by Mary Shelley
"But soon," he cried with sad and solemn enthusiasm, "I shall die, and what I now feel be no longer felt. Soon these burning miseries will be extinct. I shall ascend my funeral pile triumphantly and exult in the agony of the torturing flames. The light of that conflagration will fade away; my ashes will be swept into the sea by the winds. My spirit will sleep in peace, or if it thinks, it will not surely think thus. Farewell."
He sprang from the cabin window as he said this, upon the ice raft which lay close to the vessel. He was soon borne away by the waves and lost in darkness and distance.
Afterword
What is there at the center of Frankenstein that continues to attract and fascinate readers and viewers over the years and in many different cultures?
Certainly timing had something to do with its initial success. Frankenstein appeared at the height of the Industrial Revolution and in the midst of the Romantic movement--Mary's husband was one of its greatest figures. For the most part, the Romantics distrusted science for its materialism, its emphasis on rationality, its attempts to control nature and bend it to man's will, and its potentially deadening effect on the human spirit. That science would probe into forbidden areas and unleash forces it couldn't control was a foregone conclusion. Frankenstein's creature became the symbol of that fear.
But Frankenstein is more than a tag-line for scientific overreaching. Victor Frankenstein and his creature are deeply rooted, complicated, ambiguous cultural symbols.
The first chapters of Frankenstein stress Victor's idyllic domestic situation--material security, loving parents, devoted best friend, and childhood sweetheart. But even prior to Ingerstoldt, Victor's vulnerability to obsession is suggested. His taste in reading--Cornelius Agrippa, Paracelsus, Albertus Magnus--is suspicious. When he gets to Ingerstoldt, he accepts his professors' verdict that the ideas of such alchemists were "useless" and "exploded," but he misses the grandeur of their thought and aspirations. Clearly, what Victor wants to do is harness the science of his day to the great vision of these mystical predecessors. As Victor becomes increasingly obsessed with his project, he turns his back on home, family, and even on nature itself. And, once he has succeeded, he turns his back on his creation.
One medieval scientist/magician who is not mentioned, but looms in the background, is Faust--the man who sold (or "bet," depending on the version) his soul to the devil in return for forbidden knowledge. In the modern world the Devil may be out of sight or completely internalized, but the scientist as modern Faust has become a common perception. Victor Frankenstein occupies the place in the mythology of modern man that Faust held in the pre-modern world. He is a Faust who sells his soul for forbidden knowledge and then refuses to take moral responsibility for the consequences.
But the center of the myth is the creature. Regardless of the genre or version, it is he that we most vividly remember. A fascination with the "living dead" has, of course, always been the basic staple of horror fiction, but Frankenstein's creature has the distinction of being a technological creation, of having been given life not by magical incantation, but by scientific experiment. Thus, the line between life and death is stretched exceedingly thin.
And most poignant of all, the creature comes to understand his own nature and situation. He is an adult "inhuman being." Rejected in horror by his maker, he finds no meaning, direction, or even acknowledgment of his existence. Yet, as he discovers what man is, he desperately wants to identify with him, communicate with him, become a part of his society. His story is that of someone who desperately seeks a family--or at least a mate--and, when that is emphatically denied him, turns his passion into violence. Thus, accepting Godwin's view that man is innately good, but can be turned to evil by a narrow, perverse, immoral society, Mary Shelley demonstrates this thesis with the creature. Initially a kind of "noble savage," the creature has his need to belong perverted into a violent rage against all of these who reject him. The creature's motive is simple: to reduce his creator to the same state of isolation that he must endure.
The central irony of the novels and films is that, even though the creature is inhuman, it is his situation with which we most strongly identify. Frankenstein presents us with one of the most powerful images of human alienation in the language. Whether it be the intelligent, articulate creature of the novel telling his poignant story or Boris Karloff's mute giant, that sense of total, frustrated isolation dominates all versions of Mary Shelley's vision. Aristotle identified the "tragic emotions" as pity and fear. While Frankenstein might not have been exactly the sort of work he had in mind, these are the two emotions that explain the powerful hold Frankenstein's creature has on us.
But what about that common "mistake" of calling the creature by the name of his creator? What, beyond disillusioned creator and disgruntled creature, is their relationship? Father-Son? God-Man? God-Satan?
Frankenstein animates the creature as an extension of himself and is then horrified by the product of his efforts. He tries to turn his back, but the creature won't let him.
Once he has brought his creature to life, Victor more or less collapses. He just drifts through life, letting others make decisions for him. He not only deserts the creature, he deserts Justine, letting her die for a crime he blames himself for; he abandons his attempt to make a promised "bride" for the creature; and he abandons his wife on their wedding night, leaving her to the creature. It is as though, once made, the creature has drained all of Victor's energy and power into himself, leaving his maker a shell.
As long as Frankenstein ignores or runs from the creature, he is weak and impotent, but once he turns and becomes the aggressor, his strength, energy, and purpose return. In other words, only when the protagonist seeks to confront his double, or when the split person seeks to re-unite, can the novel move to its inevitable conclusion.
--Keith Neilson
Notes
1 Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner."
2 The moon.
3 Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey."
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.
FRANKENSTEIN; OR, THE MODERN PROMETHEUS
All new material in this edition copyright (c) 1988 by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.
Cover art by Boris Vallejo
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
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eISBN 9781466804807
First eBook Edition : December 2011
EAN 978-0-812-55150-1
First Tor edition: July 1989