The
"Birth" of a Monster
I have titled this "The Birth of a Monster"
because Frankenstein can be read as a tale of what happens when a man tries to
create a child without a woman. It can, however, also be read as an account of
a woman's anxieties and insecurities about her own creative and reproductive
capabilities. The story of Frankenstein is the first articulation of a woman's
experience of pregnancy and related fears. Mary Shelley, in the development and
education of the monster, discusses child development and education and how the
nurturing of a loving parent is extremely important in the moral development of
an individual. Thus, in Frankenstein, Mary Shelley examines her own fears and
thoughts about pregnancy, childbirth, and child development.
Pregnancy and childbirth, as well as death, was an integral part of Mary
Shelley's young adult life. She had four children and a miscarriage that almost
killed her. This was all before the age of twenty-five. Only one of her
children, Percy Florence, survived to adulthood and outlived her. In June of 1816, when she had the waking nightmare
which became the catalyst of the tale, she was only nineteen and had already
had her first two children. Her first child, Clara, was born prematurely
February 22, 1815 and died March 6. Mary, as any woman would be, was devastated
by this and took a long time to recover. The following is a letter that Mary
wrote to her friend Hogg the day that the baby died.
6 March 1815
My dearest Hogg my baby is dead - will you come to see me
as soon as you can - I wish to see you - It was perfectly well
when I went to bed - I awoke in the night to give
it suck it appeared to be sleeping
so quietly that I would not awake it - it was dead
then but we did not find that
out till morning - from its appearance it evidently
died from convulsions -
Will you come - you are so calm
a creature and Shelley is afraid of a fever from the
milk - for I am no longer a mother now
Mary
from the Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
(letter to Thomas Jefferson Hogg)
What is informative and sad about this letter is that Mary turned to Hogg
because Percy was so unsupportive. Percy actually didn't seem to care that the
child was dead and even went out with Claire, leaving Mary alone with her
grief. Mary's second child, William, was born January 24, 1816. (William died
of malaria June 7,1819 .) Thus, at the time that Mary
conceived of the story, her first child had died and her second was only 6
months old. There is no doubt that she expected to be pregnant again and about
six months later she was. Pregnancy and child-rearing was at the forefront of
Mary's mind at this point in her life.
Frankenstein is probably the first story in Western literature the expresses
the anxieties of pregnancy. Obviously male writers avoided this topic and it
was considered taboo and in poor taste for a woman to discuss it. Mary's focus
on the birth process allowed men to understand female fears about pregnancy and
reassured women that they were not alone with their anxieties. The story
expresses Mary's deepest fears; What of my child is
born deformed? Could I still love it or would I wish it were
dead? What if I can't love my child? Am I capable of raising a healthy, normal
child? Will my child die? Could I wish my own child to die? Will my child kill
me in childbirth? Mary was expressing her fears related to the death of her
first child, her ability to nurture, and the fact that her mother died having
her. All of this is expresses in Victor Frankenstein's complete failure in
parenting.
For approximately nine months Victor Frankenstein labored on the creation of
his "child". Finally on a "dreary night in November: he
witnesses the "birth":
"I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature
open; it breathed hard,
and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs." Frankenstein
pg. 51
Instead of reaching out to his child, Victor rushes out of the room disgusted
by the abnormality of his creation. When the creature follows after him, Victor
runs away in horror completely abandoning his child.
While creating his child, Victor never considered whether this creature would
even want to exist. He also didn't take enough care with the creature's
appearance. He could not take the time to make small parts so he created a
being of gigantic size. Victor never considered how such a creature would be
able to exist with human beings. He did not take time with the features either
and created a being with a horrifying appearance. Unable to accept his
creation, Victor abandons his "child" and all parental
responsibility. He even wishes that his "child" were dead.
"I gnashed my teeth, my eyes became
inflamed,
and I ardently wished to extinguish that life which
I has so thoughtlessly bestowed" pg. 87
From the moment of the creature's birth, Victor thought of it as demonical and
abused it. Frankenstein represents the classic case of an abused and neglected
child growing up to be a abuser. The monster's first
murder victim is a small child that he wished to adopt. As Mary Shelley wrote
the novel, she began to identify more closely focused on the plight of the
abandoned child. The heart of the novel is the creature's discussion of his own
development.
The creature, himself, realizes that a child that is deprived of a loving
family becomes a monster. The creature repeatedly insists that he was born good
but compelled by others to do evil. Mary Shelley bases this argument in Rousseau's Emile and Second Discourse. Mary's account of the creature's mental and moral development follow
the theories of David Hartley and John Locke.
Mary Shelley read
Rousseau's Emile in 1816. Rousseau stated that:
God makes all things good; man meddles with
them and they become evil."
Rousseau specifically attributed moral failings to the lack of a mother's love.
Without mothering and a loving education " a man left to himself from
birth would be more of a monster that the rest."
Thus, Mary Shelley is suggesting that a rejected and unmothered
child can become a killer, especially a killer of its own family.
Even without the proper nurturing the creature manages to get an education.
Mary alludes to Rousseau's theory of the natural man as a noble savage, born
free but in chains and corrupted by society. In the battle of nature vs.
nurture for development, Mary definitely sides with nurture. The creature is
Rousseau's natural man, a creature no different that the animals responding
only to physical needs. It is only later through contact with the DeLaceys (society) that the creature develops a
consciousness and realizes that he is a societal outcast. While alluding to a
couple of Rousseau's ideas, in particular the natural man, Mary Shelley
utilized the theories of Hartley and Locke for the development and education of
the creature.
The creature's moral development follows David Hartley's theories in
Observations of Man, His Frame, His Duty, and His Expectations(1749)
and Locke's Essay Concerning Human
Understanding(1690). David Hartley argued that early sensitive experience
determines adult behaviour and John Locke argued that
man is neither innately good nor innately evil but is rather a "blank
slate" on which sensations creates impressions which later become
conscious experience. The creature first experiences the physical sensations of
light, dark, heat, cold, hunger, and pain. This was his period of infancy where
he felt the sensations but had no conscious expression of them. Through time
and experience the creature eventually learns to distinguish the various
sensations and how to remedy them. He learns to gather food, clothe himself,
and acquire shelter. In other words, his sensitive experiences cause him to
learn for them and provide for his basic necessities. The creature obtains a
moral and intellectual education through his observation of the DeLacey family, who lived in the cottage adjoining his
hovel. The DeLacey's provide the creature with an
example of a loving, kind , and virtuous family. They
stimulate his emotions and inspire him to do good deeds for others (he secretly
collects firewood for the family). Through the creature's observation of the DeLacey family, the creature is also stimulated
intellectually and is introduced to spoken and written language. Mary Shelley
traces the linguistic development of the creature from his earliest acquisition
to his ability to grasp abstract concepts and eventually read and write.
Not only does the creature learn morality and virtue from the DeLacey family but also acquires a small library, which
enlarges his knowledge of human vice and virtue. From
Plutarch’s Lives of the Noble Romans he learns about
human virtue, heroism, and civil justice. In his study of Volney's
Ruins or A Survey of the Revolutions of Empires, he leans about corruption and
the decline of empires. In his reading of Milton's Paradise
Lost, he learns the origins of good and evil as well as the roles of the sexes.
Finally, in Goethe's The Sorrows of Werther he learns
of the range of emotions, from love to depression and despair. The creature
also read and received moral lessons from Aesop's Fables and The Bible.
The creature received an excellent education but unfortunately this caused
greater distancing from his previous state of "natural man". Once the
creature left the state of nature and learned the language and laws of society,
he gained a self-consciousness; a self-consciousness of his own isolation from
humanity.
I learned that the possessions most esteemed by
your
fellow-creatures were, high and unsullied descent
united with riches...but...I possessed no money,
no friends, no kind of property. I was,
besides, endowed
with a figure hideously deformed and loathsome;...When
I looked around, I saw and heard of none like me...
I cannot describe to you the agony that these reflections
inflicted upon me; I tried to dispel them, but sorrow
only increased with knowledge. Oh, that I had
ever remained in my native wood, nor known or
felt beyond the sensations of hunger, thirst, and heat!
p. 115
After being rejected by Victor Frankenstein, his father, the DeLacey family, and society, the creature abandons all good
and lives out a course of vengeance against Frankenstein. He murders those
close to Frankenstein and eventually leads Victor on a journey that will
destroy both of them. Even though the creature received a moral and
intellectual education, the lack of a nurturing and loving parent as well as
companionship and acceptance from society led him to reject morality and
instead destroy. The creature as well as the reader realized that he would have
been better off without the education. If he wasn't going to have love and acceptance, it would have probably been best for
him to live in an animal like state without a developed consciousness that made
him realize how alone he was. Victor never realizes that his lack of parental
love and guidance is what led to the creature's murderous path. He only felt
guilt from having created the creature. If Victor had only been a loving
parent, the creature could have probably overcome all other obstacles and
remained moral.
One way to read Frankenstein is as an articulation of a woman's fear of
pregnancy, childbirth, and her ability to raise and educate a child properly.
This is especially poignant due to the fact that Mary was so young and had
already experienced two pregnancies as well as the death of a child. What Mary
may have been questioning through her novel is whether a "
child whose formative experiences are of pain rather than pleasure will
ever develop a rational intellect, a healthy moral sense, and a normal
personality".
© http://www.desert-fairy.com
webmaster@desert-fairy.com
Copyright 1996-1999
Last Updated: April 10, 1999
More articles: Next
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21]
Academic year 2008/2009
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
© Lorena Levy Ballester
lolevyba@alumni.uv.es