walton, (Smith 313). Further, no women will be directly physically viewed in the text. They are not present in the outside frame of the novel, which takes place on a boat that Walton is captaining with an all male crew (Verdeer 39). There is a precious singular female character who exists in Walton's world, and therefore the outermost layer of FrankensteinMargaret Saville herself. But Saville has no place onboard the voyage of discovery, the imperial (male-coded) implications of which I will elaborate upon shortly (Pon 151). This type of discovery is one of originality, one that can only be obtained through penetrating the unknown, through a kind of radical selfidentification that involves the conscious suppression of the other (Pon 156). This utterly male-dominated cast of first person narrative characters makes up the first level of concentric circles of narration within the tale. These first person narrators will discuss other characters within their stories, but the only surface level interlocution happens between Walton and Frankenstein, and then Walton and the Monster; importantly these interlocutors are all male (Pon 151). There are three of such narrative circles: Walton writing to his sister, Victor telling his tale to Walton, and the Monster telling his tale to Victor. In reading the language that 9

Shelley employs, this lack of femininity in her characters seeps into the language that they use to spin out their tales. Victor, through the writings of Walton, engenders his narration with masculine language. Both his academic pursuits and his production processes are described through the vocabulary of masculinity. From the beginnings of his time studying the sciences, Victor's stated goal is to penetrate the secrets of nature (Shelley 47). His pursuits will be guided, at the outset, through the careful study of other men. These men had come before Victor's time, and they had penetrated deeper into the realm of scientific understanding. They had already benefitted from, and furthered, the patriarchal system of the transmission of knowledge. The masculine, even phallic, gendering of academic pursuits takes nature, and the concept of the natural, as its object (Wolfson 52). The object of the academic masculine desire, says critic Susan Wolfson, can be therefore described as feminine. The natural order also seems to not defend itself in a manner that registers in the mind of Frankenstein. The natural world is described as vulnerable, inert (Mellor 306). It is therefore the role of the masculine seeker to find out where nature cowers in her hiding places (Shelley 53). This striving towards the conquering of the earth for exploitative, unnatural purposes aligns with Walton's own colonial drive. The goal of Walton's adventure, to set himself as the first upon virgin soil never before imprinted by the foot of man (Shelley 28). Henry Clerval, the homosocial companion to Victor, also shares in this masculine imbued drive.3 During Victor's second excursion, where he plans to build a companion for his first creature, Victor describes Clerval as being interested in visiting India. He wishes to travel there for he is interested in the means of materially assisting the

3 I draw this terminology from Eve Sedgwick's Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire.

10

progress of European colonization and trade (Shelley 139). These types of gendered science, and ideologically slanted male attempts at establishing dominion, paint the masculine figure as the conqueror, or the owner, of the property that he will seek to penetrate. Anne K. Mellor describes Shelley's views of scientific pursuits as having a double, and contrasting nature. Mellor juxtaposes Mary Shelley's attitudes about 'Good' sciencethe detailed and reverent description of the workings of natureto what she considered to be 'bad' science, the hubristic manipulation of the elemental forces of nature to serve man's private ends (Mellor 62). This distinction of the dual nature of scientific pursuits places the 'good' science of subjective inquiry within the sphere of the feminine. Contrastingly, the 'bad' is categorized as the objective science of discovery, exploitation, and domination. The development of the science behind reanimation was importantly being rapidly developed while Shelley penned Frankenstein. During this time period, Erasmus Darwin was performing experiments on the voluntary motion of a slice of a worm, and supporting the claim that living organisms could develop from nonliving matter (Lederer 11). Yet Shelley's fiction realizes what Dr. Darwin theorized against, the blending of charnel and slaughterhouse materials, in the Preface to his Zoonomia: The great [CREATOR] of all things has infinitely diversified the works of his hands, but has at the same time stamped a certain similitude on the features of nature, that demonstrates to us, that the whole is one family of one parent.... when with licentious activity it links together objects, otherwise discordant... it may indeed collect ornaments for wit and poetry, but philosophy and truth recoil from its combinations. (Darwin 280) It is easy to picture how a person like Shelley would find incentives in research such as this. Her own first child was born prematurely and died unnamed. Shelley became pregnant during her

11

first summer spent with Percy Shelley. In her journal entry from Sunday the 19th of 1815, Shelley wrote of a dream in which the dead child was reanimated through '[rubbing] it by the fire' (Feldman/Scott-Kilvert 70). This is to say, that the scientific possibility of reanimation certainly would have occupied the imagination of Shelley, in that she was a young woman who had already experienced premature death. This scientific manipulation, within the realm of the masculine, is normally tempered by the presence of the feminine (Wolfson 53). In Frankenstein, however, the masculine characters, as previously mentioned, are unconnected with their female counterparts: Walton is already set upon his voyage when the reader encounters him, and Victor creates his being in total isolation. They operate in a world that would be theoretically tempered by the presence of a female, but instead, their work separates the men from the inclinations that could have prevented their dooms. The characters employed in 'bad' scientific pursuits are not tempered as such, for they channel the emotional energy traditionally reserved for domestic affection into their academic and scientific pursuits. Walton and Victor importantly accord none of the respect and affection that they would reserve for a female, to nature (Mellor 81). It is instead, the pursuit which receives the affection, not the object of the pursuit. When Walton first speaks to Victor, in describing his work, it is in the language of my heart (Shelley 38). For Walton encounters Victor in a different stage of Walton's own scientific progression. Victor recognizes a reflection the beginnings of his own scientific trajectory: Unhappy man! Do you share my madness? Have you drank also of the intoxicating draught? Hear me, let me reveal my tale, and you will dash the cup from your lips! (Shelley 38). Victor then proceeds to speak to Walton in a language of the hopes of 12

tranquility, the rejection of masculine ambitions, even while being involved in the same fatalistic drive that originally set him on the path towards his own doom. It is a language inherently tainted with the future tense, to be adopted wholly only after Victor accomplishes his entirely masculine task. Victor, in his early discussions with Walton, therefore displays the contradiction between his speaking and acting roles. Victor is involved with a task that inevitably will be his doom, and even accepts this to be the case: but you are mistaken, my friend, if thus you will allow me to name you; nothing can alter my destiny (Shelley 40). Yet, all the while Victor warns Walton against following his own doom down a similar road. He attempts to play the role of the nurturer, but without acting upon the traits that the feminine sphere cultivates (Smith 315). He speaks to Walton as if he has already conquered the overarching impetus that is pushing Walton towards a demise. In this way, Shelley develops tensions in the inwardness of Victor, a dichotomy which brings the reader closer to the protagonist through showing his internally divided state. This focus upon the separated realms of masculine production and feminine tenderness has biographical resonance with Mary Shelley's own publishing of Frankenstein. The feminist critical approach here views the portrayal of the bifurcated social order as inherently a critique (Smith 315). Shelley, as the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, was from birth the subject of speculation. She acknowledges her unique positioning in the literary world, in the introduction to Frankenstein, as the daughter of two persons of distinguished literary celebrity (Shelley 21). Even in publishing Frankenstein in 1818, Shelley remained anonymously hidden behind her pages. While creating a timeless work of literature, she remained oppressed by the same social forces which keep the women in her fiction in an ideologically separate sphere from the men. She performed the same oppressive force that is clearly to be found in 13

Frankenstein. Shelley, unlike her characters, broke from her ideologically feminine role as her career as a credited writer began in 1831, through her claiming of Frankenstein. She shows the divided social order included in the text to be, at least, faulty. But more than faulty, Johanna M. Smith argues, the performance is played out in response to the demands on a woman of the time period stemming from an oppressive dominant male ideology. The fiction, that was brought to life and originally unclaimed by a female author, portrays the uneasiness and tension that is rife within Shelley's own world. These tensions are present within the pressure of Shelley's literary lineage, the heavy editorial influence of Percy Shelley, and the perception of female authors during the early nineteenth century. The conqueror, using the exploitative terminology of 'bad' science, sees himself not as a man within a natural order, but as a man without. This type of scientific discovery tries to thieve something from the natural order and bring it under the control of the conqueror: of the man. In this way, the scientific pursuits embody Shelley's conception of male Prometheanism (Wolfson 50). But the 'Modern Prometheus' is unlike the ancient Prometheus: his tale ends without the air of the heroic sacrifice. Instead, Shelley paints her 'Modern Prometheus' to illustrate the dangers inherent in the use of... gendered metaphors in the seventeenth-century scientific revolution (Mellor 62). She writes at the beginning of a century that was to launch successive modernist quests... [recalling] a history of genocide and enslavement that [had] resulted from insatiable quests (Pon 151). This quality of being outside of nature also serves the purpose of completely isolating the quest undertaker, for he has neither the tender affections of the feminine sphere nor a connection to his essential self, a being within the ideological fold of the earth. The women in Frankenstein serve a purpose, even without being seen. This purpose is to 14

temper the masculine figures in their quests, and establish their domestic sphere. Within this sphere, the home can be cultivated but the masculine drive is quelled, or at the very least tempered. Within the masculine sphere, scientific discoveries are waiting to be taken by those willing to exert themselves. The enterprise is the end goal of masculine drive, no matter what sacrifices may be involved (Shelley 38). This enterprise, in the case of Walton and Frankenstein, can be an honorable one, one where the seeker looks to alleviate some woe on behalf of human kind. Walton seeks dominion just as Victor seeks knowledge and wisdom (Shelley 38-39). As Walton says, do I not deserve to accomplish some great purpose? (Shelley 29). There is also space for tenderness and collegial friendship within the masculine sphere, and the characters are able to recognize the humanity in others when they portray [his] own image (Pon 151). The faultiness of the total separation of the male and female ideological spheres plays out nearly explicitly in the sheer awkwardness of Letter II. Walton writes to his sister, there will be none to participate in my joy (Shelley 31). Walton is not, however, seeking a person to share in his joy, but the company of a man who could sympathise with me; whose eyes would reply to mine (Shelley 31). Within the logic of Frankenstein, it is the feminine sphere of tenderness and domesticity that holds men back from attaining what it is they 'deserve' to attain. Even if it preserves the goodness of humankind, the domestic is a realm without historically measurable success, without adventure or endeavor, a realm refined by books and retirement from the world (Shelley 39). This feminine sphere is a place to be returned to after successful attainment of the masculine drive (Smith 314). This domestic sphere, if returned to without success, is the culmination of masculine failure (Wolfson 53). The return is the destruction of the masculine ambition, the 15

result of failure, the only thing that can stop the determined heart and resolved will of man (Shelley 34). Walton warns his sister against the thoughts of such a return: I dare not to expect such successes, yet I cannot bear to look on the reverse of the picture (Shelley 33). This sphere of safety Victor Frankenstein himself rejects, even if it means his own destruction, when Walton offers him a place onboard his vessel, when he first must ascertain in which direction it is bound. Yet unlike Frankenstein, who is destroyed by the implications of his half completed quest, Walton does commit to returning home. His homecoming is tainted with the aforementioned feelings of failure, even after witnessing in Victor the consequences of the attempted exploitation of nature: The die is cast; I have consented to return, if we are not destroyed. Thus are my hopes blasted by cowardice and indecision; I come back ignorant and disappointed. It requires more philosophy than I possess, to bear this injustice with patience (Shelley 183). Walton distinguishes between the masculine and feminine spheres in his letters to his sister. In the first lines of Frankenstein, he announces early success within his journey that Mrs. Saville, had regarded with such evil forebodings (Shelley 28). It was within the feminine sphere that Walton enjoyed his best years... under your gentle and feminine fosterage (Shelley 32). Here he learned a distaste [for] the usual brutality exercised on board ship (Shelley 32). Although these early stages of a man's life are spent in the company of women, the man also diverges from them. He is expected to grow out of the safe, the encouraging, the place where men are fostered. Since the feminine sphere of domesticity is opposed to the ambitions of the male intellect, men are allowed to remain there only until they are grown enough to rely upon the something at work within my soul, even if it is that "which I do not understand (Wolfson 52; Shelley 33). In Frankenstein's production of a monster, he consciously acknowledges the 16

irrelevance of the feminine sphere, once the man has matured: No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely, he boasts, for there is no other parent. Victor's quest bypasses the female (Pon 152-153). Pon's interpretation of this text provides further insight into the radical changes a reader can glean from the text depending on the gender of the author. When the author is anonymous, this line could just as simply be stating that no other father could claim his child's gratitude, for Victor is the only living soul to have created life from death. This interpretation would reaffirm the concept of the masculine/feminine gender binary. However, in light of Shelley's claiming the novel as her own in 1831, Pon elucidates what I feel is a more honest reading of the passage. Thus, in creating a monster of male qualifications without the biological assistance of a woman, Victor has implicitly denied both the feminine and the divine's role in the processes of reproduction (Mellor 72). Victor, at once, denies the orthodox view of the singular creator, and in denying the natural processes of giving life, has monstrously parodied the creator (Mellor 72-73). When the monster implores Victor to create a female version of himself, he uses the engendered language that Victor and Walton use to describe their homosocial counterparts. He is interested in a being with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being (Shelley 128). However, Victor comes to the conclusion that the monster will never be human-like, even in the presence of a female companion. Victor utilizes the same reasoning as compelled him to create the monster in the beginning, to cultivate a reason not to create a female monster. For although the monster proposes to live a peaceful and human existence in the wilderness of South America, Victor recognizes that the monster's bargain could lead to an ultimate scenario in which his evil passions will be renewed (Shelley 130). Just as Victor 17

himself disregarded the safety of the domestic sphere of affection for the promise of great deeds, he sees the same danger in the monster attempting similar actions. Even before Victor comes upon Walton, he is already acting upon the reflections of his own ambitions that he can now recognize in other beings. For even when the monster chooses to act in a benevolent manner, such as in the case of the De Laceys, or saving the young girl from drowning in the river, he is still rejected by those who can perceive only the monstrous in him. At best, the monster could have become an Elephant Man, a benevolent but still much maligned freak (Mellor 73). I find a confounding of terms in this relationship, a breaking or indeed obscuring of the gender binary that Shelley's fiction presents as a critique. For Victor, at first, concedes to the monster's demands of the creation of a second female monster. He does so in a way that fits the trajectory of the male conquering sphere, for he wishes to claim Elizabeth, and forget the past in my union with her (Shelley 135). This initial assent echoes Smith's reading of the feminine sphere as a place to be returned to once success has been attained (Smith 314). It is the path of Victor's father, who forgot his public duties once he had cultivated a life with his wife, Victor's mother. But Victor cannot create the second female monster, for he can see the potential only for the creation of a companion in vice, instead of what the monster desires: an amorous companion (Shelley 146). The monster responds to Victor's breaking of their agreement by outlining the life of alienation that Victor had previously lived during the process of his first creation. The monster here elucidates the true dangers of a life completely isolated on one side of the gender binary, with no hope of a reprieve: Shall each man, cried he, find a wife for his bosom, and each beast have his mate, and I be alone? I had feelings of affection, and they were requited with detestation and scorn. Man! you may hate; but beware! your hours will pass in 18

dread and misery, and soon the bolt will fall which must ravish from you your happiness for ever. Are you to be happy, while I grovel in the intensity of my wretchedness? (Shelley 146) As previously discussed, Victor begins his tale with a discussion of his home life, and within this home life, readers can see the formation of his intellectual prowess. The cultivation of a gendered view of the home as opposed to public life is also impressed upon him here. Shelley clearly distinguishes between the power of education to lend to humanity and to detract from it (Pon 154). Victor Frankenstein's autobiographical narration to Walton begins with a discussion of his father, Alphonse Frankenstein, who was known to all in Geneva as a paragon of public life. He devoted his attention and time to several public situations, before recalling himself to the domestic sphere (Shelley 40). These preoccupations with the good of public life preempted him from settling into the domestic sphere, for these tasks required his indefatigable attention to public business (Shelley 40). His role as a servant of the public led him to the assistance of a man by the name of Beaufort, who fell into disrepair, private wretchedness, and debt. The story mirrors the rescuing of Victor from the tundra, when Victor himself was on the verge of becoming human wreckage (Pon 151). Walton, while not able to include his sister in the voyage of discovery, can certainly recognize the heroic image of himself in Frankenstein (Pon 151). Likewise, Alphonse hoped to bring the man, in whom he can see the reflection of masculine success, back into the public sphere through his credit and assistance (Shelley 41). When Alphonse finally comes to find Beaufort, Victor's father realizes that there is a young Caroline Beaufort that is also in need of care. Victor tells Walton that Alphonse protected Caroline, and after two years of guardianship Alphonse took Caroline to marriage. This anecdote serves as the grounding for Victor's own tale, but also serves to establish the culture of 19

protectionism, economic domesticity, and relationships based upon debt within the home (Smith 321). In my own interpretation of the novel, Justine stands out as the culmination of the debtbased relationships cultivated within the domestic sphere of the Frankenstein household. Victor introduces the character of Justine to Walton, and thereby to the reader, through a recalling of a letter that he had received from Elizabeth. Justine is adopted into the Frankenstein family under the same spirit of protectionism that originally brought Caroline and then Elizabeth to Alphonse Frankenstein. Justine is described as a servant to the family, but importantly, Elizabeth recounts the republican institutions of our country, which do not include the concept of ignorance, nor the sacrifice of the dignity of a human being (Shelley 66-67). Through Justine's benevolent upbringing, she is imbued with the same ethos of debt repayment as the other members of the family. As Elizabeth tells Victor: This benefit was fully repaid; Justine was the most grateful little creature in the world... she almost adored her protectress... She thought [Caroline] the model of all excellence, and endeavored to imitate her phraseology and manners (Shelley 67). Because of the total absorption of Frankenstein's familial values by Justine, the accusation concerning the murder of William Frankenstein carries a doubled burden for the family. If Justine indeed committed the crime, she first bears the weight of having slaughtered a youthful, innocent child. But Alphonse Frankenstein, in his relation of the tale to Victor, highlights first that the crime is indicative of depravity and ingratitude in one I valued so highly (Shelley 78). Justine's supposed rejection of the cultivated sphere of protection is what eventuates from Alphonses reaction. Alphonse's reaction to Justine being charged as the murder of William biographically 20

resonates with William Godwin's treatment of the suicide of Fanny Imlay. Fanny Imlay was the first child of Mary Wollstonecraft, and the product of an out of wedlock relationship with an absent father, Gilbert Imlay (Hitchcock 59-60). For Godwin, Imlay was a burden from his now deceased wife's socially transgressive past, and on the occasion of her suicide he banned the family from openly mourning Fanny (Hitchcock 60). The physiologically rending response that overcomes Victor after the death of Justine is akin to Shelley's performance of the mourning of Imlay. This same performance that was blocked because of the social pressures which prevented Imlay from being wholly adopted into the Godwin household, and thereby contributed to her suicide. Victor's transgressive creation of the monster holds a similar place in the death of Justine, for Victor cannot exculpate Justine. He is unable to prove her innocence, since his creation narrative for the monster would be considered the ravings of a madman, and would not have exculpated her who suffered through me (Shelley 79). Justine's confession of innocence to Victor and Elizabeth also reflects the suicide letter of Imlay. First, Imlay writes: I have long determined that the best thing I could do was to put an end to the existence of a being whose birth was unfortunate... you will soon have the blessing of forgetting that such a creature ever existed (Todd 3). This compares strikingly to Justine's, I leave a sad and bitter world... Farewell [Elizabeth], my beloved and only friend... may this be the last misfortune that you will ever suffer! (Shelley 85). The community that tries Justine also echoes Alphonse's response to the murder, Victor describes their trial as charging her with blackest ingratitude (Shelley, 82). Thus, Justine betrays not only the family, but also the republican institutions of the Genevese which Alphonse Frankenstein values in the same way that Victor values the earlier discussed transmuted 21

knowledge. As Alphonse later explains to Elizabeth, the justice of our laws will see that the case of Justine is sorted in a fair manner (Shelley 79). In both cases, Justine's trial and Victor's education, the paternalistic male figures in society are relied upon pass down a lineage that is inherited and revered by the new. But, as is the case with Victor's inherited knowledge, the reciprocating cycle of justice is broken by the inclusion of the monster, a being outside of the realm of understanding for the Genevese. Justine, therefore, dies on the scaffold for want of Frankenstein's intervention in the trial. The debt centered familial relationships that ground the endeavors of Victor will prove foundational in how Victor, and Walton, think of success in scientific endeavors. For within the confines of Victor's studies, he converts natural erotic desires into the scientific urge (Wolfson 52-53). This unhealthy channeling of eroticism into scientific endeavors is also categorized by Anne K. Mellor as a denial of the natural human reproductive process (Mellor 73). This conversion is clearest within the language with which Victor describes his ardor (Shelley 81). Victor forgets about his human relationships when he is toiling at the creation of his first monster. His correspondence with his father and Elizabeth both come to a halt, and this is especially important as it signifies Victor's complete severance from the feminine world (Mellor 79). The only thing that Victor can show affection for, during his labors, is the culminating goal of his creation (Mellor 79). The love of his parents is described as a show of gratitude, a debt that is earned through their virtues (Shelley 41). The parents' love for their offspring, Victor, is likewise conceived as a debt repayment (Shelley 42). Victor's mother, in entering orphanages while traveling, endeavors to alleviate suffering in the spirit of remembering what she had suffered, 22

and how she had been relieved (Shelley 42). Victor deals with his remorse over the death of his mother in a similar debt-centric fashion on an affective and symbolic level. When he relates to Walton the story of her passing, Victor explains that his moments of grief were soon overcome by the feeling that he must return to the duties which we ought to perform (Shelley 50). These duties are, specifically, the reciprocation of the virtues that Victor sees in Alphonse Frankenstein. To fulfill his role within the masculine sphere of public service with the integrity and indefatigable attention which has earned his father the respect of those who knew him (Shelley 40). In becoming a piece of the Frankenstein family, and in that way inheriting the Frankenstein's familial debt-centric ethos, Elizabeth becomes Victor's to protect, love and cherish (Shelley 44). Elizabeth will go on to busy herself in the domestic sphere, and Victor will strive for attention and glory, but they will remain a debt-pair; with Victor always striving to succeed and then return to his love, his preserved Elizabeth. Victor had, from the moment of meeting with Elizabeth, conceived of her as his own possession. He understands literally what his mother says in jest, that Elizabeth is to be a pretty present for Victor (Shelley 44). The monster also conceives of his relationship with Victor as a debt-repayment connection, he asks Victor for a mate because he longs for a companion. But the monster seeks the companion from Victor specifically because it is Victor's role as the creator of the monster, in the debt-repayment relationship model, to create a female for him. Just as Victor conceptualizes Elizabeth to be his, the monster, in not finding a relationship with Victor to be possible, imagines a similar mate for himself. However, the second monster cannot be, for Victor is not guaranteed control over it. Victor ultimately dies still trusting, correctly, in the debt-repayment relationship which binds the 23

monster to him. As long as the monster does not have a mate with which to cultivate his own life, the destruction that he can wreak will be limited to Victor, and not potentially to all beings of my own species (Shelley 184). Critic Ellen Moers describes Frankenstein as the work that most thoroughly repays examination in the light of the sex of its author (Moers 79). Gothic literature is difficult to define, except that it has to do with fear (Moers 77). Moers also states that the overarching intent of Gothic literature is to scare (Moers 77). Frankenstein is specifically a feminine piece of literature because it focuses on the issue of deficient infant care (Moers 81). As the novel focuses upon the physiological and psychological terrors wrought upon Victor during his production process, his pregnancy which subverted the female. The text consciously, and frustratingly for readers, ignores the birthing, and then refocuses upon the traumatic period of afterbirth (Moers 81). This elision or canceling of the basic human fact of natality parallels to the premature death of Shelley's first child in 1815, the product of her time spent during the summer of 1814, with Percy Shelley, as earlier discussed.

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III. Marxist Interpretation:

In this chapter, I will investigate and attempt to provide an adequate reading of Frankenstein from a Marxist critical standpoint. I am interested in the Marxist approach to critical analysis in that this approach values what symbols, actions, and characters in the text are [symbolically] resonant (Michie 93). When interpreting the text there is also the prospect of ascribing meaning to evidence that is consciously removed from a text, even to name the act of removal or displacement as conscious or intentional. With the inclusion of these pieces of critical evidence, new interpretive space is cultivated, where the reader can better understand the social conditions that inform Shelley's fictional world. Frankenstein may seem a queer choice of texts to apply the Marxist lens to, as Shelley's 1818 edition coincides with the year of Karl Marx's birth. But Marxist criticism is a form of critique, a discourse for interrogating all societies and their texts in terms of certain specific issues. Those issues[include] race, class, and the attitudes shared within a given culture (Murfin 368). Therefore, any text throughout history is open to the lens of Marxist criticism. Crucial to the analysis of the text of Frankenstein from a Marxist critical perspective is the understanding of the symbolic resonance of the effects of alienated labor (Michie 93). Marx

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describes the process of alienating aspect of labor as a relationship between the worker and the object that is being produced: the worker puts his life into the object; but now [the workers] life no longer belongs to him, but to the object (Stockhammer 6). Taking this definition into account, Frankensteins creature can be read as suffering exactly the alienation classified as being characteristic of the proletariat (Michie 93-94). But, reading Frankenstein with this in mind, Mary Shelley, could also be interpreted as writing a cautionary tale about Victors production of the monster. In this way, Victor can also be considered as a figure that is meant to stand in for the perils of a working class life (Michie 94). Therefore, Shelley confounds the one-to-one ratio of character to societal feature. Reading the novel from a Marxist critical standpoint, the reader is certainly not obliged to identify these as direct parallels. Once a reader can accept that 'class struggle is the motor of history,' these comparisons become unnecessary (Montag 391)4. Instead, the reader looks for the contradictions, discrepancies, and inconsistencies that the work displays but does not address or attempt to resolve (Montag 390). Therefore, in Frankenstein, Shelley will not specify what the brutalization that befalls Victor as the result of the production of the monster is supposed to represent. Neither will Shelley give to readers a one sided account of the compassion that should have been shown to the creature. As put by the critic Franco Moretti: The literature of terror is born precisely out of the terror of a split society and out of the desire to heal it (Moretti 68). With the eighteenth and nineteenth century historical and technological shifts, new questions of morality were thrust to the center of intellectual debate. The novel attempts to demonstrate the utmost culmination of these tensions, and then in enclosing them within the framework of a finished story, bring them
4 Montag here is quoting Marx, from The Communist Manifesto.

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to an ameliorated end (Moretti 68). For Marxist critics, this amelioration can only ever be a facade, as the literature embodies the impetus behind the solving of societal tensions, but cannot resolve them (Montag 390). In interpreting Frankenstein with this framework in mind, the reader values the conditions under which Walton returns home over the concept of him returning home. For in a different reading of the text, Walton heeds Victor's warning of his voyage becoming the serpent to sting you (Shelley 39). Instead, the reader takes into account that Walton's return bears the weight of failure, I have consented to return... thus are my hopes blasted by cowardice and indecision (Shelley 183). The implications of future imperialist ventures are born out of the remorse over failure, the blasted lament only that they could not complete their tasks. For the passage towards the magnetic pole was specific to this moment in time as well, the first serious polar expedition sailed northward in 1773 (Hitchcock 66). That particular mission was not successful, yet others followed even into the middle of the next century (Hitchcock 67). This doubling of history with textual documentation highlights the spiritual drive that Walton and Victor say that they suffer from. The fear stemming from behind unknowable progress is put at stake. The fear, which Moretti calls the inspiration behind works such as Frankenstein, embodies the logical conclusion that Marx draws from the bourgeois system of production: Whatever the product of his labor is, he is not. Therefore the greater this product, the less is he himself (Stockhammer 6). The future of Frankensteins mode of thought cannot therefore be realized. Victors processes are destroyed with his death, the suicide of the monster, and Waltons recognition and turning home (Moretti 71). But importantly, the destiny of Frankenstein is not his 27

own. For the reader cannot center her interpretive compass against the woes of Victor Frankenstein alone. For this to be true, Victor would claim the monster as his own production, but instead, he asserts to Walton that there was always another force driving him towards his doom. Before Victor's tale brings him to university, he explains to Walton, Destiny was too potent, and her immutable laws had decreed my utter and terrible destruction (Shelley 49). There are two poignant interpretations of this dark force that Victor sees overhanging his creative process. The first of these being that as the story is a frame narrative, Victor has the chance to moralize his own character. This force is therefore an editorialization on the part of the protagonist to avert some of the guilt born from monstrous deeds. The second, and more compelling from a Marxist critical standpoint, is that this dark force is a symbolically resonant metaphor for class struggle. This force which pulls the industrial protagonist unwittingly through the progress of the text towards a clash; it implicates Victor as no more than an unwilling instrument of progress (Montag 388). Another integral part of understanding a text through the Marxist lens, broadly, is to recognize the effects that the subjugated labor and alienation wreck upon characters. It is not the production process, nor the tools that are necessarily damaged by the creation of the monster, it is the being which Victor creates. Conversely, and less simplistically, the doctor who completes the production of the creature, a subject which I will return to. This contradictory stance on the overwhelming suffering produces an ambiguity and tension in the text, reiterating the implied danger of so-called progress. The monster reasserts the evils that were prevalent in the nineteenth century industrial boom, and in claiming them, places them outside the bounds of society (Moretti 68). These working conditions, low wages, and increasing cost of living were only a part 28

of the evils facing the proletariat (Montag 368). In placing the monster outside the bounds of realism, the reader is able to look upon the societal woes objectively, without the concern of the benefits that the production had (Moretti 68). In this way, Shelley draws the reader closer to the text's inherent contradictions by creating an objective space for this interpretation to take place. This space is both reflective of the historical point at which the novel was written, and allows itself to be reinterpreted with each reading. Victor's extreme isolation, socially and intellectually, both strengthens his symbolic connection to the proletariat, and also cements his place at the inception of new technological prowess. Displaying Victor's production processes as the birth of a potential new industrial technology, the reader has the interpretive space to inquire whether or not this is a process which should be repeated. As he is forming the being through inhuman methods, the production deforms Victor in several ways (Michie 93). The creation of the monster alienates Victor from his family (Michie 95). As Victor states, I shunned my fellow-creatures as if I had been guilty of a crime (Shelley 60). The production also causes Victor to be insensitive to the beauty that surrounded him in nature (Michie 95). Again, Victor tells Walton directly: Often did my human nature turn with loathing from my occupation, whist, still urged on by an eagerness which perpetually increased, I brought my work near to a conclusion. The summer months passed while I was thus engaged, heart and soul, in one pursuit. It was a most beautiful season; never did the fields bestow a more plentiful harvest, or the vines yield a more luxuriant vintage: but my eyes were insensible to the charms of nature. (59 Shelley) This piece of narration also enlightens Walton, and the reader, to a further alienating factor in the monsters production: Victor is alienated from his own body (Michie 95). Victors emotions and sensations turn him away from his process, but the urge to complete the project is

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too strong, and Victor forces himself to overcome his misgivings. As was the case with the Feminist critics, this type of alienation from nature produces characters willing to deal with the natural world from an objective standpoint. This is a dangerous proposition in that scientists, and others working from outside the natural order, are capable of great harm. In using pieces of corpses to create his monster, Frankenstein embodies Marxs thoughts on the natural world being a system of component parts, living while together, dead when separated (Michie 96). In reascribing life to the pieces salvaged from corpses, Victor steps outside of the realm of the natural, into an objective and, importantly, manipulative new world of power (Michie 96). As it is not solely Victor at work, but Victor with an added outside compulsion, this is the second iteration of interpretive space being cultivated by Shelley within the text. For Marxist critics, this space is resonant with the ever striving motor of history towards bourgeois-phase capitalist progress. During his first production, the dark spirit, or destiny, loomed over him as he created the first being. The second production has the monster watching over Victor, I left Switzerland with you... I have endured incalculable fatigue, and cold, and hunger; do you dare destroy my hopes? (Shelley 146). These outside powers are the antagonistic social forces which produce struggles (Montag 389). For conversely, these new technologies certainly did produce wealth and beauty, but only for a select few (Michie 94; Moretti 70). These privileged few enjoyed the contradictory development that came with the influx and boom of the industrial order, which grew alongside the steady impoverishing of the working class (Montag 387). The monster breathes life into the breakdown of the economic and social ties between classes that had been evident within earlier models of economic stratification. Shelley, here, symbolically raises the question involving the 30

masters of technology and business, and their implications within the context of their industries. She does so especially with regard to the working class. Does this newly founded industrial technology bear with it the responsibility of fatherhood or patronage? (Hustis 846). The matter of control of the situation is also brought into question, for the struggle evolves through the novel even within the creator-created dichotomy. The literature of burgeoning industry containing these relationships tells the story of the inseparable, if toxic bonds (Moretti 85). Shelley tells a cautionary tale in this regard: the monster feels that Victor indeed has vast responsibilities when it comes to his wellbeing. The imbalance of moral judgment is starkly elucidated for the reader when Victor, upon meeting the monster on Montanvert, first feels what the duties of a creator towards his creature were (Shelley 95). These feelings were certainly not present at the 'birth' of the creature. Victor fails to come through on his bargain with his creation, for he feels a stronger connection with the wellbeing of his own race. Importantly for the Marxist perspective, Victor is in control of the bargain, or at least believes that he is in control. For he always has the power to create a second monster, to recreate the industrial processes that led him to the first being. But, Victor chooses not to complete his second task. This connection to mankind, and with his own privileged order within the umbrella of mankind, overpowers the will of the creator to make his creation happy. Even within the novel, the relationship between the monster and Frankenstein has evolved so much that Frankenstein knows he cannot control the being once he completes a companion. He attempts to limit the damage that the monster can impose, and in response to the denial, the monster attacks and destroys all those that are close to Victor. The control of the relationship is again flipped, further shattering the one-to-one stand in of characters for non fictional ideas. The monster claims control of the creative process, Slave... 31

Remember that I have power... You are my creator, but I am your master; obey! (Shelley 146). This ever-morphing relationship between controller and controlled carries the implications of social struggle, which as it is ever evolving and ever present, follows no rules and obeys no logic... whose character is perpetually transformed by its own activity (Montag 389). This tension is present even in the dying thoughts of Victor, while he gives his parting piece to Walton's crew. First, he berates them for wanting to leave their course, oh! be men, or be more than men... This ice is not made of such stuff as your hearts may be; do not return to your families with the stigma of disgrace marked on your brows (Shelley 183). However, days later his mental state has become resigned once more, yet still with the flicker of former drive, seek happiness in tranquility, and avoid ambition, even if it be only the apparently innocent one of distinguishing yourself in science and discoveries. Yet why do I say this? I have myself been blasted in these hopes, yet another may succeed (Shelley 185). The problem of solving the issue of the treatment of the creature, is that the monster is neither man nor machine. The monster breaks the usual democratically centered intellectual schematic of man and citizen, of a reasonable human being (Reese 49). He is certainly a member of a new species, and the monster is able to understand that in his own right (Reese 50). But his species is unfinished, and therefore lacks the prerequisite parts to earn the new species rights. He wishes, not to be treated as one of human kind, but to live a humane existence separate from them: the sun will shine on us as man... The picture I present to you is peaceful and human (Shelley 129). The species, in fact, needs Frankenstein in order to be able to sustain itself. Yet, even on the floating symbol of democratic virtue that is Waltons ship, there is no place in the world that the monster can be a part of (Moretti 67). The monster's demands on Frankenstein are 32

not even monstrous, they are the reasonable demands upon a citizen from another citizen, as a member of a working society (Moretti 69). Again, as the monster states, I intended to reason... What I ask of you is reasonable and moderate (Shelley 129). The monster's demands center around his creator, who has previously abandoned him, as he is the only human who has demonstrated the power or willingness to give him anything. No human being has been able to look upon the monster without experiencing disgust and fear. Even when the monster entreats with Victor, he realizes that his own visage is an impediment against understanding, and places his hands over Victor's eyes: thus I relieve thee, my creator (Shelley 94). Akin to the proletariat, the monster is both denied, and wholly encompassed, by his creator (Moretti 69). Victors role in the creation of a singular first individual, makes him uniquely placed as the ruler of the species. That is, until he is finished in creating a second being that is able to procreate with the first. As Victor tells Walton in explaining why he destroyed the second female creature, the first results of those sympathies would be children, and a race of devils would be propagated upon the earth, who might make the very existence of the species of man a condition precarious and full of terror (Shelley 144). This sentiment is the inversion of the logic Victor relates before he was finished creating his first monster, 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 58). The monster and Frankenstein are therefore immutably connected, while the monster does not have a female counterpart to begin his own new race. As Frankenstein cannot help but create the monster, the producer class in the early nineteenth century could not produce their commodities without a somewhat willing workforce of wage-laborers (Moretti 69). But 33

these laborers far outnumbered the population of producers, and therefore the producer class unwittingly created a being far more theoretically powerful than itself (Moretti 69). As he creates a being more powerful than himself, Victor is tortured by the life, as well as by the process of production through which he creates the monster. Another symbolically resonant link between the working class and the monster is that both are collective and both are unnamed (Moretti 69). The monster is pieced together from the scraps of corpses, similarly the working class is collective, one can speak of a Ford worker, and have an identity, even within a collection (Moretti 69). The producer class is beholden to the working class, but only insofar as the line where their own wellbeing, or perceived wellbeing, is threatened. But, as related by Montag, the one-to-one comparison of the monster and the proletariat does not serve to fully explain the novel through the Marxist lens (Montag 389). In his 1844 manuscript, Marx outlined the dangers inherent in the subjugated labor system he saw developing: The fact that labor is external to the worker, i.e., it does not belong to his essential being; that in his work, therefore, he does not affirm himself but denies himself, does not feel content but unhappy, does not develop freely his physical and mental energy but mortifies his body and ruins his mind. (Stockhammer 6) As of this point, I have limited my discussion to the symbolic connections between the divisive class differentiation which defined the industrial boom of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. I will now move to discussing the second piece of evidential material that is crucial to developing a Marxist critical analysis. For Marxist critics expect readers to adopt the policy that the literary text is no way independent of the historical and political movements that are occurring during the writing process of Shelley (Montag 368). Therefore, pieces of the

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historical moment from which the piece was born that are conspicuously missing, become evidence of a conscious suppression by the author. The technological and scientific advancements of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century were such that their implications severed previous ties between workers and owners. Shelley shows this type of division to be symbolically futile and hopeless, yet self-reciprocating, and this should be in the foreground of the mind when absorbing the text of Frankenstein (Mellor 64-78). Further, the novel's setting naturalizes Victor, while denaturalizing him. Victor is placed in the tense situation of being the standard bearer of a non-existent textual industrial society, that was in reality booming during Shelley's inception of the text. This makes Frankenstein not only the locus of production within the text, but the locus of production within Shelley's world. For there are no dark Satanic Mills, like there are seen in Blake's And did those feet in ancient time. In fact, the text makes no claims for verisimilitude of even a poetic Wordsworthian nature (Oates 36). If these machines were displayed as whirring around Victor's development of the monster, billowing an inferno of smoke and fire over the English landscape, Victor's work becomes a piece of the machine himself (Tropp 23). His task would therefore be more understandable, more relatable in terms of our own iconography of the mechanical age. Instead, Shelley disavows these images of technological prowess in order to strengthen her image of the doctor creating a being that is fundamentally out of place. In the process of imbuing of dead pieces of flesh with new life, Shelley again highlights through displacement the ideological tension in the text. Victor's production process takes place in two locations devoid of industry. Had he been in an urban center, or surrounded by factory production, his task would have been easier. The conspicuous decentralization of industry from 35

the text makes Victor's production of the monsters more difficult. If a reader imagines an urban environment of the early eighteenth century which is bustling with commerce and industrial progress, the conception of where one would find body parts to utilize becomes much more attainable. Instead, Shelley places her protagonist in locations where the body parts would be harder to come by, and the profanity of the stealing of them much more concrete. As Victor tells Walton, I collected bones from charnel-houses; and disturbed, with profane fingers, the tremendous secretes of the human frame (Shelley 58). These scenes of the theft of bones are in contrast to actual historical developments, where in England, Byron is known to have spoken upon the mobs of displaced workers who were threatened by Parliament with execution for wrecking new machinery (Tropp 23). Again, here it is the displacement of Victor to a locality far less logical for his purposes, which leads the reader to interpret that Victor has been put there consciously by Shelley. For none of Shelley's characters can lay eyes on the monster without reacting to him as a monster. The only character that can look at the monster is the old blind De Lacey. Walton describes the fundamental lack of connection when he encounters the monster on his ship, Over him hung a form which I cannot find words to describe (Shelley 185). It is integral for the development of the monster's unknowability for him to exist in a world unprecedented (Montag 395). In being unknowable, the monster cannot fade into the hell-scape of early eighteenth century production lines. There, by making her monster anachronistic, she forms him truly monstrous.

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IV. Interpretive Comparisons:

To conclude I would return, briefly, to an argument which I employed in my chapter dealing with feminist interpretations: Moers's inference concerning the intent of Frankenstein: to scare (Moers 77). In this argument, I find the impetus behind the propulsion of the text through history. The text has been so successful in terms of the amount of readership and critical examination in that it accomplishes just what its structural intentions are: to scare. So the question of the text becomes: why is the text such a fearful thing to examine? I find that the transmission of the textual tension into the mind of the reader can be centralized in the decision making process of Frankenstein concerning the creation of the second monster. For we, the readership, are in a unique position in regard to this decision. The readers are not bound by the heinous physical appearance of the monster, we can therefore judge the decision of Victor on the merits presented by both parties. This position is a privileged one that the reader shares with no

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other character in Frankenstein.5 This situation transfers the tension that is wrapped in bargain's conditions, as the reader is compelled to sympathize with both Frankenstein and his monster simultaneously. To begin this discussion of conditions, I turn to the terms of the agreement in regards to Victor and his ethical calculations (Shelley 131). Victor comes into the situation marred by the horrors that the monster has wrecked upon his family. The monster, having already killed William and in turn caused the death of Justine, understandably meets with an initially hesitant Victor. However, when the creature first engages Victor, Victor tells Walton that he was compelled by the duties of a creator toward his creature (Shelley 95). Thus, Victor agrees to follow the creature to his hut in the ice, and hear his tale. Victor listens as the creature explains what has happened to him since his inception. The creature ends his tale with a request: You must create a female for me, with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being (Shelley 128). Victor initially refuses the creature's logic, citing the possible consequences for humanity that the creation of the second monster may cause: [your] joint wickedness might desolate the world (Shelley 128). To counter this argument, the being promises that once the second creature is complete, they will find a new home cut off from all the world (Shelley 129). Victor, at the end of the first conversation with the creature, consents to the creation of a second being. Victor consents on personal moral grounds, as the creature promises to desolate Victor's heart, if rejected. But this personal consideration is then augmented by the potential effects that the first monster's dejected rage could have on all of humanity. As Victor points out, I concluded that the

5 Except for blind De Lacey, whom the monster seeks out as a man not subjected to the fatal prejudices [that] clouds their eyes. (Shelley, 120) De Lacey is never able to fully consider the creature's argument, as Felix, Safie, and Agatha burst into their cabin and pull the creature away.

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justice due to both him and my fellow-creatures demanded of me that I should comply with his request (Shelley 131). This point of Victor's internal calculations is the second implication of the argument concerning the happiness and potential safety of humanity, in relation to the monster. This iteration has Victor using the utilitarian argument for overall humanitarian happiness to strengthen the monster's case; an inversion of the previously utilized utilitarian logic. However, Victor does not complete the second being. Instead, while involved in the process of creation, he destroys his work. Victor tells Walton that during one of his sessions of production, he came to consider new points of ethical discomfort. The first of these new considerations pertains to the possibility that Victor may be entranced by the same foolish intellectual stimulations that led him to create the first being. As Victor says, three years before I was engaged in the same manner, and had created a fiend whose unparalleled barbarity had desolated my heart (Shelley 144). This reflection upon the unknowability of the mindset of the new creature leads Victor to further conclude that, although the first being had promised to close himself off from mankind, the second being had made no such promise. The consideration of the unknown factor of the new being's mindset is reminiscent of Shelley's inclusion of Satan's reasoning, highlighted in the Paradise Lost passage quoted on cover page of her novel: Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay To mould Me man? Did I solicit thee From darkness to promote me? (Shelley 19) Victor also explains to Walton that a piece of the being's own narrative had given him cause to fear the new being's physical reception of the first. For why should the new being be any less horrified at the physical appearance of the first, the creature has already explained his thoughts on seeing his reflection in the pool: but how I was terrified, when I viewed myself in a 39

transparent pool... when I became fully convinced that I was in reality the monster that I am, I was filled with the bitterest sensations of despondence and mortification (Shelley 104). Victor finally concludes that the threat posed to humanity from the enabling of the first creature to procreate outweighs any danger that the first being alone may cause. In this third implication of the overall happiness of humanity, Victor explicitly highlights the dangers of a potential race of devils (Shelley 144). These are the circumstances and demands that pressure Victor into finally making the decision to destroy his second creation before bringing it to life. In making this decision, however, Victor in effect takes for granted the ideological terms of an 'interpretive' calculus about meaning, identity, and values, which it has been the object of this Thesisand feminist and Marxist literary criticismto open up to doubt much more radically. Having discussed the stakes of Victor's decision from his own point of view, I will now investigate the monster's stated evidence. The first creature, before broaching the subject of the creation of a mate, first tells the story of how he came to be in the position of addressing Victor, on Montanvert. The creature tells the details of his life to Victor, and in this way convinces Victor that he (the creature) is a being capable of the fine sensations of man (Shelley 129). The monster must address Victor in this fashion, as his arguments rest upon the principle that he is a being that is human-like. That, if given the proper circumstance: those sympathies necessary for my being, the monster could indeed live a harmless life (Shelley 128-129). In invoking the principle of 'necessary,' the creature sets the stakes of his argument. Victor, and therein the reader, must either sympathise with the monster and consent to his demands, or refuse them. The terms of the refusal are also laid out by the creature in his elaboration, if I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear (Shelley 40

129). In that the weight of the decision to create the second creature, or not, resides upon Victor, it is important to note that Victor initially agrees to the second production. Then later, upon reflection dealing with potential consequences, Victor reneges on the bargain and destroys his work. In his ambivalent decision making, Victor manages to legitimize both sides of the dilemma. For the monster makes points, and threats, that sympathetic individuals can identify with. The creature has clearly lived a traumatic existence. Victor has abandoned him to this fate forgoing all duties that he, as [the creature's] maker, should have accomplished (Shelley 129). If the creature was able to take his bride to the uninhabitable wilderness, and there live out a harmless life, then the portion of happiness that it was in [Victor's] power to bestow, is due (Shelley 129). Of course, the reader could simply not sympathize with the monster. But, in not agreeing to the monster's bargain, the reader condemns Frankenstein, his loved ones, and possibly other pieces of the human network, to more suffering. The monster has already shown that he is capable of greatly disturbing deeds, and if denied, he has promised to continue. I argue that in the reader's privileged space of not having to visually look upon the monster, we are in the best position to conceptualize this aporia. For the reader is able to deal with the dilemma on the terms in which it is presented, with no physical disfigurements or horrors to sway us away from the monster's cause. The aporia, simply put, lies in the equally damning consequences on a macro, or human, scale, that would stem from either conclusion of the bargain. In showing the monster, and Victor, to be sympathetic, the monster's demands extract the monstrous, either in denial or consent, from the reader. Once the tension of the text has been internalized, we, the readers, have two options 41

towards dealing with the text. I posit that these two options are: to attempt to resolve our sympathetic conundrum utilizing only the evidence within the text, or to work towards cultivating a better understanding of the conditions which lead to the aporetic demand. Interestingly, Shelley can be said to employ the first textual strategy, in her introduction: [I] bid my hideous progeny go forth and prosper (Shelley 25). For in letting the text stand, the binding tension is unresolved. This bind leads to a generic historical reading of the text which calls into question the very notion of progress, and where to draw the ethical line in matters of scientific endeavors. The scientists in Frankenstein reflect through history as they begin with honorable, sympathetic intentions. For Victor, the initial alluring facet of his efforts is to banish disease from the human frame, and render man invulnerable to any but a violent death! (Shelley 47). He later comes to the idea of the creation of a human being, to defeat death, to pour a torrent of light into our dark world (Shelley 58). But, where can a line be drawn along this intellectual trajectory which would delineate the beneficial aspects of scientific discovery from the portions that are detrimental to humankind?6 These progressions, and lack of clear ethical boundaries, are just as clear in contemporary scientific developments as they were for Shelley, dealing with post-Enlightenment scientific progress. This fearful aspect of the human condition: the inability to ethically pinpoint where progress becomes detrimental, certainly exists outside of Frankenstein. However, it is highlighted so clearly within the text, that Shelley understands: what terrified me will terrify others (Shelley 24). That the fearful properties of the text will

6 I refer here to experiments dealing with the investigation of growing human organs within animals. Specifically while writing this thesis, experiments are being conducted in which human organs are being grown from stem cells inside of mice and rats. A presentation of these experiments was given in 2011, by Professor Hiromitsu Nakauchi, at the European Human Genetics Conference.

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remain horrifying, as long as human kind continues its scientific endeavors. However, the certain emptiness that is produced within this first interpretation leads to the essential nature of the second of the critical options. This option highlights the role of critical interpretation of the text. For both the Marxist and feminist critical approaches, the result of their work is to produce a better understanding of the conditions under which Shelley wrote Frankenstein. While these analyses do not necessarily relieve the essential tension of the text, they certainly help future readers to better understand the terms of the bargain between Frankenstein and the monster. These works become part of the text itself, for Frankenstein alone contains such sympathetic binds as to call out for elaboration. In understanding the pull against the standard moralistic argument concerning scientific inquiry, a reader can understand the impetus behind the plethora of critical analyses which spring forth from Frankenstein.

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Mellor, Anne K. "Frankenstein: A Feminist Critique of Science." One Culture: Essays in Science and Literature. Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1987. 287-312. Frankenstein, The Pennsylvania Electronic Edition. UPENN. Web. 24 Feb. 2013. <http://knarf.english.upenn.edu/Articles/mellor1.html>. Mellor, Anne K. Mary Shelley: Her Life, Her Fiction, Her Monsters. New York: Routledge, 1988. Print. Michie, Elise B. Frankenstein and Marx's Theories of Alienated Labor. Approaches to Teaching Shelley's Frankenstein. Ed. Stephen C. Behrendt. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1990. 93-98. Print. Moers, Ellen. Female Gothic. The Endurance of Frankenstein: Essays on Mary Shelley's Novel, ed. George Levine and U. C. Knoeflmacher (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: Univ. of California Press, 1979), pp. 77-87. Montag, Warren. "The "Workshop of Filthy Creation": A Marxist Reading of Frankenstein." Frankenstein. Ed. Johanna M. Smith. By Mary W. Shelley. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2000. 384-395. Print.

Moretti, Franco. "The Dialectic of Fear." New Left Review, 136 (Nov.-Dec. 1982). 67-85. Frankenstein, The Pennsylvania Electronic Edition. UPENN. Web. 24 Feb. 2013. <http://knarf.english.upenn.edu/Articles/moretti.html>. Murfin, Ross C. "What Is Marxist Criticism?" Frankenstein. Ed. Johanna M. Smith. By Mary W. Shelley. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2000. 368-83. Print. Oates, Joyce C. "Frankenstein's Fallen Angel." Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Ed. Harold Bloom. Updated ed. New York: Chelsea House, 2007. 29-41. Print. Pon, Cynthia. "Toward a Feminist Figure of Humanity?" Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Ed. Harold Bloom. Updated ed. New York: Chelsea House, 2007. 149-66. Print. Reese, Diana. "A Troubled Legacy: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and the Inheritance of Human Rights." Representations Fall 96.1 (2006): 48-72. JSTOR. Web. 24 Feb. 2013. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/rep.2006.96.1.48>. Small, Christopher. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; Tracing the Myth. [Pittsburgh]: University of Pittsburgh, 1973. Print. Smith, Johanna M. "A Critical History of Frankenstein." Frankenstein. 2nd ed. Boston: 44

Bedford/St. Martin's, 2000. 237-61. Print. Smith, Johanna M. Cooped Up with Sad Trash: Domesticity and the Sciences in Frankenstein." Frankenstein. 2nd ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2000. 313-333. Print. Todd, Janet M. Death and the Maidens: Fanny Wollstonecraft and the Shelley Circle. Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint, 2007. Print. Tropp, Martin. The Monster. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Ed. Harold Bloom. Updated ed. New York: Chelsea House, 2007. 13-27. Print. Twitchell, James B. "Frankenstein and the Anatomy of Horror." Georgia Review, 37:1 (Spring. 1983). 41-78. Frankenstein, The Pennsylvania Electronic Edition. UPENN. Web. 24 Feb. 2013. <http://knarf.english.upenn.edu/Articles/twitch.html>. Verdeer, William. "Gender and Pedagogy: The Questions of Frankenstein." Approaches to Teaching Shelley's Frankenstein. Ed. Stephen C. Behrendt. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1990. 38-49. Print. Wolfson, Susan J. "Feminist Inquiry and Frankenstein." Approaches to Teaching Shelley's Frankenstein. Ed. Stephen C. Behrendt. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1990. 50-59. Print.

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