FRANKENSTEIN THEMES

FRANKENSTEIN THEMES

Creation and divine aspirations

• n giving life to the creature, Victor usurps the role of God, and in the introduction Shelley suggests this is his main crime; his 'frightful' presumption in aspiring to act like God. The story was adapted for stage in 1823 and titled 'Presumption; or, The Fate of Frankenstein' . Nevertheless Shelley presents a secular world, Christian myths serve only to provide analogies and allusions - there is no vengeful God to punish Victor, only the monster. Perhaps Shelley is focussing not on what Victor does wrong but what he fails to do - which in the eyes of the victim is his greatest crime. Shelley may even believe that Victors passion for achievement and discovery is admirable and heroic, however he is blamed for failing to take responsibility for his creation. However, Victors description of his "secret toil" and the fact that he sees it as necessary to completely isolate himself from society over the course of the creation of the monster does suggest he is engaged in something shameful or unlawful. Maybe Shelley is blaming society for being unaccepting of the unknown, which is what pushes both Victor and the creature into isolation.
• Frankenstein also seeks to usurp the power of women - there is an overall absence of a mothering figure in Frankenstein and maybe the loss of Victors mother caused a pent up anger to his own feelings of abandonment, which pushes him towards striving to create life in the absence of women - proving himself superior and independent?
• QUOTES - "A new species would bless me as its creator and... No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs" - "the moon gazed on my midnight labours... my workshop of filthy creature" - 'filthy' as unnatural, without a woman.

ISOLATION

• Isolation can be seen from the beginning with Walton's complaints about his lack of a companion. Sufferings of Victor and the creature are primarily caused by their alienation from others. Monsters isolation imposed on him by creator who abandons him and the people he encounters who fear and shun him. His violence results from the awareness that he will never experience love, and so tries to take it from those who can. Victor insists that his isolation is imposed because of the monsters crimes - he must be an outcast because he is aware that he can never share joy with another without the monster continuing to wreak revenge on him. BUT he does choose to isolate himself over the duration of his scientific experiments.
• QUOTES - Walton's complaint to sister "I bitterly feel the want of a friend" - the monsters explanation of his behaviour "I am malicious because I am miserable"

THE FAMILY

• Shelley's 1918 preface claims that the chief concern of the novel is 'the exhibition of the amiableness of domestic affection, and the excellence of universal virtue" A domestic life is frequently idealised - the monster longs for domestic affections and Victor repeatedly holds them up as an ideal for which he should have aspired. The home is represented as a paradise and the woman as the presiding angel. Kate Ellis has argued that the novel could be read as questioning the value of domestic affections and as an attack on the institution of the family. Shelley demonstrates strictly enforced artificial role distinctions, creating a passive, dependant woman. Victor needs to escape the "silken cord" of the home in order to fulfil his desires, there is no room for ambition of individualism in the domestic world as every one must fit a certain role e.g. carer, bread winner etc.
• The treatment of the monster by the De Lacey family highlights the insularity of the domestic world - another of its defects. The household functions by excluding anything that may pose a threat to its security. The monster devotes himself to the destruction of the ideal domesticity once he realises he is doomed to be excluded from it - in this he may be acting as Victors double.
• QUOTES - Victor overstating the case for the domestic affections "if no man allowed any pursuit whatsoever in interfere with the tranquillity of his domestic affections, Greece had not been enslaved; Caesar would have spared his country..." - The monsters recognition of his lack of family "No father had watched my infant days, no mother had blessed me with smiles or caresses"

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