Feeling rejected? Cheer up! Because nowhere in the English-speaking world, including your life and mine, is there a more pathetic and reviled creature than our Monster of the Week, one so unpalatably foul that he doesn’t even warrant a name. Ladies and gentlemen, I present for your horrified displeasure, Frankenstein’s Monster.
Before we continue, I’d like to point out that I’ve found the perfect application for AI image generation. Turns out six-fingered hands and melty eye sockets don’t matter as much when you’re trying to create a hideous, misshapen homunculus.
(If you’ve just joined us from Facebook or Instagram, welcome! Everything from here down is new).
The Creation of The Creature
Frankenstein’s monster (or simply “the Creature” as he is known in the text of the novel), is the invention of author Mary Shelley, who keeps company with other female Gothics such as the Bronte sisters (Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights) and Ann Radcliffe (The Mysteries of Udolpho), as well as more contemporary authors like Shirley Jackson (The Haunting of Hill House).
Sidenote: I’ve stumbled on a book called The Female Gothic, which appears to be the definitive text regarding female authors in the Gothic style. However, it must be out of print because every copy I’ve found costs upwards of $100. So…yeah, that’s one I won’t be adding to my shelves anytime soon.
As you may know, Frankenstein was born as the result of a contest posed by Lord Byron during a vacation in Switzerland. He challenged both Mary Shelley and her husband Percy to write a ghost story. The rest, as they say, is history. Mary’s contribution, born of a nightmare (or possibly a vision) was the seed that eventually sprouted into the book we know today.
By the way, how annoying is Lord Byron? They’re all on vacation and he’s giving them homework. I love writing scary stories and even I would have been like, seriously dude? If I wanted to work I would have just stayed in England. That being said, if I ever have the opportunity to host all my gothic writer friends in a Swiss chateau for the summer, you know I’m doing the same damn thing.
Frankenstein’s Monster Symbolism
The plot of Frankenstein is as well-known as it is universal. Man creates monster. Man, horrified by his creation’s ugliness, casts him out. Monster suffers more humiliation and cruelty due to his appearance. Monster becomes the violent, vengeful creature everyone expected him to be.
Has there ever been a clearer commentary on how shallow and cruel humanity can be? Or how our fear and vilification of the “other” inevitably leads to tragedy? Worse still, in the two hundred years since Frankenstein’s 1818 publication, it’s pathetic how little has changed. Evolution happens, but it’s slow as hell.
If we dig deeper into the concept of the Female Gothic, however, we start to see other themes. Now, since I am unable to read “The Book” on this (remember, $100 or more), I’m taking some swings based on what I have been able to learn so far.
Frankenstein and The Female Gothic
Contrary to what you might think (and certainly what I thought), “Female Gothic fiction” is not just Gothic fiction written by women. To explain what it really is, let’s do an old-fashioned English class terminology breakdown.
According to Wikipedia, gothic fiction is “a loose literary aesthetic of fear and haunting.” The article goes on to discuss specific characteristics of the genre, all of which I’m not going to list here. If you’re interested in this, you should go read the full entry–it’s fascinating and very thorough. The gist is that almost all Gothic fiction contains elements of the supernatural (usually bad supernatural–demons, poltergeists, etc) and an atmosphere of dread/impending ruin.
Now, add the concept of “the female” to that. What you get is a subgenre of Gothic fiction that uses supernatural elements to subtly outline the horrors of being a woman in a male-dominated society.
I know–swoon, right?
So, how does Frankenstein fit that classification?
Some argue that it doesn’t. However, since I think that’s blatantly incorrect, I’m not going to spend much time entertaining that argument. The most obvious point for that case is simply that there aren’t many significant female characters in Frankenstein. Only the the Good Doctor’s mother and she’s already dead when the story begins. Others have argued that that very exclusion/symbolic silencing of the female voice is what qualifies it as Female Gothic. Personally, I see a lot more reason to include it than that.
Smashcut to…
Frankenstein in a Biographical Context
- February 1815: After a difficult pregnancy, Mary Shelley gives birth to a daughter several weeks prematurely.
- March 1815: Daughter dies, after which Shelley is haunted by visions of her departed baby.
- January 1816: Shelley gives birth to William, her second son. Which means she must have gotten pregnant almost immediately after her daughter died.
- May 1816: After another nightmarish vision, Mary Shelley writes the short story that will later become the novel Frankenstein
Now, I’m no Victorian-era expert. However, given that there was a whole genre of fiction that had to use monsters and ghosts to veil the conversation about how horrible it was to be a woman, I think it’s safe to assume that there wasn’t a whole lot of knowledge or treatment for post-partum depression/psychosis or PTSD related to the loss of a child. What I do know is that writing can be a form of therapy, and is even prescribed by therapists today. As such, one could draw a fairly straight line between the loss of Shelley’s first child and the creation of Frankenstein’s monster.
Also, let’s not neglect the fact that, no matter what era you live in, parenting is an exercise in madness, frustration, and constant fear.
Yeah, it’s also full of wonder and joy and blah blah blah. But for the purposes of this article, we’re focusing on the nightmare half of it.
You have this new thing. One minute it isn’t there, and the next, it is. It’s a being that is of you, but it’s also completely alien. And sometimes…not always, but sometimes, like when they’ve thrown themselves on the floor in a screaming tantrum because you took their socks off before they were ready or some stupid thing…you even marvel at how you could have brought such a chaotic, monstrous creature into the world. And that’s all before they hit their teenage years–something that only one of Mary’s three children ever did, I’m sorry to say. Given her trauma and the era in which she lived, I don’t doubt that Mary Shelley felt this terror and anxiety as keenly as any parent can.
She also knew that simply telling the story of a woman haunted by her dead child would not play. At least, not the way the tale of a man haunted by the “child” he bore out of dead flesh would. And did, and still does to this day.
Happy Monday everyone! Give the patriarchy hell this week–if, for no other reason, than for Frankenstein’s monster.
Sources
- https://www.ipl.org/essay/Rejection-Of-The-Monster-In-Mary-Shelleys-FD25D18BDE0E6F69
- https://frankenstein2017blog.wordpress.com/2017/05/07/the-monsters-seven-rejections/
- https://www.bartleby.com/essay/Rejection-In-Frankenstein-F0796F1CE9A8B197
- https://blogs.cofc.edu/the-female-gothic/novels/frankenstein/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_fiction
- …and NOT The Female Gothic, because damn the man.
