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Pressured Affairs and Recognition

     Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, is not simply a two dimensional piece of literature that can be merely broken down and analyzed from either the perspective of Victor Frankenstein or his creation, focusing on the very fabric of right and wrong, morality, and a genuine monster.   Shelley’s story expertly eludes the reader, casting an overwhelming feeling of judgment and sympathy throughout the tale (Bissonette 3), masking the underlying flaws of each narrator, which certainly lead to their unfortunate fate.   On the surface, Shelley’s tale makes the reader believe that each narrator is distinctly different, casting each character in different settings and surrounding them individually with unique sets of circumstances. Each narrator’s distinct placement and happenings in the story stir the reader and cause them to primarily feel compassionate, critical, and dismayed by the Captain, Scientist, and creature, respectively. Frankenstein is intertwined through the voices of three distinct individuals. The tale unfolds with Captain Robert Walton writing letters to his sister, detailing his voyage and specifically the rescue of Victor Frankenstein. Soon after Frankenstein’s arrival, Walton’s voice seamlessly transitions to that of Victor’s, where he begins to explain the intricate details of how he arrived on the good Captain’s ship. As the story develops, it takes an unexpected twist midway through when the narrator shifts once again and the Monster takes hold. The three narrators’ identical faults are the heartbeat of this story. Robert Walton, Victor Frankenstein and the Monster, each struggle with their ability to sustain meaning-full relationships and overcome their desire to be well-known.

     Robert Walton is the headstrong Captain of a ship and its crew that has set out on an expedition to the Arctic in order to uncover the mysteries of the unknown and secure his name a place in history. While en-route to the North Pole he writes several letters to his beloved sister, detailing his longing for a true friend and companion with whom he can share his adventures. Walton fears that while on this journey, he will be lost forever and not have the luxury of seeing his sister again. He writes, "I have no friend, Margaret: when I am glowing with the enthusiasm of success, there will be none to participate my joy; if I am assailed by disappointment, no one will endeavour to sustain me in dejection" (Shelley 15). Walton is filled with an overwhelming loneliness and still his desire to make a name for himself pushes him forward, deeper into an inconsolable colorless sea of ice. The congealed salt water brings Walton’s expedition to a perilous halt, where he rescues a lost soul, Victor Frankenstein. In Frankenstein, he finds a man with whom he can relate. Victor is articulate, intelligent, and ambitious, and in Walton’s mind, Victor mirrors the qualities he too embraces.  Early in the tale, Victor exclaims to Walton, "Unhappy man! Do you share my madness? Have you drunk also of the intoxicating draught? Hear me- let me reveal my tale, and you will dash the cup from your lips" (Shelley 24), in an attempt to alter Walton’s pursuit for glory. However, Walton’s aspiration to seek grandeur and be known leaves him deaf to Frankenstein’s testament, that he has lost everything dear to him, his family and friends, and having lost in such a profound depth prevents Victor from succeeding in his final quest to destroy his Monster (Shelley 24). Walton’s self-interests continue to cloud his judgment as he forces his crew forward and convinces himself that the recognition he will receive will be worth the sacrifice of his men and even himself.   Walton’s desperate actions drive a wedge between his bond with his crew and they begin to mutiny, as he ignores their needs and blindly sustains the course. His desperate acts, not only loses the faith of his men, it takes the life of Victor. Walton’s self-centered pursuit entangled with Victor’s, and it was not until Victor’s final breaths that he realized that he was making the same mistakes and contributed to the loss of his new friend. Walton’s awareness that he had made a loathsome mistake in pursuing his desires ended with him making a decision to turn back and save the many lives of his crew and himself. This recurring theme in Shelley’s tale is foreshadowed in the life of Victor and his Monster, both of which have been jolted with epiphanies, changed course, and brought full circle back into this destructive cycle.   Shelley ends her captivating tale with Walton shifting course and heading home. However, it is uncertain whether or not Walton returns home, Shelley’s recurring theme continues to impresses upon the reader, a heavy heart, knowing Walton’s impending peril is still knotted with Victor’s and his Monster.

     Victor Frankenstein takes center stage as arguably the most notable character and one of the main narrators plagued with a puzzling sense of ambition over relationship.   Victor’s life is filled with family and friends. He has a loving mother and father, a younger brother, William and an unrelated adopted sister, Elizabeth who is often referred to as his beloved cousin. His best friend is Henry Clerval, with whom Victor often confides in. Although, Victor is surrounded by the love of family and friends, he is unable to overcome his fascination with achieving grandeur.   Lars Lunsford captured this in his essay, “The Devaluing of Life in Shelley’s FRANKENSTEIN,” stating, “Victor Frankenstein doesn’t value life in the absolute. Instead, he places a higher worth on his reputation” (Lunsford 174). Victor’s pursuit for glory and increasing his standing within society is worth more to him than the very lives of the ones he holds dearest. He is continually supported by his friends and family and through this he is able to leave them and move to Ingolstadt where he pursues his education. While separated from his loved ones, he often misses them and reminisces. However, his obsession increased as his talents improved, “My ardour was indeed the astonishment of the students, and my proficiency that of the masters. Professor Krempe often asked me, with a sly smile, how Cornelius Agrippa went on, whilst M. Waldman expressed the most heartfelt exultation in my progress” (Shelley 45).   Frankenstein spent the next two years without communication with friends and family as he delved so deep into science that he became the master and was able to repair and create instruments expertly. His awakening to the very fact that he could learn no more, quelled his desire for glory momentarily and his mind turned once again to that of home (Shelley 45).  This did not last long, Victor stumbles upon a lifeless animal and it reignites his obsession with achieving greatness. He now desires to understand and master the very essence of life. Victor’s problematical psyche casts out the desire to participate in significant relationships and drives him towards self destruction, transgressing the limits of morality as he pursues the hellish task of implanting life on death.   Once more, Victor enters into isolation as endeavors on his shallow course. Victor Frankenstein chooses a passageway that parallels the other narrators and by doing so entraps himself within a shared unforgiving nightmare. His careless decisions lead to the creation of his Monster. This monster becomes “the embodiment of Frankenstein's ambition with a speaking voice that pleads most urgently for the presence of the very thing Frankenstein's (and Walton's) dream of glory has rejected--genuine human companionship” (Walling 4). Frankenstein’s foolish ambition to seek glory above all else, wrings the very life out of the people closest to him and further isolates the narrator and submits him to the confines of death. Victor’s inability to uphold connections between human beings continue with his creation, unable to accept the results of his hopes and desires, leaves the Monster isolated as well.

   Victor’s diabolical creation, his monster, his child, his personification of his loathsome self, takes a shocking hold on the reader as he begins his narration.   Accordingly, Criscillia Benford’s essay covering narrative in this story states, “Yet while the creature is perhaps the best storyteller in the novel, he is nevertheless unable to bring other-perception and self-perception into permanent alignment because he is unable to fix the social meaning of his eloquence” (Benford 338). The Monster is by all accounts, unsightly and so hideous, that he cannot form human companionship. Victor described him as an assembly of human parts with yellow skin that barely hid the muscles and arteries beneath, with black billowing hair, brilliant white teeth, yellow eyes, a shriveled face and black lips (Shelley 51). So disturbing in appearance that at first sight Victor turns his back on him. The Monster, longs for companionship and the ability to have a social life. In his narration, he details his own qualities as childlike and curious searching for relationships. When his brute stature and sheer ugliness prevents him from forming any bond with another human, he turns to his creator for help, in the form of revenge. He seeks out Victor’s home and crosses path with his younger brother and filled with a longing and rage, strangles poor William. This, he knows will draw Victor out, and he sinisterly awaits his arrival. Through his narration he explains to Victor, how he has longed for a relationship with another. He explains how he educated himself by hiding in a family’s house, absorbing knowledge at a cyclic rate. His isolation grew and so did his desire to be known. He could no longer wait to be a part of another’s life and so he made himself known to the blind father, who in turn immediately accepted him, until the blind man’s son came rushing in and struck him from the house. The Monster’s desire to have an identity is also his downfall, he cannot see past his own want for recognition and begins to destroy the very thing he wishes to acquire, a relationship.  “Oh! my creator, make me happy; let me feel gratitude towards you for one benefit! Let me see that I excite the sympathy of some existing thing; do not deny my request!” (Shelley 130), the Monster is angry that Victor has abandoned him leaving him alone with no one to console him, nameless. Victor’s creation goes against everything that it desires and attempts to use vengeance as leverage with Victor, bartering a peace, for the creation of a companion designed for himself. The Monster does not recognize the request as inherently offensive and is blinded by his desires. Victor’s refusal of the monster’s request isolates the monster further and pushes Frankenstein’s creation towards revenge. The Monster, now more secluded and once again abandoned by his father, commits to destroying relationships. He resents Victor and attacks those with whom he loves, painfully adding to William’s death, by squeezing the life from his best friend, Henry Clerval and his beloved Elizabeth. The Monster has lost everything in his attempt to gain a meaning-full relationship and succeeded in isolating himself, and in turn assumed an identity once and for all, Frankenstein.

     Mary Shelley’s entire life, ultimately contributed to the fundamental burdens of each of the narrators. Mary, much like her narrators, was highly independent and also secluded throughout the early years of her life. Her complete existence was filled with an immeasurable amount of loss and suffering.   Mary Shelley understood isolation and defeat all too well; her mother died days after giving birth to her, leaving her devoid of one of nature’s strongest bonds. As a young woman, she lost four of her own children, at exceptionally young ages. Shelly was also crushed by the loss of her sister, who had committed suicide. All of this left a void in Shelly’s life and was deeply depressing. Mary like the story teller’s she has created within Frankenstein was also condemned to a life of seeking recognition. Shelley’s quote, “enroll myself on the page of fame” by Karen Karbiener in the introduction to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (Karbiener XIV), embodies the very nature she has extracted from Robert Walton, Victor Frankenstein, and the Monster in order to give life to her tale and submit the reader to the uncomfortable mind-set she has lived with all her life.  

     The narrators’ ambition to succeed in the face of immeasurable loss was not their only downfall. The storyteller’s failure to fully embrace meaningful relationships also contributed to the walls of their lives caving in on them. Their inability to overcome their faults, expertly contributed to Mary Shelley’s tale, where she repeatedly utilized the narrators’ egotistical traits to invoke feelings of defeat, judgment, and helplessness. The three narrators’ faults are identical and produce a rhythmic theme, throughout this story, one in which each narrator builds excitement in the reader, then, lets the reader down, only to build them back up to be let down once more. Each narrator is unique and gives an allure that there is something even more sinister developing in the story. However, it is quite the opposite; a critical inspection of this tale reveals a very similar plight surrounding each of the storytellers. One that was a bit more obscured for Victor’s monster then the others, nonetheless, one in which arrogance and a self perceived importance left the affairs with others inundated with anguish and loss. The following quote from Schmid’s work describes the acute nature of Robert, Victor, and the Monster and how their addiction to amplify their identity was the foundation for their epic failures “As with nearly every aspect of addiction studies, however, the place of isolation in the process and development of addiction can be seen as shifting, at times appearing as either cause or effect or both” (Schmid 21). Shelley’s veiled depictions of the afflictions of Robert Walton matched those of Frankenstein and the Monster, leaving each narrator helplessly aligned with an unforgiving fate.   Unable to sustain significant relationships or conquer an acute desire for glory, were identical character flaws held by the narrators and were effortlessly injected into the life of Shelley’s tale and induced unrest in the reader.

Works Cited

Benford, Criscillia. ““Listen to my tale”: Multilevel Structure, Narrative Sense Making, and the Inassimilable in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.” Narrative. 18.3 (2010): 324-346. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 10 Sep. 2011.

Bissonette, Melissa Bloom. “Teaching the Monster: Frankenstein and Critical Thinking.” College Literature. 37.3 (2010): 106-120. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 31 Aug. 2011.

Karbiener, Karen. “Introduction and notes.” Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, New York: Barnes and Noble, Inc., 2003. Print.

Lunsford, Lars. “The Devaluing of Life in Shelley’s FRANKENSTEIN.” Explicator. 68.3 (2010): Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 13 Sep. 2011.

Schmid, Thomas H. “Addiction and Isolation in Frankenstein: A Case of Terminal Uniqueness.” Gothic Studies. 11.2 (2009): 19-29. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 10 Sep. 2011.

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. With introduction and notes by Karen Karbiener, New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc., 2003. Print.

Walling, William A. "Mary Shelley." Twayne’s English Authors Series Online. (1999): Chapter 2. Twayne’s Authors Series. Web. 29 Aug. 2011.