MONSTROSITY AND THE MULTI-DIMENSIONAL OTHER IN MARY SHELLEY’S FRANKENSTEIN

Told in the technique of an epistolary tale, the story revolves around the woeful narrative of a young idealist Genevan student of ‘natural philosophy’ (science) at the University of Ingolstadt, who stumbles upon the secret of infusing life into matter, and creates a living thing out of an assemblage of bones from charnel houses, which ultimately leads to his ruin and subsequent death. The novel comes with an introduction where Mary Shelly avows that “Everything must have a beginning, to speak in Sanchean phrase. Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos; the materials must, in the first place, be afforded: it can give form to dark, shapeless substances but cannot bring into being the substance itself”. This foreword impels us to consider, in a somewhat distorted manner, the idea of the Creation myth. Victor Frankenstein’s ‘monster’ proclaims, “You are my creator but I am your master”, highlighting the paradox against the backdrop of the Romantic era, when science was, as portrayed in the novel, was somewhat unnatural, and considered an alienation from Nature-both within and without. Beginning with Robert Walton’s letters to his sister, which provides us an insight into his character as well, which precedes Conrad’s The Secret Sharer in his search for an “other” in “the company of a man who could sympathize with me, whose eyes would reply to mine”. The idea is essentially Romantic and Modern where the Self seems to be quantified by the sympathy and compassion of an Other. We see the same feeling reiterated in Frankenstein’s monster speech when he attempts to justify that “My vices are the children of a forced solitude that I abhor, and my virtues will necessarily arise when I live in communion with an equal”. Religion is momentous in Frankenstein. The narrative abounds in Biblical references as well as heathen allusions. Other than the conundrum of the Creator and the Created, it is imperative to note that not unlike the fallen angel Lucifer who rebels against God, the “monster” considers Frankenstein his “archenemy “for whom he swears “inextinguishable hatred” as he identifies himself with Satan- “I considered Satan as the fitter emblem of my condition, for often, like him, when I viewed the bliss of my protectors, the bitter gall of envy rose within me. The fire equation can also be linked to the fact that the narrative is subtitled “the Modern Prometheus”, and the inextinguishable fire-like disposition what fuels the quest is appropriated with Prometheus’ stealing of fire from the heavens. The idea of the “Orient” and its mysteries are reiterated throughout the novel, giving us an insight into the Romantic imagination with respect to the other worlds, so to say, which is not necessarily heathen but different and exotic. Obstinately linked with the idea of the “Orient” is the desire to fit in. Frankenstein’s monster resolves “at least, not to despair but in every way to fit myself in for an interview with them which would decide my faith”. Intermingled with the idea of the fitting in is the idea of society, which disparages difference. The monster’s face “wrinkled into contortions too horrible for human eyes to behold” is “shunned and hated by all mankind” because of his hideous appearance. Society abhors him and by the end of his narrative, he avows that “he abhors society” too. The idea of “monstrosity” which I intend to explicate with reference to these contexts is born out of the idea of the “unnatural”. The other-worldly, the hideous, the fiend, the devil- all these are ideas of distortions. There is a subtle hint of the use of electricity in the creation of the “monster” which further heightens the idea of the unnatural, and therefore monstrous.