Book: Frankenstein
Jan. 31st, 2010 09:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
narcasseYet another classic in LibriVox audio book format, Frankenstein turned up two quotes that struck me as worth jotting down:
“Nothing contributes so much to tranquillize the mind as a steady purpose—a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.”
“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.”
As for the story itself I suspect that it would have held my attention to a greater degree if I didn’t have a rough idea of the plot beforehand. The plot developments that occur as the story progresses are suitably melodramatic and shocking but knowing about them beforehand had a tendency to steal their thunder so that I instead focused mostly on the details. And from the details and repeated themes what I discovered was that neither Frankenstein nor his monster were particularly sympathetic and pretty much deserved each other.
I had a good deal of sympathy for the monster when he was set opposite Frankenstein who seemed to divide his time neatly between angsting over having created said monster and actively running away from the situation by pretending that it hadn’t happened. Frankenstein’s general policy seemed to be ignoring everything in the hope that he could make it go away by sheer force of will. Right from the very outset having given the monster life when he realised what he’d done and was horrified by it, instead of actually lopping off the monster’s head or similar in the privacy of his laboratory and nipping the problem in the bud he goes to bed leaving the creature there. And when it follows him he runs away, spending the entire night roaming the city and only going back to his rooms in the company of his friend Clerval. Later Frankenstein returns home to continue burring his head in the sand and carries on in this fashion until the monster sits him down for a little chat so Frankenstein wasn’t exactly an appealing character to start with.
What really tipped the balance beyond Frankenstein’s inactivity and propensity for running away was his lamenting just before Justine’s death that he was worse off than she when she’d just been condemned to death for murdering Frankenstein’s younger brother in order to steal a miniature of Frankenstein’s mother. Not only is Justine condemned for these crimes against people that she cared for deeply and who regarded her as family but the priest who comes to hear her confession convinces her to confess to a crime that she didn’t commit. Her situation is all kinds of unjust and awful but Frankenstein’s mental monologue, quite literally in the corner of Justine’s cell, maintains that he’s in a far worse position. In fact it was only towards the end after the death of Clerval that any of Frankenstein’s angst seemed to take on a less self-indulgent tone and actually be an expression of absolute grief.
Frankenstein is hugely ineffective while he has anything left to cling to. While he still has home, family and friends he generally takes it upon himself to just keep pretending that nothing is wrong or alternately just indulging his ineffectual angst. Even his meeting with the monster isn’t something he engineers: the monster has to track him down while mountain-climbing.
Once the monster has a chance to tell his side of the tale he’s initially a far more sympathetic character than Frankenstein until he starts murdering people and swearing vengeance on all of humanity. One key point that he doesn’t quite seem to grasp is that he’s not human in the conventional sense. At one point he considers kidnapping a child to be his companion since he believes that a child will not have yet learnt to show the sort of prejudice he’s already been subjected to but of course the child, Frankenstein’s younger brother in fact, reacts with fear and loathing because the monster doesn’t actually look human. His non human appearance being in part due to Frankenstein deliberately working on larger limbs just for ease of operation.
On one hand the monster ends up in an untenable situation through no fault of his own but on the other his actions when he does exercise some control over matters are pretty abhorrent. Then again his actions are based on a very childlike comprehension of the world because he is in essence a child rejected by his parent. Even his desire for a companion to be created for him is characterised by a childlike hope of how that circumstance would play out. He tells Frankenstein that they will retreat from humanity and live peaceful in the wilds, content with each other’s company all without factoring in the possibility of his companion rejecting him, seeking out human interaction as he had done or the very real probability that if he can’t stand the sight of his own face he’s not likely to be able to stand the sight of his similarly created companion’s. Thus the monster is characterised by a childlike innocence and lack of foresight coupled with a very advanced understanding of how to inflict pain. He is after all capable of advanced learning and teaches himself to speak French and studies the general history of civilization so it’s easy to suppose that with the right sort of instruction and resources he would have made a fair scholar, albeit one who would forever have to hide his true nature.
Frankenstein in fact shows one his first moments of sense when he considers all the ways in which making the monster a companion could go wrong and refuses to complete the task. After which he then proceeds to be arrested for Clerval’s murder and has yet another collapse while in prison awaiting trial. Once proven innocent the preparations for his marriage to Elizabeth aren’t quite so blindly optimistic at least since he believes that the monster will kill him on his wedding night. Of course the monster kills Elizabeth instead and it’s at that point that Frankenstein gives up all pretence of normality and finally gathers his wits and determination to go chasing after the monster. He doesn’t catch the monster in the end and in fact dies on the ship introduced at the start as the framing story but it seems apt. Then the monster turns up and angsts over Frankenstein’s body which at least earns him, and possibly Frankenstein as well, the lambasting that they deserve:
"…you come here to whine over the desolation that you have made. You throw a torch into a pile of buildings; and when they are consumed you sit among the ruins and lament the fall. "
All of which is why Frankenstein and his monster deserve each other. They both have fantastic potential, make mistakes and then instead of correcting them work on making the situation worse via escalation: the monster through his actions, Frankenstein through his inaction. Still, by way of usefulness, if I ever have to come up with an example of a character in classic literature whose situation is destroyed by crippling angst I can point to Victor Frankenstein without hesitation.
“Nothing contributes so much to tranquillize the mind as a steady purpose—a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.”
“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.”
As for the story itself I suspect that it would have held my attention to a greater degree if I didn’t have a rough idea of the plot beforehand. The plot developments that occur as the story progresses are suitably melodramatic and shocking but knowing about them beforehand had a tendency to steal their thunder so that I instead focused mostly on the details. And from the details and repeated themes what I discovered was that neither Frankenstein nor his monster were particularly sympathetic and pretty much deserved each other.
I had a good deal of sympathy for the monster when he was set opposite Frankenstein who seemed to divide his time neatly between angsting over having created said monster and actively running away from the situation by pretending that it hadn’t happened. Frankenstein’s general policy seemed to be ignoring everything in the hope that he could make it go away by sheer force of will. Right from the very outset having given the monster life when he realised what he’d done and was horrified by it, instead of actually lopping off the monster’s head or similar in the privacy of his laboratory and nipping the problem in the bud he goes to bed leaving the creature there. And when it follows him he runs away, spending the entire night roaming the city and only going back to his rooms in the company of his friend Clerval. Later Frankenstein returns home to continue burring his head in the sand and carries on in this fashion until the monster sits him down for a little chat so Frankenstein wasn’t exactly an appealing character to start with.
What really tipped the balance beyond Frankenstein’s inactivity and propensity for running away was his lamenting just before Justine’s death that he was worse off than she when she’d just been condemned to death for murdering Frankenstein’s younger brother in order to steal a miniature of Frankenstein’s mother. Not only is Justine condemned for these crimes against people that she cared for deeply and who regarded her as family but the priest who comes to hear her confession convinces her to confess to a crime that she didn’t commit. Her situation is all kinds of unjust and awful but Frankenstein’s mental monologue, quite literally in the corner of Justine’s cell, maintains that he’s in a far worse position. In fact it was only towards the end after the death of Clerval that any of Frankenstein’s angst seemed to take on a less self-indulgent tone and actually be an expression of absolute grief.
Frankenstein is hugely ineffective while he has anything left to cling to. While he still has home, family and friends he generally takes it upon himself to just keep pretending that nothing is wrong or alternately just indulging his ineffectual angst. Even his meeting with the monster isn’t something he engineers: the monster has to track him down while mountain-climbing.
Once the monster has a chance to tell his side of the tale he’s initially a far more sympathetic character than Frankenstein until he starts murdering people and swearing vengeance on all of humanity. One key point that he doesn’t quite seem to grasp is that he’s not human in the conventional sense. At one point he considers kidnapping a child to be his companion since he believes that a child will not have yet learnt to show the sort of prejudice he’s already been subjected to but of course the child, Frankenstein’s younger brother in fact, reacts with fear and loathing because the monster doesn’t actually look human. His non human appearance being in part due to Frankenstein deliberately working on larger limbs just for ease of operation.
On one hand the monster ends up in an untenable situation through no fault of his own but on the other his actions when he does exercise some control over matters are pretty abhorrent. Then again his actions are based on a very childlike comprehension of the world because he is in essence a child rejected by his parent. Even his desire for a companion to be created for him is characterised by a childlike hope of how that circumstance would play out. He tells Frankenstein that they will retreat from humanity and live peaceful in the wilds, content with each other’s company all without factoring in the possibility of his companion rejecting him, seeking out human interaction as he had done or the very real probability that if he can’t stand the sight of his own face he’s not likely to be able to stand the sight of his similarly created companion’s. Thus the monster is characterised by a childlike innocence and lack of foresight coupled with a very advanced understanding of how to inflict pain. He is after all capable of advanced learning and teaches himself to speak French and studies the general history of civilization so it’s easy to suppose that with the right sort of instruction and resources he would have made a fair scholar, albeit one who would forever have to hide his true nature.
Frankenstein in fact shows one his first moments of sense when he considers all the ways in which making the monster a companion could go wrong and refuses to complete the task. After which he then proceeds to be arrested for Clerval’s murder and has yet another collapse while in prison awaiting trial. Once proven innocent the preparations for his marriage to Elizabeth aren’t quite so blindly optimistic at least since he believes that the monster will kill him on his wedding night. Of course the monster kills Elizabeth instead and it’s at that point that Frankenstein gives up all pretence of normality and finally gathers his wits and determination to go chasing after the monster. He doesn’t catch the monster in the end and in fact dies on the ship introduced at the start as the framing story but it seems apt. Then the monster turns up and angsts over Frankenstein’s body which at least earns him, and possibly Frankenstein as well, the lambasting that they deserve:
"…you come here to whine over the desolation that you have made. You throw a torch into a pile of buildings; and when they are consumed you sit among the ruins and lament the fall. "
All of which is why Frankenstein and his monster deserve each other. They both have fantastic potential, make mistakes and then instead of correcting them work on making the situation worse via escalation: the monster through his actions, Frankenstein through his inaction. Still, by way of usefulness, if I ever have to come up with an example of a character in classic literature whose situation is destroyed by crippling angst I can point to Victor Frankenstein without hesitation.
