FR Öz
FR Öz
FR Öz
Dangerous Knowledge
The pursuit of knowledge is at the heart of Frankenstein, as Victor attempts to surge beyond
accepted human limits and access the secret of life. Likewise, Robert Walton attempts to surpass
previous human explorations by endeavoring to reach the North Pole. This ruthless pursuit of
knowledge, of the light (see “Light and Fire”), proves dangerous, as Victor’s act of creation eventually
results in the destruction of everyone dear to him, and Walton finds himself perilously trapped
between sheets of ice. Whereas Victor’s obsessive hatred of the monster drives him to his death,
Walton ultimately pulls back from his treacherous mission, having learned from Victor’s example
how destructive the thirst for knowledge can be.
Sublime Nature
The sublime natural world, embraced by Romanticism (late eighteenth century to mid-nineteenth
century) as a source of unrestrained emotional experience for the individual, initially offers
characters the possibility of spiritual renewal. Mired in depression and remorse after the deaths of
William and Justine, for which he feels responsible, Victor heads to the mountains to lift his spirits.
Likewise, after a hellish winter of cold and abandonment, the monster feels his heart lighten as
spring arrives. The influence of nature on mood is evident throughout the novel, but for Victor, the
natural world’s power to console him wanes when he realizes that the monster will haunt him no
matter where he goes. By the end, as Victor chases the monster obsessively, nature, in the form of
the Arctic desert, functions simply as the symbolic backdrop for his primal struggle against the
monster.
Monstrosity
Obviously, this theme pervades the entire novel, as the monster lies at the center of the action. Eight
feet tall and hideously ugly, the monster is rejected by society. However, his monstrosity results not
only from his grotesque appearance but also from the unnatural manner of his creation, which
involves the secretive animation of a mix of stolen body parts and strange chemicals. He is a product
not of collaborative scientific effort but of dark, supernatural workings. The monster is only the most
literal of a number of monstrous entities in the novel, including the knowledge that Victor used to
create the monster (see “Dangerous Knowledge”). One can argue that Victor himself is a kind of
monster, as his ambition, secrecy, and selfishness alienate him from human society. Ordinary on the
outside, he may be the true “monster” inside, as he is eventually consumed by an obsessive hatred
of his creation. Finally, many critics have described the novel itself as monstrous, a stitched-together
combination of different voices, texts, and tenses (see Texts).
Secrecy
Victor conceives of science as a mystery to be probed; its secrets, once discovered, must be jealously
guarded. He considers M. Krempe, the natural philosopher he meets at Ingolstadt, a model scientist:
“an uncouth man, but deeply imbued in the secrets of his science.” Victor’s entire obsession with
creating life is shrouded in secrecy, and his obsession with destroying the monster remains equally
secret until Walton hears his tale. Whereas Victor continues in his secrecy out of shame and guilt, the
monster is forced into seclusion by his grotesque appearance. Walton serves as the final confessor
for both, and their tragic relationship becomes immortalized in Walton’s letters. In confessing all just
before he dies, Victor escapes the stifling secrecy that has ruined his life; likewise, the monster takes
advantage of Walton’s presence to forge a human connection, hoping desperately that at last
someone will understand, and empathize with, his miserable existence.
Texts
Frankenstein is overflowing with texts: letters, notes, journals, inscriptions, and books fill the novel,
sometimes nestled inside each other, other times simply alluded to or quoted. Walton’s letters
envelop the entire tale; Victor’s story fits inside Walton’s letters; the monster’s story fits inside
Victor’s; and the love story of Felix and Safie and references to Paradise Lost fit inside the monster’s
story. This profusion of texts is an important aspect of the narrative structure, as the various writings
serve as concrete manifestations of characters’ attitudes and emotions. Language plays an enormous
role in the monster’s development. By hearing and watching the peasants, the monster learns to
speak and read, which enables him to understand the manner of his creation, as described in Victor’s
journal. He later leaves notes for Victor along the chase into the northern ice, inscribing words in
trees and on rocks, turning nature itself into a writing surface.
Family
Frankenstein presents family relationships as central to human life. Most of the families that appear
in the novel—the Frankensteins and the DeLaceys—are perfect to the point of idealization.
Meanwhile, most of the book’s horror and suffering is caused by characters losing their connection to
their families, or not having a family in the first place. Frankenstein blames his isolation from his
family for his disastrous decision to create the Monster: “If the study to which you apply yourself has
a tendency to weaken your affections[…]then that study is certainly unlawful.” The Monster, too,
blames his suffering on the fact that he has no family: “I was dependent on none and related to
none.” When the Monster is trying to persuade Frankenstein to create a companion for him, he
argues that his lack of family relationships is what has caused him to become a murderer. On the
other hand, the Monster does have a family, in that Frankenstein is his father. Before creating the
Monster, Frankenstein imagines that “No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely
as I should deserve” the Monster’s. Instead, the Monster and Frankenstein spend the novel trying to
destroy each other.
Alienation
Frankenstein suggests that social alienation is both the primary cause of evil and the punishment for
it. The Monster explicitly says that his alienation from mankind has caused him to become a
murderer: “My protectors had departed, and had broken the only link that held me to the world. For
the first time the feelings of revenge and hatred filled my bosom.” His murders, however, only
increase his alienation. For Frankenstein, too, alienation causes him to make bad decisions and is also
the punishment for those bad decisions. When Frankenstein creates the Monster he is working
alone, in a “solitary chamber, or rather cell.” Being “solitary” has caused his ambition to grow
dangerously, but this isolation is already its own punishment: his laboratory feels like a “cell.” Once
he has created the Monster, Frankenstein becomes even more alienated from the people around
him because he can’t tell anyone about his creation. Both Frankenstein and the Monster compare
themselves to the character of Satan in Paradise Lost: alienation from God is both Satan’s crime and
his punishment. The novel presents the idea that alienation from other people is caused, at root, by
alienation from oneself. Frankenstein’s father points out the link between self-hatred and alienation:
“I know that while you are pleased with yourself, you will think of us with affection, and we shall hear
regularly from you.” As long as a person feels they have self-worth, they’ll maintain contact with
others. The Monster feels that he is alienated from human society because he looks monstrous. He
first recognizes that he is ugly not through someone else’s judgement but through his own: “when I
viewed myself in a transparent pool[…]I was filled with the bitterest sensations.” At the end of the
novel, with Frankenstein dead, the Monster is alone in the world. His alienation is complete, and so is
his self-hatred: “You hate me; but your abhorrence cannot equal that with which I regard myself.”
The ultimate consequence of alienation is self-destruction. Frankenstein drives himself to death
chasing the Monster, while the Monster declares his intention to kill himself.
Ambition
Frankenstein suggests that ambition is dangerous because it has the potential to become evil.
Frankenstein’s ambition motivates him to create the Monster, and he compares his own ambition to
a list of other destructive ambitions: “If no man allowed any pursuit whatsoever to interfere with the
tranquility of his domestic affections, Greece had not been enslaved; Caesar would have spared his
country; America would have been discovered more gradually; and the empires of Mexico and Peru
had not been destroyed.” The fact that Frankenstein compares his own work to the destruction of
entire civilizations underscores just how huge his ambition is. His suggestion that his ambition makes
him like Satan, “the archangel who aspired to omnipotence,” also points to the grandiosity of
Frankenstein’s ideas. Frankenstein imagines himself as nothing less than the devil incarnate.
However, the novel also suggests that ambition alone is not enough to cause evil and suffering.
Walton is introduced as a character every bit as ambitious as Frankenstein, but Walton chooses to
abandon his ambition out of duty to his crew. Frankenstein’s real mistake (and crime) is that he
places his ambition above his responsibilities to other people.
SYMBOL
“What could not be expected in the country of eternal light?” asks Walton, displaying a faith in, and
optimism about, science. In Frankenstein, light symbolizes knowledge, discovery, and enlightenment.
The natural world is a place of dark secrets, hidden passages, and unknown mechanisms; the goal of
the scientist is then to reach light. The dangerous and more powerful cousin of light is fire. The
monster’s first experience with a still-smoldering flame reveals the dual nature of fire: he discovers
excitedly that it creates light in the darkness of the night, but also that it harms him when he touches
it. The presence of fire in the text also brings to mind the full title of Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein: or,
The Modern Prometheus. The Greek god Prometheus gave the knowledge of fire to humanity and
was then severely punished for it. Victor, attempting to become a modern Prometheus, is certainly
punished, but unlike fire, his “gift” to humanity—knowledge of the secret of life—remains a secret.
The major conflict in Frankenstein revolves around Victor’s inability to understand that his actions
have repercussions. Victor focuses solely on his own goals and fails to see how his actions might
impact other individuals. The monster functions as the most stark reminder of how Victor has failed
to take responsibility for his actions in defying the laws of nature. The first signs of the conflict
appear when Victor throws himself into his studies at the University of Ingolstadt, neglecting his
family and fiancée. The conflict deepens when, having “succeeded in discovering the cause of
generation and life,” Victor becomes obsessed with creating a monster. He does not stop to think
about what the experiences of that monster might be like, nor is he fazed by the fact that he ignores
his family to pursue his work. He is so obsessed with his ambition that he does not consider anything
else. The rising action of his reckless quest to create life comes to a peak when, immediately after
animating the monster, he reacts with horror and disgust and runs from the room. This incident
illustrates the conflict between Victor and moral responsibility: he has been responsible for making
the monster and bringing him to life, but when he doesn’t like the result, he simply rejects it.
The tension increases when Victor learns of the death of his brother William and the false accusation
against Justine. The murder creates another situation in which Victor can choose to act, or fail to take
responsibility. He heightens the conflict by allowing Justine to be executed, rather than disclosing
what he knows about the monster. The conflict is heightened further when the monster meets up
with Victor amidst the mountain peaks and tells him the story of all the suffering he has experienced,
as well as his loneliness and alienation. The meeting between the monster and his creator is another
moment where Victor could potentially turn away from his selfish path. The plot suggests potential
resolution when Victor reluctantly agrees to fashion a mate for the monster in exchange for the two
of them going somewhere remote.
However, the conflict is reignited when Victor is too disgusted to carry out this plan and destroys the
female monster before completing it. Yet again, he doesn’t think about what this reckless choice will
mean, even though the monster vows revenge. Victor is genuinely surprised when his friend Henry
Clerval is killed, and then again when his fiancé Elizabeth is also murdered, despite the monster’s
explicit statements that he is now dedicated to making Victor’s life a living hell by depriving him of
everyone he loves. The murder of Elizabeth shifts the conflict into its final stage, in which Victor vows
to hunt down and kill the monster in revenge for all of the deaths. This vow partially resolves the
conflict in that it gives the monster what he wants: he now has the total attention of his creator, and
the fates of the two individuals are interlocked. After Victor pursues the monster around the world,
he arrives in the Arctic and encounters Walton, bringing the story full-circle back the point at which
the narration switched from Walton to Victor. Victor’s travels have exhausted him so much that he
dies aboard the ship after relaying his tale, his role in the story fulfilled. The novel climaxes with
Walton finding the monster in the room, gazing at Victor’s dead body and weeping. Victor never
acknowledges the role he played in creating the chaos and tragedy that resulted in the deaths of
several innocent people, as well as the torment of his creation. Unlike Victor, the monster expresses
remorse and self-loathing, suggesting that he ultimately has become more “human” than his creator.
Walton finally gets to see and hear the monster from his own perspective, and he is able to feel “a
mixture of curiosity and compassion.” The falling action of the novel quickly concludes with the
monster explaining his plan to kill himself, then setting off alone to carry out his plan.