It's alive...It's ALIVE!

I have my exam on the gothic genre next week. Our task is this: to analyse an unseen passage from a gothic text; and then to compare and contrast any two gothic novels in answer to a question. One of which must be Frankenstein (or the Dead School, which I enjoyed but wouldn't want to write on).

That means I get to choose me own for the other. I haven't settled for sure yet. In our mock exam, I still hadn't chosen (and therefore, revised) a book; but I know The Picture of Dorian Gray backwards, and the question ("society creates its own monsters") was irresistable.

Anyway, this is the fruit of my revision this morning. I've skimmed through the first 16 chapters, and it got me athinking...


Frankenstein, or rather Mary Shelley, has a particular compass of vice and virtue. There are repeated scenes of nursing - the highest human virtue seems to be the ability to deny your own needs and emotions for the supply of fellow creatures.

Agatha and Felix go hungry to feed their father. Elizabeth remains cheery after the death of their mother for the sake of cheering them. Justine nursed mother Frankenstein. Mother Frankenstein, Catherine Beaufort, cheerily denied herself for the sake of her ailing father. Clerval nurses our hero when he discovers him ill.

At the opposite end of this scale, the ultimate misery is loneliness. Walton's chief desire on the way to the arctic is to have a buddy; so is the Monster's, and he becomes evil through his lack of friends. Victor is revived by the help of Clerval - there are many more examples within the book I've forgotten.

I sympathise greatly with Frankenstein, despite my teacher's attempt to portray the creature as the hero, just as last year we were supposed to view Dracula as the good guy. I disagree with both - Dracula of the books is certainly a complete villain. The Creature is slightly more sympathetic at times, but standing up and saying "I only became evil because I had a bad childhood" doesn't count. If you can recognise that so clearly, you are certainly rational enough to take responsibility for your own behavior. When the Creature says "if you comply with my demands, I'll go away and be happy; otherwise I'll destroy your life" these are actually Mary Shelley's thoughts. Because otherwise it's not an emotional response - its a calculated threat. It's sad if you are so unhappy you kill someone. A tragic crime of passion. A red ball. But if the day before you say "if I become unhappy, I will kill someone", you're an stone cold psycho. See my drift?

But I digress. I like Frankenstein, but if you judge him by this moral compass, I'm not sure you're meant to...

After the death of little William, Alphonse Frankenstein recalls his son from Ingolstadt for the sake of consoling them - but it doesn't work, he merely sinks neck-deep in misery, and claims he is more wretched than the about-to-be-killed Justine. I quote: "The poor victim, who was on the morrow to pass the awful boundary between life and death, felt not, as I did, such deep and bitter agony... The tortures of the accused did not equal mine; she was sustained by innocence, but the fangs of remorse tore my bosom and would not forego their hold". Similarly, his descent into the creation of the monster is marked by his cutting himself off from family without communication. He shows absolute uselessness in both valuable qualities, of consoling and helping his loved ones, and being a good sociable person. So maybe he is intended to be a villain after all?


The role of an English teacher is to stimulate thought on books, and my two are really quite excellent. Doesn't change the fact they're often wrong - just playing devil's advocate to make us consider things.

But again, in the case of Elizabeth, I find myself agreeing with their typically ludicrous interpretation. There is something just downright creepy about her. To start with, Frankenstein is a book about a creature which is ugly but good. But our heroine's goodness seems linked with her beauty - just look at the radiant imagery surrounding her. So is Shelley saying goodness is or isn't shown by external appearance?

It's worse than the Picture of Dorian Gray - Basil says you can judge people by appearances, but we know that's not true because the flawless Dorian is completely rotten inside. However, every time he sins the picture does become uglier, suggesting the exact opposite - that as people become spiritually ugly, they also become physically ugly. And this is why I'm not going to choose The Picture of Dorian Gray as the other gothic novel for my exam on Wednesday -because it is far too good, far too paradoxical, and unlike Frankenstein, I'm not willing to smash out some bull about the whole thing being a metaphor for syphillis. Or whatever.

Item 2 - nature vs. nurture. Elizabeth is gorgeous, and one of five children, the other four being
"dark eyed, hardy little vagrants". We then discover that the others are all the children of peasantfolk, while Elizabeth is actually the adopted daughter of a nobleman. Her beauty marks her out as noble - i.e. nature shapes who we are. She was born of fine parents, and she grows up to be a fine woman. You'll notice there are very few peasants in Frankenstein - Agatha and Felix were noblefolk who came to poverty through a noble deed and endure with a wonderful spirit. So also is Catherine Beaufort, Frankenstein's Mother, discovered in poverty after having been cast down from nobility. Again, enduring with patience and nobility. But the creature's goodness and evil are both the result of nurture. He is born a blank slate - the kindess of the De Lacey's, the cruelty of M. Frank and the rest of the world all combine to motivate his actions. Mary Shelley's unfortunate nobles continue to behave nobly in whatever state, suggesting nature will triumph over all adversity; but not so with the monster. Conflicting messages?

And that's even before you get onto the twisted family stuff. Elizabeth and Victor grow up together as brother and sister, but calling each other cousin. Just as Mother Frankenstein dies she both expresses the desire for their "union", and charges Elizabeth to be a mother to the remaining children. Um, disturbing much? Elizabeth refers to Victor's brothers as she would her own children, despite the fact they later marry. And then after fleeing the creature, he has a dream when he kisses Elizabeth who then turns into his mother's rotting corpse. I'm the worlds biggest hater of the oedepal answer - Freud was a nut as far as I'm concerned (or am I just in denial...?), at least in terms of fiction - but I think you've got a case here.

(Incidentally, I believe it was in Cold Fusion - Doctor Who fiction, don't stop listening - they had a psychologist robot called a "Freudroid". Genius!)

My teacher does place a lot more stock on the idea of Frankenstein "penetrating nature" and assailing its citadels to create life, while he could, how shall we put this, be at home with Elizabeth as his wife and creating life in a much more conventional manner. I think his reluctance to marry and seeming lack of care is just tied in with the selfishness above - he gushes with respect for everyone in this story, but doesn't have time for any of them.

Another idea which she suggested which I do like is Victor as a reaction to her husband, the genius, and the sacrifices which end up getting made to great men. He did drag her around Europe while pregnant. Without getting too creepy, Victor was also P. Shelley's pen name, and he had a sister called Elizabeth.

Although I'm not convinced of the suggestion that the creature doesn't exist, and Victor comitted the murders. You've got to work hard to read that one. Mind you, I'm convinced the oedepal reading of Hamlet is entirely unsubstantiated by the text, and supported by theatrical tradition alone - and look how prevalant that interpretation is!


Maybe I'm so willing to dissect because I don't like the book. I'm dead fond of Dracula; and so while I dashed off a passable essay about the fear of vampirism representing the Victorian fear of female sexual expression, I do still think it's total bollocks. Bram Stoker was writing about vampires. If you enjoy the book more fizzed up with an interpretation, be my guest. But I don't think it was written as a confession of closet homosexuality, a comment on British imperialism, Marxist tendancies or sexually transmitted diseases.

But I was willing to plunge into analysing Atonement, a book I didn;t like at first bat, and came to love it through taking it to pieces and seeing how it ticked. Maybe it is the same for Frankenstein?

And I do feel it is a flawed book. The story is solid, but strangely unsatisfying.

I absolutely hate the C18-19th century insistance on using framing devices to make their stories "real". Wuthering Heights has the useless Lockwood hearing the story, Dracula has the internal fiction of the story constructed from various papers preserved. The Castle of Otranto comes with an explanation claiming it has been translated from ancient Italian. It's daft. It's as if they justify the writing of fiction by treating it as fact. Now I always treat my fiction as real - if you don't believe it, then it can't effect you. It's stupid to shed tears for people who never existed. This is why I was so peeved off at Atonement for shattering its own internal realitu. One of my chief excuses for not converting to any religion is yes, of course I believe the Gospels, and the Old Testament, and the teachings of Mohammed too. And I also believe in Harry Potter, Winnie the Pooh and the Happy Prince. In the past, religious teachings were dressed up in stories to make them accessable for the commonfolk - Jesus' parables are all about farming. But I can't let it work on me, because I believe everything told as a story.

My gosh, where was I? Very, very distracted. Ah yes - the irritating early-lit habit of pretending to be real. I suppose you could call "thematic" on Frankenstein - Victor tells Robert his story, the Creature tells his to Victor, and throughout exposition for minor characters come by way of "let me tell you about so and so..." - but all the while, Frankenstein itself was created as a story to tell Polidori, Percy and Byron in that Genevese villa. But somehow I don't think she was trying to be that smart.

So we have Robert Walton, concieved as a device for making the fantastic story real. I hate him already. And then there's Victor. I do have more sympathy for him than the Creature. But I still don't care about him - which is bizarre, considering I fall for guilt-stricken heroes like lead in water. Elizabeth is completely absent - a plot cypher, no more. The Creature is just irritating. He's a walking warning, a moral on legs. Who's left? Clerval is sweet, but quite frankly the most interesting part is the relationship between Beaufort and Alphonse Frankenstein, which occupies a paragraph at the start of the first chapter. That would make a fantastic story.

I don't even like her style - at least in Atonement I could respect his skill as an author. The gushing kills me. Not a character passes without their voice being the sweetest, their sentiment the noblest, their appearance the loveliest, from minor character Waldman to the almost obscene level of praise Walton has for Victor - "He excites at once my admiratuion and my pity to an astonishing degree. How can I see so noble a creature destroyed by misery without feeling the most poignant grief? he is so gentle, yet so wise; his mind is cultivated, and when he speaks, although his words are culled with the choicest art, yet they flow with rapidity and unparallelled eloquence." And on, and on, and on. Get a room, boys.

Argue, if you like, that Tolkien does it too - Middle Earth is packed with greatests and gorgeouses - but he is writing about a realm of heroes. It's Homer with hobbits. What's Frankenstein's excuse? It's set in Europe!

I suppose it is a key feature of the gothic to employ too many adjectives. It was certainly my sister's main assessment of Edgar Allen Poe.


All in all, my judgement is Frankenstein is more important for what came after than as literature in its own right. Doctor Who's "Brain of Morbius" and Buffy's "Some Assembly Required" owe royalties to Ms Shelley, to name but two. Investigation reveals that X-files tried it too, in the episode "Post-Modern Prometheus" (damn cool title - "A Modern Prometheus" is Frankenstein's sub-title. At least someone did their homework)

Boris Karloff! Young Frankenstein! Frank-n-Furter resurrecting Rocky, the perfect man, in Rocky Horror Picture Show. Lurch from the Addams Family. Herman Munster. A D&D adventure my dad wrote a few years ago. " Certainly the popular image of Frankenstein - bolts and all - is a product of the movies, not the novel. Today's post title, "It's alive!", was chosen precicely because it ISN'T in the book (but see Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith for Darth Vader's rebirth...). Less said about Van Helsing the better.

If you look instead for influence than cheap rip offs, what about Blade Runner? Or 2001: A Space Odyssey? Man creating something he cannot control; man creating a monster; man becoming a monster through his interferance with science - these are the three basic tenets of science fiction! I, Robot, man screws up. Battlestar Galactica. The robots of The Matrix. The Island of Doctor Moreau. Not for nothing do some people call Frankenstein the original science fiction novel.

And in listing those shows, those movies, those books, what a large list of things I'd rather be watching or listening to...

At least the other gothic novel I've picked out to study is one I adore. But more on that later...



(and I found Middlesex! I'm about half way through, more on that later too...)