The Two Main Characters in Mary Shelley - Essay Example

Mary Shelley Essay: Who is the real monster? The two main characters in Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein are a scientist called Doctor Frankenstein, and a strange creature that he has created using bits and pieces of corpses and a scientific method called galvanism. Their lives are very closely linked from the moment that the creature takes his first breath, and one of the main themes of the story is the way that half-human creature is rejected by everyone because of his ugly appearance, and believed to be a monster capable of killing innocent people. Even his creator, Doctor Frankenstein is horrified by what he has done, and abandons the so-called monster to his fate, wandering alone in the world looking at first for acceptance, but as time goes on, increasingly looking for revenge for all the pain and suffering that he is forced to endure. This paper analyzes Mary Shelley’s depiction of the scientist and his creature, showing how a number of key metaphors and similes, along with the conscious exploitation of extreme settings, reveal Doctor Frankenstein to be the real monster. The novel uses an interesting structure of some introductory letters at the beginning, and concluding letters at the end from a ship’s captain, Mr Walton, to frame the main story. The first main character to appear is “a being which had the shape of a man, but apparently of gigantic stature” (letter IV) and the second is “a human being...not, as the other traveller seemed to be, a savage inhabitant of some undiscovered island, but an European” (Letter IV). The perspective is of a neutral observer, the captain of a ship stranded in the far north. These descriptions reveal the standard prejudices of the time, in which Europeans considered themselves superior to other races, and through their history of slavery and colonialism treated other nations as “savages.” The ship’s captain is very impressed with Doctor Frankenstein’s highly civilized character but it is interesting that he also uses the word “creature” when describing him: “How can I see so noble a creature destroyed by misery... He is so gentle, yet so wise; his mind is so cultivated...” (letter IV). This introduction sets up an expectation that the strange guest on the ship is a good man, who will have an inspiring tale to tell, and that there is something wild and dangerous about the giant figure fleeing into the ice. When the Doctor is taken into the ship, the perspective changes to become his perspective and the main part of the book which follows consists of Doctor Frankenstein’s own narrative. It is a chronological recollection of his life, starting with childhood, but recounted in a way that contains a foreshadowing of something dreadful. He speaks of his time as a student being protected by a supernatural being, “the guardian angel of my life,” but notes also “the storm that was even then hanging in the stars.” (Chapter 2) The storm is a metaphor for the drastic events that are going to happen in his story. This narrative is told in a much more pessimistic way than the ship captain’s letters, and in a significant passage at the end of chapter 2, the narrator uses personification to hint that there are dark events to come: “Destiny was too potent, and her immutable laws had decreed my utter and terrible destruction.” (Chapter 2). The language that the Doctor Frankenstein uses to describe the being that is finally created shows a sudden change of tone, using words like “his watery eyes, ... his shrivelled complexion, and straight black lips.” (Chapter 5) Words such as wretch, miserable monster, being, and descriptions such as the demonical corpse to which I had so miserably given life (Chapter 5) emphasize his physical deformity. An analogy with “a mummy again endued with animation” and a reference to Dante, who wrote about the inferno of hell, are clues that the scientist links the creature more with death than with life, and rejects him, even though it is no fault of the creature that he turned out like that. Later in the book, the perspective shifts to that of the so-called monster and a key scene takes place on the mountains, apart from civilization, just the two beings, creator and created, standing in front of each other and expressing their feelings about each other. Doctor Frankenstein uses metaphors like devil and vile insect and accusing his creature of vile murders (Chapter 10) but the creature responds with a calm and logical tone, appealing to the scientist’s moral character saying “How dare you sport thus with life? Do your duty towards me...” (Chapter 10). Mary Shelley puts the extreme and emotional words into the doctor’s mouth, and makes the so called monster sound eloquent, reasonable and educated. The monster uses Biblical references to remind the scientist that life is something sanctified: “I ought to be thy Adam; but I am rather the fallen angel!” (Chapter 10) This is a linguistic reversal of roles, and it invites the reader to question the labels that Doctor Frankenstein uses when referring to the creature. The creature appears to be the civilized and learned party, while Doctor Frankenstein appears emotionally unstable and aggressive. The creature links himself with the coldest parts of the earth “the desert mountains and the dreary glaciers are my refuge” (Chapter 10) because these settings are a suitable background for his loneliness. The creature’s life story is narrated to Frankenstein, who in turn narrates it to the ship’s company. These layers of narration create a distance between the reader and the creature, underlining his powerlessness and the way that his reputation is decided by other people, and not by his own words. Once again the author uses figurative language to express key aspects of the creature’s nature, for example, there is a simile from the animal world which is used to show that he is not a wild beast, but can make moral decision of his own: “I could have torn him limb from limb, as the lion rends the antelope. But my heart sank within me as with bitter sickness, and I refrained.” (Chapter 16) What this shows is that he has the potential to be a beast, but chooses to be human. Doctor Frankenstein, on the other hand, has the potential to be human, but chooses to be beastly to his creature. The terrible suffering of the creature changes the expectations of the reader so that when he asks Frankenstein to create another creature, to be a companion for him, this seems like a reasonable request. The reader starts to see the world from the perspective of the outcast, and as the story moves further and further into desolate settings, to the mountains, to Scotland, to the Orkneys to Russia and finally back to the ice of the North Pole, the question as to the true nature of the creator scientist and the created “monster” grows more intense. What is civilized behavior, and what is barbaric behavior? Out in the wilderness it is very hard to tell the difference. Frankenstein’s story ends with a definitive statement, once again conveyed in a striking simile, that condemns the creature outright: “His soul is as hellish as his form, full of treachery and fiendlike malice” (Chapter 24) The final piece of narration comes once again in the steady voice of the ship’s captain. He is, like all the other people mentioned in the earlier narrative, utterly horrified when he sees the creature’s appearance for himself, and yet he is half-convinced by his eloquent tale of rejection and self-loathing. The creature’s self-exile and declaration that he will sacrifice himself makes him something of a hero at the end, although there seems to be a suggestion that he could still be a danger to human beings if he chose to change his mind. The main theme of the novel is therefore left unresolved for the reader. The doctor’s death and the linking of his studies with his fate suggest that the story may be questioning the new discoveries that were being made during the lifetime of Mary Shelley. The nineteenth century was an important era which brought many advances in the fields of medicine and technology, but perhaps also the story of the monster is a reference to some of the dark consequences that can arise from these discoveries. When one thinks of the vast amounts of human suffering that have been caused by scientific discoveries like the atom bomb and biological weapons, it is clear that an argument against scientific progress can be made. The moral of the story appears to be that scientists may be meddling with powers that they do not understand and cannot control. The real danger in this tale is not the threat from the pathetic creature that is cobbled together by the scientist, but the much greater threat of powerful new forms of knowledge without responsibility. The so-called monster is a victim, and as he says himself, anything he may have done is as a result of his utter abandonment and his anguish at finding himself loathsome to everyone he meets. The power-hungry Doctor Frankenstein is the true monster, and although he appears to be cultivated and eloquent, his abdication of responsibility and his rejection of what he created is the most monstrous act in the whole book. Reference Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Available online at: http://www.literature.org/authors/shelley-mary/frankenstein/ Read More