‘Increase of knowledge only discovered to me more
clearly what a wretched outcast I was. I
cherished hope, it is true; but it vanished, when I beheld my person reflected
in water, or my shadow in the moonshine, even as that frail image and that inconstant
shade.’
(Chapter XV)
Frankenstein
Mary
Shelley(1818, reprinted and amended in 1831)
Ok, so you’re probably wondering why I didn’t save
this for Halloween. I didn’t because,
despite popular myth, this actually isn’t
a horror story. Over a century of
cinematic dramatizations and ‘reimaginings’ have created an image of this tale
as a straightforward terrifying-monster-chases-helpless-populace kind of plot;
a bit like an eighteenth-century Jurassic Park.
I’m not much of a horror/thriller fan myself, so I must confess that it
was quite a long time before I finally decided to read Shelley’s original novel
Frankenstein. When I did, I was astonished to discover that
the ‘monster’ is actually quite an appealing character.
 |
| I know I said this book isn't about a rampaging monster, but isn't he cute? Lego Frankenstein, with many thanks to www.dailybrick.co.uk who don't realise they have generously lent this image. |
To me, he is portrayed as something of an ‘ugly
duckling’ figure, always searching for a place to belong yet unable ever to overcome
the sense of revulsion that his own physical being creates in others. There’s certainly the midnight laboratory
scene of popular and pulp fantasy, but even here it is a misguided rather than
an evil Dr. Frankenstein who creates the ‘creature’, and who is promptly so
horrified by his actions that he goes to bed.
Yes, he really does go to bed, and then becomes terrified when he wakes
to see his creation peeping at him through the bed curtains. What did he expect his little ‘monster’ to
do?
It is after this creation scene, though, that
things become really interesting. In a cosy fireside reunion sometime later,
the ‘creature’ tells Frankenstein what he has been up to since leaving the
workshop. This includes voyeuristically
watching the daily life of a small family, during the course of which he
performs small, silent acts of kindness for them such as cutting firewood. He longs for inclusion within the
affectionate arms of this family, but when he attempts to place himself under
their protection he is repulsed, not because he is not a nice person (indeed,
he is at this point quite an affectionate and philosophical individual, who has
spent his leisure time reading classics such as Milton’s Paradise Lost and Plutarch’s Lives). Rather, he is rejected because they just find
him hideous to look at. There is an poignant
scene involving a blind father, and a couple of young, sight-possessing,
fainting girls which Shelley uses to explore judgements based upon personal
appearance…but you probably get the idea.
Suffice to say, this is a book that deals with far
more than a simple monster-rampage. The
question of whether the ‘monster’ even is a genuine ‘monster’ is a good
starting point for discussion. Shelley uses
her novel to explore a meeting point between theology and science, and to
confront issues of the moral responsibility attached to the creation of
artificial life that remain relevant to this day. The added dimension of the creature’s
apparent ‘ugliness’ also seems designed to provoke thought and discussion upon
perceptions of so-called deformity, a useful exercise in itself.
This is only a small book, but it is an immensely
powerful one. Philosophical rather than
horrific, thought-provoking rather than nightmare-inducing, this is a book that
all readers should investigate at some point.
So why not this week, hey?
You can find this text:
(If you’re on a tight budget, this Wordsworth classics edition is a great choice: nice presentation of text, only £1.99 at the moment! Also, as this is a text that habitually recurs on university and A-Level courses, it’s always worth checking second hand dealers for nice affordable copies of Penguin or Oxford World’s Classics editions!)
(Penguin classics edition of the text. I’ve linked to Waterstones rather than Amazon because I believe in supporting actual bookshops! I have no idea what the cover image has to do with the story, but that aside this looks a very interesting edition! As always, try to buy a copy of the text that has explanatory notes, as these can be enormously useful when reading novels that were written in a different century)
You can
find out more about Mary Shelley:
(Wikipedia!!)
(Encylopædia
Britannica: the more sophisticated Wikipedia.
I would say, though, that this article seems ludicrously short for an
account of the life of a woman who is widely regarded as the founder of the
modern sci-fi genre. Just saying.)
