Reanna Byrd
Cline
English 102
12 October 2011
Frankenstein
The book “Frankenstein” can have many different meanings behind it. Within the readers mind they may interpret it in any way they wish to. This book leaves the meaning very open and imaginable. There is mystery, drama, suspense, and even romance, all tied up in this book. What was the author thinking and longing to portray? In my own mind, this book opened up the world of relationships- spouses, siblings, and especially parent - child relationships. The author portrays the many different stages in a relationship from the very beginning, to disagreements, to having an unconditional love.
From the very start of the book a relationship is portrayed between siblings. There is a love like none ever known unless you have a sibling. Shelley writes of this love as if she completely understands the importance of having this relationship. One of the characters writes to his sister, “I love you very tenderly. Remember me with affection, should you never hear from me again” (Shelley 12). This makes me wonder if Shelley was expressing a relationship with a close friend or sibling. The love exudes through the words that are written. Shelley knew what kind of love she was talking about- a love that can only come from the heart and is so pure. In reading her descriptions I know she has expressed this kind of love or maybe she wishes she could have, but was not fast enough. I saw in reading Ellen Moers analysis that there could have been more meaning behind the sibling relationship. “Mary’s half-sister, committed suicide…” (Moers 221). We see here, that there is a relationship that has really stirred up feelings whether hurt, anger, or pure sorrow.
Shelley also portrays a relationship between the main character, Victor, and his mother. The character is nurturing, loving, and affectionate, just as you would depict the perfect mother. Death takes her away from the natural world and it is very upsetting for the family. Through death her depiction stays true, “She died calmly; and her countenance expressed affection even in death”(Shelley 25). Shelley surely must have felt a loss in her heart- one only a mother and child could experience. She has really felt the lonesome pain of death. In Ellen Moers analysis she found a journal entry that simply said ‘“Find my baby dead. A miserable day”’(Moers 221). A love and connection between mother and child is unexplainable. The author is showing the relationship, and that this maybe one of the strongest relationships anyone could ever have. The
very bond of having a small baby developing and growing inside of you is one no one else will ever experience with your child. There is a strong tie that makes this relationship mean so much more. Shelley is building up the story and her meaning by laying out the foundation of the various relationships throughout the book.
Victor is so absorbed in his relationships. Shelley paints a picture of a man that truly values the good relationships in his life. Elizabeth is a friend from childhood that becomes so much more to him than a friend. He loves her with a love close to how he loved his mother, but nothing could ever be quite the same. Through Shelley’s writing you can see that at any moment you many encounter a completely new relationship with someone. Whether you may have known someone from the past or if you have met someone for the first time, a relationship develops from acquaintance, to friend, and even further if desired. Victor’s friend Henry and him, have a different kind of a relationship. It is not just a friendship but more of a brotherly relationship. They are overjoyed to see each other but Henry is also concerned for Victor, showing him true, relentless love. The dynamic between the two of them would depict a siblings love just as the man writing letters to his sister at the beginning of the book. “She provides an unusual thickening of the background of the tale with familial fact and fantasy…” (Moers 224).
Shelley writes of the main character creating life. In her own life she ends up having children although most of them die. There is so much sorrow and it is portrayed through her writings. As she writes of this monster that is created, Victor brings him to life, but all of a sudden sees reality and becomes frightened. I wonder if this is how Shelley felt when she was pregnant. Her body amazingly created life. Just like most mothers, she may have been overwhelmed at first with thoughts of confusion. With the death of her babies soon after, did this frighten her more? She lost all but one of her children. Did she feel that there was an underlying cause of the death of her babies? When you are pregnant, from the very moment of implantation, a relationship is started. Were the events of her pregnancies and the death of many of her babies causing these feelings about life and death to become so distorted? “Death and birth were thus as hideously mixed in the life of Mary Shelley as in Frankenstein’s ‘“workshop of filthy creation”’ (Moers 221).
Death begins to plague the main character. His brother was brutally murdered and Victor fears that it could have been the monster he created that killed him. Victor blames himself for what has happened. Was Shelley blaming herself for the death of her babies? Is there something more she could have done? The pain she was going through probably brought up many questions. All this comes back to her book being about relationships and one in particular, parent-child relationships. “But more than mundane is Mary Shelley’s concern with the emotions surrounding the parent-child and child-parent relationships”(Moers 224). Victor was somewhat a parent and even the mother in some aspects. He had created this creature just as a mother’s body creates a baby. From every skin cell to every hair, Victor, felt and saw the
progress of growth and completion in his creation. Victor then abandons this creature, just as many children are handled. He later feels the responsibility of the deaths around him because of this.
Justine is put to death for the murder of Victors brother- though thought innocent. Victor now feels the pain from his brother’s and Justine (a close family friend’s) death. He even contemplates suicide. Shelley must have been at her end here. Was she so lost, that taking her own life would make things better? Shelley wrote this book as an outing, expressing her thoughts and feelings in a fictional way.
Shelley tells of Victor meeting his creation. The monster shares of how unwelcome he is in society. The life that Shelley lived was a hard one and she knew what it felt like to be different. Shelley’s father insisted that she follow her father’s liberal theories. She was expected to achieve more. She would have to feel the pressure to fit in. Shelley’s feelings were completely open as she was writing about the monster and his desire for someone to love him for who he is. She was striving to have a relationship with anyone who would accept her. She must have felt that she was constantly being measured up but never loved. Why couldn’t her father just enjoy who she is as an individual instead of expecting more from her? When she got pregnant, with a married man’s child, you can only imagine how the rest of the world looked at her. Judgmental eyes probably made the way through the couple’s seemingly unbreakable love.
The monster begins to realize how different he is than anyone else. He cannot speak the language, he looks unpleasing to the eyes, and he has no companionship. Shelley seemed to be speaking about yet again relationships. Perhaps she was so lonely and the effects of her tragic life, she began to see how empty she was. Mary lost her mom when she was only days old. Her father, though she loved him very much, had high standards for her and she really did not care for her step mother. Shelley lost her step-sister through suicide as well. She married a man she loved but her father disapproved. They had four children and out of the four only one survived. If anyone had a life like this they would have a hard time coping. Shelley cherished the relationships she had. She desired only to be accepted and love.
In a conversation that Frankenstein’s creature has with him, he asks Victor to make him a mate that he can share life with. Shelley sees the importance of companionship and how relationships impact our lives. With the sorrow that she has had in her life she sees how a mate would be great to have around. A spouse is someone you share everything with. Your dreams, your passions, your hardships a spouse is someone who hears it all. How could you live without a person to be able to confide in. There is an emptiness inside, and through the characters she expresses this. A longing for a mate and children may seem like it would fill the emptiness, but will it?
Victor’s precious Elizabeth is his joy. Through everything, even the sorrow, he keeps his heart focused on Elizabeth and the hope that they will marry. There is nothing more he wants in life than to be with his love. Shelley shows yet again that in love the emptiness disappears. She speaks as if this love is pure and true. The day of their wedding, after they settle in for the night, Victor finds his beautiful bride dead. The pain Shelley portrayed in this part of the book was surreal. She must have felt the sting of death in her own life to be able to convey this in such a way. Come to find out, only a few years after the book, Mary Shelley herself lost her husband. How would she cope with this? A loss so personal as a spouse would be hard to deal with and in her book she shows the grief Victor went through.
Victor’s precious friend Henry is found dead and Victor is accused of the murder. Through all the things that happened in Shelley’s life, we know that she struggled with pressure to do the best and achieve the best she could. Did she feel somewhat responsible for the people around her. She lost many family members in physical death, but maybe she also experienced friends and family in an emotional death or depression. Was Shelley herself suffering from depression?
The book Frankenstein somewhat reminds me of the book of Job in the Bible. Victors’ life is a picture of Job. Job lost everything he had. He lost his livestock, money, and even his family. There is only one thing Job had and that was God. Job stayed strong and continued to serve God, even through his trials. Victor lost many relationships and that was his everything. Instead of lying in a corner to die, he lived out his days so that he could get revenge- staying strong until the end. Shelley had a hard life. She lost many things including her babies, finances, and relationships. The loved ones in her family that she cared so much about were gone.
Frankenstein was written and published, but that didn’t mean anything. The passion that Shelley had for writing meant so much more. Sitting down and brainstorming was her idea of a wonderful time. With the trips she took and the life she lived, there was so much that she had to express through her writing. The pen and paper were her sanctuary. Shelley didn’t need a vacation, only a pen and paper. The evenings were spent under candle light. Mary expresses through her book the relationships she had and some that she wished she had. She felt the sting of pain, death, and depression, but shared these feelings by putting them in her book. Shelley died at the young age of fifty-three. The doctors assumed the cause of death was a brain tumor. Her son must have been proud of her achievements.
Shelley lived out her life. She married a man she truly loved, had a wonderful son who she cared for until death, and discovered with him in their travels. Mary lived to be able to see her son get married to a wonderful woman whom she highly approved of. The life she lived was as expected, filled with joy, love, and sorrow; and overall- relationships. “On the first anniversary of Mary Shelley's death, the Shelleys opened her box-desk. Inside they found locks of her dead children's hair, a notebook she had shared with Percy Bysshe Shelley, and a copy of his poem Adonaïs with one page folded round a silk parcel containing some of his ashes and the remains of his heart.” (Wikipedia.org) Works Cited-
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein, The 1818 Text, Contexts, Nineteenth-century Responses, Modern Criticism. First. New York: W W Norton & Co Inc, 1996. Print.
"Mary Shelley." wikipedia.org. Wikipedia, 09 Oct 2011. Web. 14 Oct 2011. .
