The Creature and his Creator

Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus: 

The 1818 Text 

by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

A Fantastic Story.

Fantastic, filled with both vivid emotions and exciting action, Mary Shelley's story of the haunted Victor Frankenstein, and his creation who does the haunting, still stirs the soul. Just as Goethe's Faust sought the secrets of arcane knowledge, Victor Frankenstein engages in the secrets of both licit and illicit science to bring a being to life. Once this is accomplished he immediately rues his action and spends the rest of the novel trying through a variety of means to atone for his mistake.

The novel is a classic tale of the uncanny which, according to the novelist and critic David Lodge, invariably use "I" narrators, imitating documentary forms of discourse like confessions, letters and depositions to make events more credible. Beginning with letters from Robert Walton, whose own search for the source of the magnetic north pole mirrors Victor Frankenstein's quest, the first book of the novel relates Victor Frankenstein's narrative of his youth and education. It surely was more than coincidental that Victor attended University at Ingolstad which was heralded as the original site of the Faust legends that Goethe adapted for his immensely influential drama.

'Monster' or 'Creature'?

The center of the novel continues Victor's story and that of his creation, the monster. At least that is what he calls his creation. While it is monstrous in the sense that it is larger than normal human size it is a creature made of human parts and, we find after some intervening events in Victor's life that the creature has some very human traits like the need for companionship -- one that is not met by his creator. Victor's emotions seem to swing from the the heights of elation to the depths of despair coloring his actions and clouding his reason. I found the monster's narration to be the most persuasive of the two. He pleads with Victor, " Remember, that I am thy creature: I ought to be thy Adam; but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed."(p 66) Victor is unable to satisfy him and the monster who searches for acceptance throughout attempts to exert power over his creator as he tells him, "You are my creator, but I am your master; -obey!"(p 116) His words and actions only serve to speed the descent of Victor.

I saw the monster as a classic example of "the other", a precursor to modern images much as those found in Kafka. The action builds effectively through the third book of the novel building suspense and leading to an ending that involves a triangle of relationships between Victor, the creature, and Robert Walton whose narrative in letters bookends the tale. The power of the book, however, remains in the questions it raises; questions that we are dealing with to this day.

The Narrative:

A man is found while near death by Robert Walton.  Walton, an explorer, was on a trip to the Arctic where  his ship is stuck and surrounded by ice.  As they looked out on the enormous ice field, Walton and his crew saw a gigantic man being pulled by a dogsled. The following day they discovered another, smaller man, desperately ill, adrift on a sheet of ice. Walton writes that he brought the man onto his ship, allowed him to rest, and attempted to nurse him back to health.  That man was Victor Frankenstein who goes on to relate the story of how he came to be in this place.  

While at university, Victor became obsessed with the idea of bringing the dead back to life. He built the Creature out of body parts scavenged from charnel houses and graves. Victor succeeded in bringing the Creature to life, but upon seeing the hideous Creature Victor ran from the lab, abandoning his creation.  Alone and abandoned, the Creature spent two years hiding in the forest, aware of his ugliness. He learned to read in this time, and eventually he came to understand that Victor was the cause of his misery.  The narrative thus continues with the struggle of the Creature to find his creator and to end his misery.  The catalyst for the denouement of the story is Victor's realization of the mistake he made with his original creation.  Is this realization enough to save him and others?  I will leave it to other readers to answer that question for themselves.

What is your substance . . .

Sonnet for Today

The limits of beauty discussed in this sonnet are defined by the ideal of Helen and Adonis.  Whether the youthful beauty of Adonis, the handsome youth loved by Aphrodite, or the eternal beauty of Helen, daughter of Zeus and immortal through the ages both as a demi-goddess and as a beauty the poem suggests a participation of these in the human beauty of the "shadow of your beauty".  

From my recent reading of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein I thought immediately of the "Creature" upon reading the opening couplet of this sonnet.  The creature, while in possession of neither youthful nor eternal beauty did possess the ethereal nature to raise questions like this in the mind of his creator.  

Sonnet #53

LIII.

What is your substance, whereof are you made,
That millions of strange shadows on you tend?
Since every one hath, every one, one shade,
And you, but one, can every shadow lend.
Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit
Is poorly imitated after you;
On Helen's cheek all art of beauty set,
And you in Grecian tires are painted new:
Speak of the spring and foison of the year;
The one doth shadow of your beauty show,
The other as your bounty doth appear;
And you in every blessed shape we know.
In all external grace you have some part,
But you like none, none you, for constant heart.

Dangerous Knowledge

Frankenstein

by Mary Shelley

“How dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to be greater than his nature will allow.”  - Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

A Fantastic Story.
Fantastic, filled with both vivid emotions and exciting action, Mary Shelley's story of the haunted Victor Frankenstein, and his creation who does the haunting, still stirs the soul. Just as Goethe's Faust sought the secrets of arcane knowledge, Victor Frankenstein engages in the secrets of both licit and illicit science to bring a being to life. Once this is accomplished he immediately rues his action and spends the rest of the novel trying through a variety of means to atone for his mistake.
The novel is a classic tale of the uncanny which, according to the novelist and critic David Lodge, invariably use "I" narrators, imitating documentary forms of discourse like confessions, letters and depositions to make events more credible. Beginning with letters from Robert Walton, whose own search for the source of the magnetic north pole mirrors Victor Frankenstein's quest, the first book of the novel relates Victor Frankenstein's narrative of his youth and education.  It surely was more than coincidental that Victor attended University at Ingolstad which was heralded as the original site of the Faust legends that Goethe adapted for his immensely influential drama.

'Monster' or 'Creature'?
The center of the novel continues Victor's story and that of his creation, the monster.  At least that is what he calls his creation.  While it is monstrous in the sense that it is larger than normal human size it is a creature made of human parts and, we find after some intervening events in Victor's life that the creature has some very human traits like the need for companionship -- one that is not met by his creator.  Victor's emotions seem to swing from the the heights of elation to the depths of despair coloring his actions and clouding his reason;  in fact he is very much a loner, seemingly recusing himself from society, first at Ingolstad and later as he roams Switzerland.   I found the monster's narration to be the most persuasive of the two. He pleads with Victor, " Remember, that I am thy creature:  I ought to be thy Adam;  but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed."(p 66)  Victor  is unable to satisfy him and the monster who searches for acceptance throughout attempts to exert power over his creator as he tells him, "You are my creator, but I am your master; -obey!"(p 116) His words and actions only serve to speed the descent of Victor.
I saw the monster as a classic example of  "the other", a precursor to modern images much as those found in Kafka.  The action builds effectively through the third book of the novel building suspense and leading to an ending that involves a triangle of relationships between Victor, the creature, and Robert Walton whose narrative in letters bookends the tale. The power of the book, however, remains in the questions it raises; questions that we are dealing with to this day.

“Even broken in spirit as he is, no one can feel more deeply than he does the beauties of nature. The starry sky, the sea, and every sight afforded by these wonderful regions, seems still to have the power of elevating his soul from earth. Such a man has a double existence: he may suffer misery, and be overwhelmed by disappointments; yet, when he has retired into himself, he will be like a celestial spirit that has a halo around him, within whose circle no grief or folly ventures.”  ― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

2012 Sci-Fi Challenge for July
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Norton Critical Edition, 1996 (1918)

Imagine the Infinite

Science Fiction: The Art of 'What if...?'

Yesterday I attended a lecture, entitled "Science Fiction: The Art of 'What if...?'", by Keith Cleveland, Instructor in the the University of Chicago Basic Program of Liberal Education for Adults. I was drawn to the lecture both by the topic and the lecturer whom I have known and studied with over the past two decades. And I was not disappointed in the presentation in which the themes of ideas and imagination seemed most prominent.


Science Fiction as outlined in Keith's lecture finds its origins in the western mythology where Prometheus steals fire from the gods. Referencing this myth and the related story of Epimethius and his difficulties with Pandora's jar the lecture moved to the literary origins of modern science fiction which can be traced to the work of a teenage British author named Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and her novel, Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus. Noting the connection with earlier mythology in the title the lecturer brought forth the importance of developments in science by thinkers such as Bacon, Galileo, and above all Newton, as precursors if not catalysts for the development of modern science fiction.
This reminded me of the growth of scientific knowledge in the late 18th century as epitomized by the Lunar Society of Birmingham England. In the 1760s a group of amateur experimenters met and made friends in the English Midlands. Most came from humble families, all lived far from the center of things, but they were young and their optimism was boundless: together they would change the world. Among them were the ambitious toymaker Matthew Boulton and his partner James Watt, of steam-engine fame; the potter Josiah Wedgwood; the larger-than-life Erasmus Darwin, physician, poet, inventor, and theorist of evolution (a forerunner of his grandson Charles). Later came Joseph Priestley, discoverer of oxygen and fighting radical. With a small band of allies they formed the Lunar Society of Birmingham (so called because it met at each full moon) and kick-started the Industrial Revolution. Blending science, art, and commerce, the Lunar Men built canals; launched balloons; named plants, gases, and minerals; changed the face of England and the china in its drawing rooms; and plotted to revolutionize its soul. Reaching beyond the scientists and artists the changes in science inspired writers and poets which leads us back to Mary Shelley and Frankenstein.


In his lecture Keith suggested Science Fiction demonstrated an awareness of scientific technology; provided entertainment; and, explored the imagination through the exercise of the mind. Growing throughout the 19th and 20th centuries Science Fiction expanded into a recognized genre of literature that led to Clarke's Three Laws -- three "laws" of prediction formulated by the British writer and scientist Arthur C. Clarke. They are:
1.When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.*


Thus Science Fiction is the literary arena in which limitless imagination reigns supreme. But it is imagination that depends on and is fueled by the existence of scientists and scientific ideas. Citing Francis Bacon's notion of "Parabolic" fiction and, importantly, Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, as influential developments, Keith also emphasized the appearance of "science" as a field of knowledge separate from philosophy in 1833 was a necessary condition for the development of "science fiction".
The lecture concluded with remarks on the growth of science fiction and its relationship to culture, with special emphasis on the affinity of science fiction for American culture; a culture whose unique qualities were described well by Alexis de Tocqueville when he commented that:
"As [Americans] see that they manage to resolve unaided all the little difficulties that practical life presents, they easily conclude that everything in the world is explicable and that nothing exceeds the bound of intelligence." (Democracy in America, II.1.1)
The growth of Science Fiction has continued apace, in every country in the world where science is valued, studied and applied (which is most of the world). The lecture was brilliant in its explications and entertainments and left the audience with a wonder that mirrors the "What if...?" of Science Fiction.


*Source: "Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination", in Profiles of the Future by Arthur C. Clarke

Literary Blog Hop: April 28-May 1

Literary Blog Hop: April 28-May 1

To me the Literary Book Blog Hop is a chance to reflect on my reading life.    This week's question is a both confounding and challenging.

Discuss your thoughts on sentimentality in literature. When is emotion in literature effective and when is it superfluous? Use examples.

When I think of on reflection about sentimentality in literature I am taken back to my reading of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.  You may ask what this novel has to do with the question, but if you bear with me and journey into that story you will find a literate monster at the heart of the story.  Shelley's  Dr. Frankenstein creates a monster who transcends the modern cinematic view  of the monster (James Whale's version comes closest to the original).  Shelley's monster finds a copy of Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther in a leather portmanteau, along with two others—Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, and Milton's Paradise Lost. He sees Werther's case as similar to his own. He, like Werther, was rejected by those he loved. It is Goethe whom I think of as did the monster and his elegiac Sorrows of Young Werther whose sturm und drang context was, if not sentimental a close relative of sentimentality, epitomized by young Werther.  Goethe's novel itself looked back to more sentimental novels and influenced a generation of European readers.  


Of modern sentimentality I have little use, but the example of Werther I find haunting in its extreme of suicide -- seen as the solution to his problem of love and life.  The passions once aroused are not to be trusted.  One further example, more benign in its outcome, perhaps because the author maintained more control or has a different relationship with her subject. 
 I am thinking of Mary Garth in George Eliot's masterpiece, Middlemarch.  
While I see little sentimentality in the portrayal of the primary protagonist, Dorothea Brooke, Garth's life including her family exhibits a loving version of the sentimental in literature and has always seemed a counterbalance to the turbulence in the lives of many of the other characters in that novel.  One conclusion I can draw from the above is that sentimentality takes many forms and can be effective when used well by an attentive author.  It may be superfluous, but I leave that discussion for others on another day. Admittedly, these musings on sentimentality are personal and not necessarily a popular expression of the subject, but the literary world  is large and I am both confounded and challenged when I consider some of its many rooms.