Frankenstein and Philosophy

by Michaud, Nicolas

  I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous. (Frankenstein, Penguin, 1968, p. 264)

  Was Victor justified in ignoring this plea? The Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) would strongly disapprove. He would remind Victor that children as well as monsters are innately good. To preserve this goodness, parents (or creators) should shield their children from the harsh realities of our civilized world as long as possible.

  According to Rousseau, society negatively affects human character. If it’s true that civilization is, in fact, bad for us, then Rousseau’s philosophy of education offers not only an explanation of what went wrong with the monster, but also why.

  Something’s Rotten in the State of Culture

  Rousseau lived in the era of the Enlightenment, a time of political and social upheaval. This period is called the “Enlightenment” because of the scientific advancements which were made at that time: They literally enlightened people’s minds on life, the universe, and pretty much everything else.

  Victor Frankenstein shares the ensuing atmosphere when he boasts: “What can stop the determined heart and resolved will of man?” (p. 278). New insights in domains like math and physics (which, among other issues, also settled the question of whether the Earth or the Sun is the center of the universe) made people reconsider their status not only in the universe, but also in their respective societies. Ultimately, this led to a new understanding of society and political legitimacy: If the Sun doesn’t revolve around the Earth, as we’ve been told for centuries, who can tell whether kings really rule by the grace of God? In the same way, Victor’s professors at Ingolstadt point out that the achievements of the earlier scientists were hardly worth mentioning.

  To cut a long story short, the times they were a-changing. And Rousseau was right in the middle of things. His views were highly popular because they took in people’s notion that something was wrong with the current social system. Rousseau’s explanation is charmingly simple: People feel uneasy in society because it affects them negatively. Hence, the problem doesn’t lie with the people themselves, but with the society they live in.

  That’s the meaning of the opening lines of Émile, Rousseau’s novel on education: “Everything is good as it comes from the hands of the Author of Nature; but everything degenerates in the hands of man.” Instead of living according to his nature, man builds an unnatural and harmful system: “He overturns everything, disfigures everything; he will have nothing as Nature made it, not even man.”1 This idea is contrary to the view (ours as well as most of Rousseau’s contemporaries) that we need society to become good people and to follow certain rules of appropriate social behavior. According to Rousseau, it’s the other way round: Society doesn’t so much improve as ruin our moral character.

  Back to the Roots!

  Rousseau contrasts the simplicity of nature with modern society which is marked by class differences and rigid social protocols. These run counter to man’s disposition and force him to display an artificial behavior. In short, we have to disguise ourselves in civilized society. This point is illustrated by the monster’s encounters with the De Laceys: Felix, Safie, and the others have fled from France. In Rousseau’s time, France was the epitome of an old-fashioned society run cold, later called the ancien régime (“old order”). People had to play by the (not always discernable) rules of their society to avoid repression.

  In Rousseau’s view, the character and happiness of man are subverted in society. As soon as we encounter other people, we tend to compare ourselves with them. Gradually, we develop the urge to distinguish ourselves from them, to show how special we are. We become competitive and jealous. To show just how much better we are than all the others, we accumulate private property and invent special rules for language and behavior (‘Don’t do that; only vulgar people do that.’). In the long run, this distorts our view of humankind. We no longer see the person herself, but only what she has or does. From there, it’s only a small step to a class-ridden society of haves and have-nots.

  Man is his true self only in the “state of nature.” Rousseau’s ideal of man. The aim of Rousseau’s philosophy is to establish social harmony by aligning society as closely as possible to man’s original state of nature. The only persons who are as close as possible to this desirable condition are those who haven’t yet experienced civilization—in other words, children.

  Little Monsters

  Thanks to Rousseau, childhood is no longer considered a mere transitory state, but as an independent and valuable life stage in its own right. Rousseau’s achievement was to convey the view that children are not incomplete, unfinished adults. They’re simply different from grown-ups:

  Humanity has its place in the order of things, and infancy has its place in the order of human life. We must consider the man in the man, and the child in the child. (p. 46)

  This isn’t something which would be heralded as a milestone of pedagogical learning today, but it was quite revolutionary in an age where children as young as four were dressed in tiny versions of adult clothes (including handy crinolines for little girls). But Rousseau did not only advocate that people dress children more appropriately as regards their need for movement and physiology.

  Rousseau’s philosophy of education marks a turning-point because it’s in direct opposition to the then traditional lore of the Catholic Church, according to which children are born evil because they’re tainted by Original Sin. Therefore, it takes a severe education to turn children into decent and good grown-ups. This includes denying children any will of their own; rather, parents should aim at breaking their child’s will to make the child into a civilized person (an interesting way of dealing with the nag factor, when you come to think about it).

  Rousseau challenges this view outright when he claims that it’s not the children who are in conflict with civilization but the other way round: Culture is at odds with human character and hence corrupts people. We can trace Rousseau’s idea that children are innately good in the portrayals of Elizabeth Lavenza and William Frankenstein: The young Elizabeth is compared to an angel, and in a letter to Victor telling him of William’s murder, the now grown-up Elizabeth dotingly remembers William’s lovable and cheerful temper.

  Monstrosity Begins at Home

  How do we ensure that children preserve their good character as adults? And what could Victor have done to be spared the monster’s hatred? According to Rousseau, we need an education which is aligned with human nature. This means that parents shouldn’t try to ‘civilize’ children too early. Censoring children for their behavior subjects them too early to social (and according to Rousseau, false) ideas of how people ought to behave.

  Rather than killing a child’s impulses, parents should give in to them: They should pursue an education which encourages children to live their life fully by developing their senses and feelings. A child’s typical impulses, like its spontaneity or enthusiasm, shouldn’t be repressed for they are worth preserving: “Love childhood; encourage its sports, its pleasures, its amiable instincts.”

  Loving childhood is accomplished best if parents employ what Rousseau calls ‘negative education’. Children shouldn’t be taught or shown what they ought to do. Rather than forbidding certain actions, parents should simply prevent their children from doing anything harmful or wrong. It’s like hiding a pair of scissors instead of explaining to your child why it shouldn’t play with scissors.

  Victor’s own parents seemed to have followed this advice, for he recalls that he was “guided by a silken cord” and “received a lesson of patience, of charity, and of self-control” (Frankenstein, p. 292). This is Rousseau’s negative education in a nutshell, which “consists not at all in teaching virtue or truth, but in shielding the heart from vice, and the mind from error” (Émile, p. 59). This also implies that parents should disclose facts only gradually. Some things in our world are simply too depressing or cruel to be made known to children. To a cert
ain extent, they have to be protected from information. Rousseau’s views influence our thinking even today, as is shown by our practice of rating movies according to their age-appropriateness.

  Apart from outright instructions, parents should also refrain from exerting their authority. According to Rousseau, authority is not necessary to make a child obedient. All it takes is to make the child aware of its dependency on its parents: “Never command him to do anything whatever, not the least thing in the world. Never allow him even to imagine that you assume to have any authority over him. Let him know merely that he is weak and that you are strong.”

  This means that a child doesn’t learn by experiencing coercion or restraint, but through necessity. You can spare the rod without spoiling the child because you can make it “supple and docile through the mere force of things” (pp. 55–56). Similarly, the monster has been cruelly made aware of its dependency on Frankenstein. Contrary to Rousseau’s recommendations, it didn’t have a sheltered and gradual access to the world. Instead, it experienced too much and too soon. This is why the monster declares that the more it learned, the more depressed it became. Still, it is willing to obey Frankenstein on the condition that he fulfills his parental duties: “I am thy creature, and I will be even mild and docile to my natural lord and king if thou wilt also perform thy part” (p. 364).

  Half-Devil or Half-Child?

  The monster experiences a moral as well as a physiological evolution: It gradually acquires both language and knowledge. As for the monster’s moral development, its tale reveals that it used to have a positive, childlike attitude towards the world which has been cruelly disappointed: “I desired love and fellowship, and I was . . . spurned” (p. 495). Most importantly, it didn’t have a conception of ‘evil’.

  The monster explains that it couldn’t imagine why people would kill each other, or why we need things like government and laws. Compare this outlook to the attitude it displays after it has murdered William: “I gazed on my victim, and my heart swelled with exultation and hellish triumph” (p. 410). Rousseau points out that “all wickedness comes from weakness. A child is bad only because he is weak” (p. 31). Therefore, as weird as it may sound, the monster’s misdeeds may stem from its helplessness and incapacity. It resembles a furious child who tries to make adults do what it wants. The monster resorts to crime because it can’t force Frankenstein to take care of him or to create a companion for him: “I will revenge my injuries; if I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear, and chiefly towards you my archenemy . . . do I swear inextinguishable hatred” (p. 413).

  The monster both illustrates and shares Rousseau’s views, especially those on the corrupting influence of culture: It tries to befriend William Frankenstein and a blind man because it thinks them less judgmental than the persons it has hitherto met. Both attempts backfire and trigger its moral change. The monster would probably not have become evil if it hadn’t experienced rejection and cruelty throughout its life.

  Is Frankenstein a Family Guy?

  Rousseau would probably applaud Frankenstein’s understanding of the duties of parents: Victor recognizes that a child’s “future lot . . . was in their hands to direct to happiness or misery, according as they fulfilled their duties.” His own childhood seems to have been a happy one for he remembers that his parents had “a deep consciousness of what they owed towards the being to which they had given life” (p. 291). So it seems a bit surprising that he doesn’t act upon these ideals when it comes to his own monster. We could read this as a comment of Shelley on Victor’s scientific endeavors. She was in fact a huge admirer of Rousseau and might even be trying to show us that actions against nature will always revolt us, simply because they move us farther from nature. Hence, Victor’s failure in nurturing the monster is inseparable from how deep his project is invested in science, yet distant from nature.

  But even though Victor had to learn Rousseau’s lesson the hard way, he realizes the true meaning of his deed almost immediately, which is why his enthusiasm for his creation wanes so quickly: “I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart.” He’s not even able to bear the sight of the creature he had given life to (it’s a good thing people don’t act like this in the maternity ward!).

  Eventually, the monster reminds Victor that forsaking those who are most dependent upon us is no trifle: “Remember that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed.” Victor’s conduct is blameworthy because he and his monster are “bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of them.” Like Rousseau, the monster thinks that nothing is as binding and authorizing as familial obligations. If your own father refuses to assist and love you, what can you expect of those with whom you don’t share any family ties? Bearing Victor’s fate in mind, Rousseau’s account of the duty of a father reads like a dire warning:

  A father who merely feeds and clothes the children he has begotten fulfills but a third of his task. To the race, he owes men; to society, men of social dispositions; and to the state, citizens . . . . Reader, believe me when I predict that whoever . . . neglects such sacred duties will long shed bitter tears over his mistakes, and will never find consolation for it! (Émile, p. 16)

  Seen in this light, Frankenstein appears like a parent who isn’t ready (or willing) to undertake responsibility for his offspring and hence fails to fulfil his parental duty. Consequently, the monster fails to be a good and compassionate citizen because it commits murder.

  No Woman No Cry?

  Victor Frankenstein’s refusal to treat his offspring appropriately doesn’t stop here: He even refuses to build his monster a female companion. According to Rousseau, settling with a partner is a decisive developmental step which makes people fit to live in civil society. Man is not made for living alone. This view is mirrored in the monster’s request: “You must create a female for me with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being.”

  The monster senses that a fellow being is important for its social and emotional contentment because only “the love of another will destroy the cause of my crimes.” Frankenstein’s denial of this demand gives rise to the monster’s cruel revenge. Seen through the lens of Rousseau, the ensuing murders of Henry Clerval and Elizabeth Lavenza represent the monster’s refusal to display social dispositions. It is neither willing nor able to do so because it has no experience with human relationships: “If I have no ties and no affections, hatred and vice must be my portion” (Frankenstein, pp. 412–13).

  Corrupted by Culture—and Science

  Although Victor doesn’t seem to share Rousseau’s views on parental duties, he’s at least able to appreciate nature. While hiking through the Alps, he muses: “Why does man boast of sensibilities superior to those apparent in the brute; it only renders them more necessary beings” (p. 361). The idea is that cultural progress makes people vulnerable: our wants not only multiply, they also become more refined. This makes them increasingly difficult to satisfy (that’s why people spend so much time eyeing store windows). Ultimately, men will begin fighting to gain what they desire. Competition and greed are also the motives behind colonization, as the monster learns: “I heard of the discovery of the American hemisphere and wept with Safie over the hapless fate of its original inhabitants” (p. 385). Rousseau claims that man invents the concept of private property and social ranks simply to justify the reckless fulfillment of his wants and to prevent others from doing the same.2 The first step to humane society would be to recognize how little we actually need.

  According to Rousseau, our luck is influenced by the relation between our wishes and our abilities. The smaller the distance between them, the happier we are. But even though Victor shares Rousseau’s notion that man can only be happy if he contends himself with what is within his range, he is determined to pursue his scientific as
pirations. He boasts that he can achieve anything due to his determination and will. Surely, he succeeds, but the realization of his scientific aspiration is also the cause of his ruin. The only thing he can do is to warn Robert Walton of the risks which come with the thirst for knowledge: “Unhappy man! Do you share my madness? Have you drunk also of the intoxicating draught? Hear me; let me reveal my tale, and you will dash the cup from your lips!” (Frankenstein, p. 284).

  The case of Frankenstein demonstrates Rousseau’s point that cultural and scientific achievements come at a price. Surely, Frankenstein is able to fulfill his self-assigned task to make a dead thing come alive again, but this accomplishment has tremendous social and emotional costs: Speaking with Rousseau, Victor performs his paternal duties partially at best. He hereby commits a crime against society: William, Henry, and Elizabeth are murdered because Victor fails (or rather, doesn’t even try) to socialize the monster in a way which makes it a morally good person.

  Mad Schemes Are the Cause

  Rousseau’s philosophy represents an alternative to the strong, somewhat even exaggerated belief in science and progress typical of the Enlightenment. Victor’s professors in Ingolstadt share this belief, which sometimes borders on megalomania: Professor Waldmann declares that modern scientists “have indeed performed miracles” and deprived nature of its powers. Victor will recall that their words were “enounced to destroy me” because they gave rise to his ambition: “So much has been done, exclaimed the soul of Frankenstein—more, far more, will I achieve” (pp. 307–08). As Rousseau predicts, Victor craves for recognition as soon as he encounters other people, in his case: Fellow scientists desperate to outdo each other in their research.

  Victor’s aspiring attitude is in stark contrast to the notion he entertains while still in Switzerland with his parents, where he muses that although scientists have “partially unveiled the face of Nature, . . . her immortal lineaments were still a wonder and a mystery.” Then, Victor still thinks that modern science can solve some, but not all the mysteries of nature. His thoughts change while browsing through old-fashioned books by the earliest natural philosophers (well into the nineteenth century, the natural sciences as we know them today were clumped together as ‘natural philosophy’. Their separate branches of biology, chemistry, and physics were developed only later.).