Frankenstein, The Monster

Frankenstein by Mary Shelly (6 Points)

Fortunately, I had never been assigned this novel to read in previous education and was never really exposed to the concepts in this piece outside of pop culture and modern adaptations based on the lore of "Frankenstein." After learning more about the concept of the "Sublime" in the Gothic genre, I can say wholeheartedly that this text is a very strong embodiment of it.

Through many passages of the work, Victor Frankenstein often revels in the awesome processes of nature such as the changing of seasons, which at its core is more an element of romance genres. The key traits of the sublime appearing in Shelly's text are with the descriptions of the vast, towering, magnificent, and terrifying Swiss Alps in which the monster seeks solitude and Victor journeys to find some kind of solace. While I had never seen the icy tundras and cold climates that Frankenstein often seems to inhabit brought into modern tellings, it made much more sense after examining the definition of sublime elements. It was even more defined when Victor committed the rest of his existence to destroy his creation and must plunge into the treacherous and unexplored arctic tundras, which are a setting that I never associated with Frankenstein and his monster, let alone anticipated this setting for Victor's final resting place.

As childish as it may be, I also found myself frustrated by the falsity and alterations made to the tale by many concepts I was most familiar with from the modern storytellings. I will say that after finishing the novel, I was far more supportive of the book's concepts over modern-retelling concepts, which as fanciful and creative as they were, they lacked the deep moral quandaries and dilemmas that I enjoyed heavily in the novel.

Ultimately, the book was not at all what I was expecting. Hell, I was confused by the fact that Victor seemed to be regaling his story to an unnamed individual who is only revealed towards the end of the book, and we as the audience seem to almost be eavesdropping on the story. I hypothesized that the story would be almost cartoonish in terms of the plot. Instead, I was met with incredibly dark themes, brutal violence, murder mysteries, and themes of a creator who damns their creation only to be forsaken by it. Truthfully, as much as I enjoy some of the more modern depictions, I was deeply intrigued by the depth of this tale far more.

In terms of character, I was very conflicted about how to feel about Victor as a protagonist. He constantly begged for forgiveness, even expounding on his happy, normal childhood and his interest in natural sciences. Still felt pretty weird about how young Victor felt possessive of Elizabeth, who isn't his blood-relative but is basically still his sister, and how he intended to marry her. (Not a huge man of incest) As the story continues to progress onto the events of the creation of the monster, he constantly interjects with dramatic self-criticism and despair, even hinting at the death of Henry a few chapters before the murder occurs. 

Even after gaining the audience's sympathy, it's still hard to morally condone any of Victor's choices. On a quest for an incredible knowledge that could change humanity forever; he mutilated corpses, deprived his whole family of contact from him, and then abandoned a creature that he created and left it to fend for itself in a hostile world. Arrogance, vanity, and unbridled determination were Victor's biggest flaws in my opinion, as well as the negligence and the lack of responsibility he takes for his own monster, who he abandoned moments after it's "birth" due to the appearance that Victor cultivated himself. (I also considered how this story could be indirectly interpreted with the concepts of deformed people automatically being despicable or lesser than human only because of their appearance, but I digress.)

In other moments, I could partially relate to Victor in the concepts of being a creator not of life, but of art. It takes an incredible amount of effort to create art, and often times many artists deprive themselves of sustenance, rest, and company in favor of feverish work devoted to completing projects, as well as a reflection on previous goals that became far beyond what we had original committed to. Even the concept of working so hard on a masterpiece only for the end result to be far less great or even lacking all appeal at the end of the day is something I found intrigued to relate to.

In the end, though, I condemn Victor to the fate he received and felt overall unsympathetic to his plight. I do believe his monster would have come to the same temperament as a character even if Victor had stayed with the creature because of its nature and how it was brought into being, so the outcome of Victor's life couldn't be altered unless he had never made the monster in the first place. 

I also found myself even more sympathetic to the monster instead, which is a complex feeling as I know that Shelly uses Victor and the monster's story to try and evoke sympathy. The monster cannot be faulted for its own existence, just like a human cannot as we are all brought into this world as unaware participants until we develop enough to perceive our own existence. While the monster's actions are far from morally correct, it's hard to fault him for the murder of Victor's young brother when many humans have done the same thing to one another. While the monster is not human, he is human-like and an almost amplified version of what humans are on an emotional and physical level. He even grieves at the death of his creator, whom he hated for all of his life, at the end of the story and disappeared into what I assumed would be his melancholic end in the ice.

Overall, I found the story to be very compelling, and although the sheer density of how the text was written made it difficult to digest at first, it was well worth the read and will most likely continue to rattle around in my mind conceptually for a very long time.

(P.S.: Why make the monster 8 feet tall, Victor? Why couldn't have the creature been a small-ish person? Also using corpses is absolutely disgusting, and while present-day stories have diminished the impact of that concept, it is deeply disturbing once you really start to consider it. Fascinating, but truly horrendous.)