Life's a Mother!

         

         After the death of Victor's own mother Caroline, the mourning he feels never really subdues and upon close analysis it can be noticed that he possibly transfers this lost love upon other characters in the Frankenstein.Could it be that Victor's plight and tragic death were ultimately due to his lack of a maternal figure? I think this is exactly what Shelley is trying to stress. Never, throughout the novel is there an emphasis on Victor’s parents in his actions yet this absence pouts emphasis on their role in his actions. It's really weird how each character in Shelley's narrative plays an entirely alternate familiar role to another character in the story. First, let’s explore some background on Frankenstein's mother before death. In Frankenstein, Victor's mother is rarely mentioned;however, she is made a relevant and significant character through her absence in the plot of the story. She could portray the emptiness and hollowness within Victor and could be one of the triggers to fill some void with careless, useless knowledge and a tragic desire to participate in creation. Whoa! I just had an Aha! moment right now!! Okay, so let me gather my thoughts. We see how quickly victor turns on the creature after it is brought to life. he despises the very site of the "fiendish" being he himself instilled life upon. Following, the monster's journey throughout the story, we see the human qualities surface and how despite an unnatural conception, the creature still yearns for the same type of nurture as human children do yet Victor refuses to draw parallels with his creature and act as this father figure. Now, here is where I begin to make my point. Back to the author, Mary Shelley was born to Mary Wollstonecraft, a feminist. As an advocate for women's right, Wollstonecraft wrote her most famous work A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Now, back to Shelley. The author had to be influenced by her mother’s views on feminism and women’s roles in society. Thus, throughout the story, Mary Shelley could be commenting/stressing the significance of women in society, the nurture process, and in a person’s being. So, this likely explains Victor’s lack of tenderness, empathy, compassion, and common sense really. For Christ’s sake, he creates a creature that eventually metaphorically kills him! Could all this be because Victor was not under the influence of a female, maternal figure? Shelley is saying that women are essential in the healthy being and thoughtful existence of man and even survival. Shelley might be stressing the imbalance of human beings without appropriate maternal interference and also the intrepid nature of male counterparts. Now that I have established my former point, I think Victor displaces/transfers this ill directed love and longing towards Elizabeth, his cousin-sister type person…who he marries…kind of(??). Elizabeth very much takes over the maternal role that Frankenstein lost from his mother’s death. However, later in the development of the novel, Elizabeth’s death can be interpreted as revenge because it was her illness that Caroline was struck by. To be continued…

The Misidentification of Frankenstein

         Before I read Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, I had always envisioned that almost archetypal in itself green, big-headed, ogre-like creature that walked around like a zombie, hands stuck out in front of him. Movie Directors and creators have not done a good job at venturing beyond this portrayal either. The only pictures of Frankenstein I have seen are of a big green monster with corks coming out the side of his head in tattered clothing. A Halloween has not gone by where someone assumes the stereotypical Frankenstein character. Even I always pictured the mad scientist bringing a giant green monster to life named

Frankenstein. However, once I actually read Frankenstein, I realized that not only was I mistaken of Frankenstein's identity, but also about millions of other people out there. In actuality, everyone's wrongly naming this nameless monster as Frankenstein. So, how did this grand identification go on for so long? Now, I cannot even fathom in the future someone calling themselves "Frankenstein" without me saying "Well, you know Frankenstein was actuality the creator of the monster that you call yourself". This myriad of wrong ideas about the Frankenstein story is probably a conglomeration of bad plays and movies. It is amazing too me that more people don't know who Frankenstein actually is. The classic fictional story is about as popular and overdone as Cinderella

           I used to think of Frankenstein as a brain dead, zombie like creature but I totally disagree now that I have finished the book. In a way, Frankenstein is almost more human than his creator in his sensitivities. He has an appreciation for nature and the living things around him despite the lack of parallel that can be drawn between the natural realm and the artificial that he has been brought up into. He desires the same consumption of knowledge as fulfillment as his creator Victor. This could be noticed especially when he watched from afar, the practices of the DeLacey family. He wishes to learn the language of humans adn mimic their behaviours. Furthermore, he recognizes that Victor is his creator and supposed to be a father figure like that you would find in traditional human family roles. When Victor doesn't fulfill this role at all, the monster is left degenerate with the same feeling of rejection as an orphan who is mature enough to realize that they have been given up by their parents. Especially, in a world that feels so much to not be his own, he just wishes for connection to someone or something.

             As much as people think they know Frankenstein, it has become one of the most commonly mistaken characters of all time. Nevertheless, I find it very very ironic that  throughout the progression of the novel, the creature finds himself without an identity and yet throughout pop culture the character has been given the erroneous identity of his hated creator. It almost further elaborates upon Shelley's emphasis on the duality of their characters and their essence of the same being.

Who was Mary Shelley?

        In my opinion, it is unexpected that a female would be the creative spirit behind a gruesome, tragic tale of man and monster. So, who was Mary Shelley and what inspired her to write Frankenstein? Born in the latter years of the eighteenth century, Shelley was raised  by her English father, a political philosopher, and mother, a feminist. By looking into Shelley's childhood, some of the essential themes in Frankenstein come to light such as the role of parenting in birth and creation. Shelley's mother died shortly after her birth. From this point, she was raised by her father. When Shelley was of the tender age of seventeen, she became involved with one of her father's companions Percy Bysshe Shelley. They traveled together throughout Europe and eventually married in the year 1816. Diverging upon another point, I think that Mary Shelley probably was influenced a lot by her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley , a prominent Romantic poet. He kept close company with other key writers like Lord Byron, Leigh Hunt, and Thomas Love Peacock. His work includes undertones of “joyous ecstasy” and “brooding despair”. His major themes included rebellion against authority, relationships with nature, and the power of imagination. These themes are also present in some way or form in Shelley’s writings. We see that Victor and the creature share a peaceful retreat in the form of the natural world that surrounds theme. Also, Victor’s partaking in t the creature can be interpreted as a rebellion against the laws of nature and of divine entities. Thus, we can see the at Mary Shelley’s head was in many places when creating Frankenstein. The influences she may have had in writing this gothic piece are as far and many as the very themes that persist throughout the novel.

        Back o Mary Shelley’s life, after several failed attempts to have children, Mary and Percy gave birth to their single and only living child in 1818. Only a few years later, Percy Shelley drowned during a tragic storm leaving Mary Shelley widowed. Her last years alive, Shelley suffered tremendously from a brain tumor that ultimately took her life at the age of 53. Mary Shelley's own life can almost be viewed as a tragedy just as her character Victor Frankenstein. Even throughout her writing process, Shelley was faced with the suicide of a half-sister and Harriet Shelley, Percy Shelley's wife. With so much hurt in her life, it is no wonder Shelley's  most famous work Frankenstein was of the Gothic genre.The insurmountable experiences of death may have influenced the isolation and alienation that their character's Victor and the monster feel throughout the novel. Also, Shelley often commented on the theme of birth and creation. Upon researching the author, it seems to me that this reoccurring theme may have been influenced with her own tumultuous struggle with conception and birth. It is apparent that Shelley's personal had deep influences on her work. Even the them of rebellion could be tied to Mary and Percy's scandalous relationship. I think more is to be discovered about the ties between Frankenstein and Shelley's own life.