Frankenstein's Vow of Revenge

I love this scene as Victor kneels before the Frankenstein family tomb mourning his dead family, the victims of his creature as they lie in eternal rest, and he swears to avenge their deaths:

By the sacred earth on which I kneel, by the shades that wander near me, by the deep and eternal grief that I feel, I swear; and by thee, O Night, and the spirits that preside over thee, to pursue the demon who caused this misery, until he or I shall perish in mortal conflict. For this purpose I will preserve my life; to execute this dear revenge will I again behold the sun and tread the green herbage of earth, which otherwise should vanish from my eyes forever. And I call on you spirits of the dead, and on you, wandering ministers of vengeance, to aid and conduct me in my work. Let the cursed and hellish monster drink deep of agony; let him feel the despair that now torments me. (Mary Shelley)

He feels powerful as he summons spirits of the dead and ministers of vengeance as he kneels at dusk in a graveyard feeling the presence of the dead around him. He's like a warlock or a sorcerer conjuring an army of spirits to help him in his quest. The imagery in this scene and Shelley's prose makes this my favorite scene in the novel.

Shelley gives Victor some real and rare passion here. He has a purpose and a reason to live like during the time that he was studying and creating his creature. Other than these two events, Victor's life is pretty much a depressing void where his greatest pleasure is found in solitary pursuits hiking and rowing and enjoying nature. He's happiest when he's escaped society and his family. Perhaps because these two episodes of Victor's life are the only times he truly feels alive with passion and a sense of purpose, it explains why he didn't attempt to pursue and destroy his monster after the initial murder of William and the subsequent execution of Justine, falsely convicted of William's murder. Then he allows his best friend to be murdered, then his bride. Maybe deep down he wanted the creature to do his evil deeds for him and rid himself of the society that constricted his life with the restrictions that caused him, by duty to his beloved father, to remain in his empty depressing existence with his family.

Frankenstein: Victor Finally Feels the Need to Take Action

After his little brother William, his best friend Henry Clerval, his beloved wife Elizabeth are murdered by the creature he created, his family friend Justine is falsely convicted and executed for the murder of his brother and his father dies from grief, Victor Frankenstein finally feels the need to take action to stop the murdering creature that he created:

As the memory of past misfortunes pressed upon me, I began to reflect on their cause--the monster who I had created, the miserable demon whom I had sent abroad into the world for my destruction. I was possessed by a maddening rage when I thought of him, and desired and ardently prayed that I might have him within my grasp to wreak a great and signal revenge on his cursed head. (Mary Shelley)

As he once was obsessed with creating life, Victor is now finally obsessed with hunting down and killing the creature he brought to life then abandoned and stood by in helpless agony and remorse as the creature destroyed his family. Don't you think he should have come to this decision as soon as he killed William? It would have made the whole story more suspenseful and exciting if he began the hunt right after William's murder as he fails to intercept him before each murder. How dumb was he to assume the creature's threat regarding his wedding night only endangered himself and not Elizabeth. Were all affluent 18th century men that wimpy and self-involved?

Frankenstein: The Power to Create and Destroy

Why didn't Frankenstein just kill his creature after it killed his little brother William and framed Justine for the murder? For that matter, why didn't he just kill it after he first brought it to life and realized that he had made a horrible mistake? Well, for one thing, Mary Shelley wouldn't have had much of a story there. It would have been pretty short. Instead, Frankenstein's feelings toward the creature became even more hateful and then, to save the rest of his family, he felt he had to submit to the creature's request to create for him a partner.

Frankenstein did suffer some mental anguish in his decision to grant the creature's request, but pretty quickly decided to go ahead and take the risk that he might be creating another raging superhuman killer instead of a loving companion that would subdue the creature's violent quest for revenge. When a parent gives birth to an unwanted child do they have another child to keep the first one occupied and distracted so they can have their own carefree life back like Frankenstein wanted? Pretty silly if they think that's going to work!

In fact, some parents, for whatever desperate reasons try to dispose of an unwanted child soon after the birth. Take, for example, the scandalous case of Amy Grossberg and Brian Peterson in the 90s who concealed Amy's pregnancy, then delivered the baby in a hotel room and tossed its dead body in a dumpster and tried to go on with their lives as though nothing had happened. Comedian Bill Cosby tells a  humorous story of his father warning him that he brought him into the world and he can take him out too and just make another one who looks just like him. 

Human beings have the power to create life and to destroy it as well. There are legal consequences and moral responsibilities set by societies and governments regarding both. But Frankenstein created his creature in secret, so why doesn't he just take the creature out in secret? It seems as though he has the power to create life but doesn't have the power to kill what he has created.

Frankenstein and Romeo Void's "Never Say Never"

Old couple walks by, as ugly as sin
But he’s got her and she’s got him

Never say never (Romeo Void)

I thought of Frankenstein's creature while I was listening to this song recently. I had just read the chapter where the creature convinces Frankenstein to make him a female companion and he'll give up his violent quest for revenge against Frankenstein's bitter abandonment of his creation. The creature believes that a companion of his same species will provide him the comfort and sense of belonging he needs to stop taking out his lonely rage on humans, particularly Frankenstein's loved ones. 

What neither one considers is the possibility of the new creature accepting the original as one of her own and a partner in life. On the other hand, when I was listening to Romeo Void's "Never Say Never," I was reminded that very often couples do seem to share some of the same general physical characteristics. Although he didn't need it, the creature could have used this song as a selling point in his pitch to Frankenstein!

However, all Frankenstein considered was creating a partnership of over-sized, exceedingly strong, vengeful murderers roaming Europe killing humans, especially his family. 

Frankenstein : Anger and Alienation

I love the part of Mary Shelley's novel, Frankenstein, where Walton writes his sister reciting Frankenstein's retelling of his creature's life story. This is the same type of second or third account storytelling used in Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights where the story is written by Heathcliff's tenant, Mr. Lockwood who, halfway through the book announces that he's going to continue the story using his own words to retell Nellie, the housekeeper's, version of the family history.  In both works of fiction, we're obviously reading what the novelists want us to read; however, in real life, how much of such a retelling would you take as literal truth? It's like listening to rumors at work or at school, where the story might become embellished or parts omitted with each telling. 

Anyway, Shelley does an impeccable job of portraying the pain of rejection, physical and emotional, by the only people the creature loves and also the resulting pain of loneliness and isolation when she describes the creature's failure to become accepted by his beloved De Lacey family.

"I continued for the remainder of the day in my hovel in a state of utter and stupid despair. My protectors had departed and had broken the only link that held me to the world. For the first time the feelings of revenge and  hatred filled my bosom, and I did not strive to control them, but allowing myself to be borne away by the stream, I bent my mind towards injury and death. When I thought of my friends, of the mild voice of De Lacey, the gentle eyes of Agatha, and the exquisite beauty of the Arabian, these thoughts vanished and a gush of tears somewhat soothed me. But again when I reflected that they had spurned and deserted me, anger returned, a rage of anger, and unable to injure anything human, I turned my fury towards inanimate objects." Mary Shelley

The De Laceys didn't know who he was or that he even existed until they saw him clutching the legs of their invalid and blind father. After observing the family from behind a wall in their house, the creature's desperate loneliness and need for human empathy and interaction brought him in the habit of thinking of these people as his own family with hopes of joining them and living happily ever after. It goes to show how people need to belong to achieve a personal sense of identity, whether it's daily interaction with the group or from a distance, to be accepted as a member. 

When the creature felt rejected by those he hoped to join and already had an emotional attachment to, although only in his mind, he was overwhelmed with anger and felt the pain of his alienation from the world more sharply than ever. Since the creature's hope of belonging to the human race was destroyed, he sought revenge on his creator and those who rejected him. He essentially became a terrorist.

Frankenstein: A Despicable Coward?

By Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (Google books) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

I think the first time I read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was in a 19th Century Lit class in college and I wasn't completely sure about Victor Frankenstein's character. Was Frankenstein terrified to take responsibility of his horrible act of recklessly creating life and then abandoning it or did he fear saving Justine's life by confessing and sacrificing his own in her place?

At the time I thought the latter was true, but now I'm thinking maybe both are true. Maybe he was just a big coward. He certainly didn't want to admit that he had created what turned out to be a hideous looking freak and didn't want his family and friend, Clerval, to know, but he wasn't about to risk looking like a madman by publicly confessing that he was indirectly guilty of murdering his brother in an attempt to save Justine's life either. 

"A thousand times rather would I have confessed myself guilty of the crime ascribed to Justine, but I was absent when it was committed, and such a declaration would have been considered as the ravings of a madman and would not have exculpated her who suffered through me."

Really? I'm pretty sure he could have at least tried. His innocent little brother was dead and now innocent Justine was going to be tried as his murderer. How could he just stand by and watch it all play out? Then Shelley goes on to describe his remorse and inner agony over the whole thing. It would be different if he didn't have a conscience, but he obviously does. How could anyone live with themselves after that? But he does only to have more horror and guilt piled onto his dark and damaged soul. For someone who at first looked upon himself as a god, he quickly became a low impotent creature.

Frankenstein: Success Becomes Failure

http://www.gratisography.com/

The ultimate control  is that over life and death, since those are the two things that we, as mere mortals, have absolutely no control over. There's no more helpless feeling as when you watch a loved one sicken and die. You stand there as they suffer and grow weaker and sicker day after day. As they grow closer to death your fear and helplessness increases until the inevitable time when you trade your helplessness for horror as they succumb to their illness and die.

Victor's mother's death was his first experience of loss, grief and mourning. He refers to the feeling as an "irreparable evil. The void that presents itself to the soul." When a loved one dies it does feel like a huge gaping hole has been torn from your chest leaving a huge painful void. Birth, on the other hand, feels like something warm and bright and hopeful is filling your chest.

Maybe Victor tried to fill the void in his soul with the bright warmth of new life when he obsessively built his creature. With the loss of his mother's love and adoration, perhaps he thought the creature would love and adore him for granting him life. Instead he learned many things, such as bringing a new life into the world doesn't guarantee that person will appreciate you and being able to control life and death wasn't the glorious achievement he had hoped it would be.

Frankenstein: Victor's Naive God Complex

Victor, still mourning the death of his dear mother, goes off alone to school and after a couple of years, discovers how to spark life into dead flesh. He becomes so obsessed with his gruesome project that he fails to consider all of the possible consequences.

In order to make his work easier and speed up production by not having to work with such tiny parts, he decides to enlarge the human frame of his project and make him 8 feet tall, acquiring all the body parts from "the dissecting room and slaughter house." Imagine the smell! After consciously deciding to create life in such an oversized, hideous creature, he expects the creature to not only be grateful for giving him life, but to worship him as its creator!

Poor demented Victor, so excited over creating something that would fulfill his deepest needs by bowing to his divine superiority and recognizing and being grateful for his devotion and success, that he never considers what his responsibility might be if the creature instead accuses him of  being more demon-like by cursing him with an unbearable and unwanted life.

Victor should have considered all of the possible consequences before pursuing his project. Instead he was in his own head where every though was only about Victor, Victor Victor.