Victor Frankenstein becomes consumed with the idea of bringing dead body parts back
to life. But remember, that the novel in which we encounter Victor Frankenstein, is
not a third person narrative, not one in which a narrator says, he said, she said,
they said. He did, she did, they did. Rather, the novel begins with the letters
of Robert Walton. Within his letters to his sister, Margaret Seville, is his
attempt to capture the testimony of Victor Frankenstein. Within Victor Frankenstein's
testimony, is Victor's attempt to retell what he heard from the monster. And within
the monster's telling, we have even further a story of Felix and Saphe. That
is we have a nested narrative. One letter writing to another letter, one human
corresponding with another. Correspondence. Correspondence. I respond
to you, you respond to me. But driven by his desire to make a miracle, Victor fails
to write to his father. And he has given a letter from his father by his friend Henry
Clervol, and the letter says, you must pardon me if I regard any interruption in
your correspondence as a proof that your other duties are equally neglected. This
is from chapter four of the novel, and I believe that this assertion by the father,
represents something crucial about the way the novel as a whole is constructed. It's
not accidentally an epistolary novel, it's an epistolary novel because the act of one
person corresponding with another, is an act of being involved in community. And
what Victor is doing, is withdrawing from the moral constraints of community. Let's
take a look at this passage around that accusation. The summer months passed while
I was thus engaged heart and soul in one pursuit. It was a most beautiful season,
never did the fields bestow a more plentiful harvest or the vines yield a
more luxuriant vintage, but my eyes were insensible to the charms of nature. He
could see it not. He was blinded by his own pursuit. And the same feelings which
made me neglect the scenes around me, caused me also to forget those friends who
were so many miles absent and whom I had not see for so long a time. Seeing,
seeing, seeing the access of knowledge always blinded, blinded, blinded by the
desire to see this other thing that society would have him not see. I knew my
silence disquieted my father, and I well remembered the words of my father. I know
that while you are pleased with yourself you will think of us with affection, and
we shall hear regularly from you. You must pardon me if I regard any interruption in
your correspondence as a proof that your other duties are equally neglected. That
is, Victor must be out of sorts with himself if he is out of sorts with others.
I knew well therefore, what would be my father's feelings, but I could not tear my
thoughts from my employment, loathsome in itself. The making of the monster. But
which had taken an irresistible hold of my imagination. Notice that Victor uses a
passive construction. He doesn't say, I did it, but rather, this idea had taken
hold of him, as if he were the victim. I wish that this were, to procrastinate all
the related my feelings of affection until the great object, which swallowed up every
habit of my nature, should be completed. That is naturally speaking, people should
be virtuous what Narie Shelley calls universal virtue. But, the aim of
separating one self from society, even if that aim is itself noble like finding a
way to benefit society by holding off death, is unvirtuous, it is vicious. I
then thought that my father would be unjust, if he ascribed my neglect to vice
or faultiness on my part, but I am now convinced, Victor is telling Robert
Walton, now that he is on the ship in the arctic, that he, my father, was justified
in conceiving that I should not be altogether free from blame. A human being
in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind, and never to allow
passion or transitory desire to disturb his tranquility. I do not think that the
pursuit of knowledge is an exception to this rule. In other words, this is not a
book particularly about science. Anything th at causes the rupture of the individual
from the community is at fault. If the study to which you apply yourself has a
tendency to weaken your affections and to destroy your taste for those simple
pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study is certainly
unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind. If this rule were always
observed, if no man allowed any pursuit whatsoever to interfere with the
tranquility of his domestic affections, the same phrase that Mary Shelley uses in
the preface to the novel. 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. It's the violation of universal virtue.
It's not being a naturally good person that leads to all the harm in history
according to what Victor is now saying while he's on boat in the Arctic. He's
saying this, motivated by a recognition that his father was right, but he has
resisted his father. The Oedipal structure in narrative has to do with the passage of
power from a father figure to a child figure. And the resistance of that passage
by the father figure to the child figure. We see this again and again. It's only
natural, after all. Parents have an investment in their children, and want
them to survive. Children feel their own growing strength, and want to set out on
their own. You may remember that a history of all the voyages made for purposes of
discovery compose the whole of our good uncle Thomas' library. Remember who writes
that? It's Robert Walton writing to his sister. He is motivated to discover, not
because his father sends him away, but a compliant father figure, the Uncle. This
is a typical displacement to do an end run on the tension of an Oedipal structure. My
father's objection at length was overcome. His objection to learning, and he has
permitted me, Victor finally says, to undertake a voyage of discovery to the
land of knowledge. That is, to the university. Fathers resist their children
taking o ver the world. Victor resists the monster taking over the world. This
Oedipal structure is licit. It's legitimate. Community holds together. Now
take a look at this nested narrative. If you think of Frankenstein as a whole, we
have the story of Robert Walton. An explorer in the arctic who takes on board
Victor Frankenstein. An explorer chasing through the arctic. Who tells the story of
his creation the monster. Who tells the story of a Christian and a Muslim who love
each other. The story of Felix and Safi whose love is violated betrayed by a
father. At the heart of this story, is the betrayal of a father. The outermost story
that we all remember is Robert Walton accepting to the objections of his crew
and turning back instead of reaching the North Pole. He survives and brings us his
letters because he listens to the community. Victor Frankenstein listens to
no one and his body is left on the boat as his monster goes off alone to make a
funeral pile. The acceptance of community is implicit in the structure, and the
heart of this novel is betrayal. The characters relate to each other. They are,
in fact, often true doppelgangers. That is, one character takes the place of
another. For example, one man's life or death were but a small debt to pay for the
acquirement of the knowledge which I sought, one character says. If you haven't
read the novel in a long time, my guess is, you'll think that was Victor
Frankenstein. In fact, it was Robert Walton who comes to learn better and
decides not to ruin and lose the lives of others. Robert and Victor are
doppelgangers. They both want to solve ancient mysteries. Robert says, at the
beginning of the novel, in the second paragraph of his first letter, I try in
vain to be persuaded that the pole is the sea of frost and desolation. It ever
presents itself to my imagination as the region of beauty, and delight. This is the
ancient Greek myth of Hyperborea, the land beyond the North Wind. As the Greeks went
further and further north, the land got colder. They approached the mount ains,
but they had the idea that beyond the mountains, there was a place of sunshine
and plenty. And in fact, there was. The southern plains of Germany. But,
mythically, it became a land beyond the north wind and that's what Robert seeks to
find. But he's smart enough to turn back. Victor also wants to fulfill an ancient
fantasy, bringing the dead back to life. But he doesn't listen to others. So we
have two sides of the same questing character. Walton and Frankenstein are
doppelgangers. The first mate is a very interesting character. Robert says, I
heard of him first in a rather romantic manner, from a lady who owes to him the
happiness of her life. This is in letter two. And Robert tells the whole story of
how, although he had fallen in love with her, he realized that she loved someone
else better. And he gives up his fortune and all that he possesses so that she can
find the love that she wanted. What a noble fellow, you will exclaim. He is so,
but then he is wholly uneducated. He is as silent as a Turk. This uneducated natural
person has the virtues that allow him to sacrifice himself for the love of someone
else. The monster brings firewood to the DeLacys because he knows they need help.
It's only when they realize that he is ugly, and therefore attack him, that he
sets fire. It is in other words universal virtue that he uneducated possesses as did
the first mate. They are doppelgangers. The difference between them, society
misunderstands the monster. It's society's fault, not the monster's. Frankenstein and
his very own creation are doppelgangers. His eyes have generally an expression of
wildness and even madness, but there are moments when if anyone performs an act of
kindness toward him, or does him any, the most trifling serve, service, his whole
countenance is lighted up. As it were with a beam of benevolence and sweetness that I
never saw equaled but he is generally melancholy and despairing and sometimes he
gnashes his teeth. As in, in, impatient, as if impatient of the weight of woes that
oppress hi M. This could be Frankenstein describing the monster to Robert, but it
is Robert describing Frankenstein to his sister. The monster and Victor are
doppelgangers, they map out together aspects of the mind of Victor. What kind
of man is he? We find out that he only gets named in chapter one, when he is
brought a cousin as a prize. My mother had said playfully, I have a pretty present
for my Victor, and then she presented Elizabeth to him, the woman he's supposed
to marry. She's a present, she's an object, she's a thing. Think of the
feminist politics involved here. But of course, Victor has won nothing since he
never can use a woman to collaborate in having a child, he feels he must do it
alone. And his surname, that arises in chapter three. When the professor explains
that Victor has studied the wrong things. His words, the professor's words, made me
feel as if my soul were grappling with a palpable enemy. My mind was filled with
one thought, one conception. Think of the word conception as being both intellectual
and carnal. One conception, one purpose. So much has been done, exclaimed the soul
of Frankenstein. Here comes the name, and now he refers to himself in the third
person, he's alienated even from himself. I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown
powers and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation. Victor asserts his
name, asserts it will be a true Frank stone, something on which to build. He
will be God. That name makes him the protagonist of the story. The title of the
story, but the monster, the monster has no name at all. The simplest act of father
could provide for a child, a name, is omitted. And yet, in the space of less
than one page, we have the words that are used for the monsters all collected
together. I expected this reception said that the demon. Demon comes from a Greek
word which means the spirit that is inside one's mind, okay? So, the demon, the
monster is something from Victor. All men hate the wretched. Wretch from the old
English word meaning an exile, someone pushed out of the community. How then must
I be hated who am miserable beyond all living things. Miserable meaning worthy of
pity from the Latin misa meaning wretched or exiled. Yet you my creator detest and
spurn me, thy creature. The monster is the made thing. To whom thou art bound by ties
only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us you propose to kill me, how dare you
sport thus with life? Do your duty towards me and I will do mine towards you and the
rest of mankind. The monster is saying, if you Would be naturally virtuous, I would
be naturally virtuous. If you will comply with my conditions, I will leave them, and
you at peace, but if you refuse, I will glut the mal of death, until it be
satisfied with the blood of your remaining friends. Victor's response, abhorred
monster. That is, for monere to warn, or mostrare to show. Something that tells us
the world has something fearful in it. Fiend that thou art. That is, negative
friend, foe, fiend, my enemy. The tortures of hell are mild vengeance for thy crimes
retched devil, from the Greek diabolos. Dia, across, bolos, pf a bowl or a cannon
shot. A diabolos is something that crosses your path to stop you from going forward.
You approach me with your creation, come then. You reproach me with your creation
come on, then, that I may extinguish the spark which I so negligently bestowed.
Victor is acknowledging how unresponsive he is to natural obligation. My rage was
without bounds, I sprang on him, impelled by all the feelings which can arm one
being against the existence of another. So, so far in this, less than a page, the
monster has been called demon, ratchet, miserable creature, monster, fiend, devil.
And as the page continues, we learn. He easily eluded me and said be calm, I'm
intrigued to hear me before you give vent to your hatred of my, of my devoted head.
Have I not suffered enough that you seek to increase my misery? Life although it
maybe only an accumulation of anguish is dear to me and I'll defend it. Remember,
that thou has made me more powerful than thyself. My height the monster says, is
superior to thine mine joints are more supple, but I will not be tempted to set
myself in opposition to thee. I am thy creature, and I will be even mild and
docile to my natural lord and king. The monster does begin with universal virtue.
If thou wilt also perform thy part the witch thou owest me, oh Frankenstein. Be
not equitable to every other and trample upon me alone. To whom thy justice and
even thy clemency and affection is most due. Remember that I am thy creature. I
ought to be thy Adam. But I am, rather, the fallen angel that is cast out of the
paradise where the father lives. Whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed. The real
Adam was disobedient. Victor's monster was not. Everywhere I see bliss, from which I
alone am irrevocably excluded, because he has no mate. I was benevolent and good.
Misery made me a fiend, make me happy and I shall again be virtuous to which Victor
applies, begone. I will not hear you. There can be no community between you and
me. We are enemies. Begone, or let us try our strength in a fight in which one must
fall. Again, the exit from the garden. In the monster's name, in his six
appellations, we have the crux of the problem of virtue, community, and
correspondence. It's understandable that, although the book is named Frankenstein,
the image we all take away with us is that of the monster. He represents the flaw
that we need to be warned against if humanity is to survive in bliss.