Leggere…
Frankenstein
or the Modern Prometheus
Mary Shelley
carla aira
The Victorian Scene
The Historical Background – Queen Victoria (1819 – 1902), daughter of the Duke of Kent,
came to the throne of England at the age of eighteen (1837). She restored the image of the
monarchy with her wisdom and gained the respect of the people with her private life, ruled by
sobriety and hard work, in a word, by “respectability". After he death, her son Edward came to
tried to follow his mother's steps.
Home Policy - The Parliament had to face the problems of the workers with a series of Acts
(the Factory Act, the Ten Hours' Act; the Mines Act; the Public Health Act) to improve working
conditions, limit the hours of work and the exploitation of children in mines. In 1884 the Third
Reform Bill extended the suffrage to all male workers.
Foreign Policy- Ireland found its political leader in Charles Parnell who, in 1880, demanded
the Home Rule or independence for Ireland (but the bill was not passed till afte r the First
World War). In 1887 Queen Victoria became Empress of India: its dominions included
Australia, New Zealand, Ceylon, Canada, Singapore, Hong Kong, Gibraltar, Malta, Cyprus and
parts of Africa. In 1899-1902 the Boer War broke out in Orange and Transvaal and in 185456 the dispute over the borders between Russia and Turkey gave origin to the Crimean War
(during which Florence Nightingale founded the Red Cross).
Literary Background - The developed ways of communication and a new printing system
improved literature. The period can be divided into three stages:
Early Victorians – The novelists identified themselves with their own age; they wrote long
books published in serial installments and structured every episode as a plot. They tried to
attract the masses with suspense and the sensational (make them – the readers - wait, make
them cry and make them laugh). Main authors: C. Dickens; W. Thackeray; the Bronte Sisters.
The poets at first followed the Romantic way of writing, but soon they captur ed and reflected
the uneasiness of their society. They developed the Dramatic Monologue in which a persona
reveals his thoughts and feeling unconsciously to a silent listener. Main authors: Lord A.
Tennyson and Browning.
Mid Victorians (or Anti Victorian Reaction) - New scientific and philosophic theories
(Darwin's Origin of Species) provoked a sense of dissatisfaction and rebellion The realism of
the novels mirrors the clash between man and environment, illusion and reality, leading to
Naturalism: men are no longer responsible for their actions since they are determined by
forces beyond their control. The writer's task was to record events objectively, without
comments. Main Authors: George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) and Thomas Hardy. The poets
followed John Ruskin's theories (1819-1900) against the standardization and the materialism
of society; the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood proclaimed a return to simplicity, and to nature as
an escape from their society. Main authors: Dante Gabriel and his sister Cristina Rossetti.
Late Victorians – The novelists searched for an escape "travelling" in their selves; they put
in evidence the contrasts between classes and races and the contradictions of colonialism.
Aestheticism reacted against Utilitarianism and moral restr ictions, and broke social
conventions by means of free imagination. Main authors: R. L. Stevenson (duality of man); R.
Kipling (colonialism) and O. Wilde (mouthpiece of Aestheticism). The poets were still heavily
influenced by Aestheticism, but the most original voice was G. M. Hopkins, the isolated poet
who combined lyric passion with his deep religious faith and used a musical and sensuous
language, identifying matter and form. After a long period of sterility due to the lack of new
ideas and to the audience's taste (playgoers requested amusing comedies, great effects and
famous stars) in the 1890s, drama started its rebirth thanks to the influence of French,
Russian and Danish (H. Ibsen) playwrights that focused their attention on the psychological
study of the characters, in particular, of women and of the social world. Main authors: O. Wilde
and G. B. Shaw.
Mary Shelley (1797 – 1851) - life and works
Mary Shelley was born in 1797 to well-known parents: author and feminist Mary
Wollstonecraft and philosopher William Godwin. Unfortunately, Wollstonecraft died as the
result of Mary's birth. At sixteen she met the young poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, a disciple of
her father's teachings. Together with Mary's stepsister, they ran off to continental Europe
several times, even if Shelley was already married. In 1816, they went abroad again, this time
spending time with Lord Gordon Byron, a Romantic poet, her husband’s friend, and the Italian
scientist John Polidori in Geneva. Later that same year, Percy's wife drowned herself: Percy
and Mary married in December 1816. At the age of eighteen, Mary wrote Frankenstein
(1818). The last years of their married life were filled with tragedies for Mary: her half sister
and two of her sons died and Mary became depressed, a tendency she probably inherited from
her mother. Mary and her husband Percy moved to Italy where he drowned during a sailing
trip in 1822. The writer, determined to keep the memory of her late husband alive, published
several editions of Percy's writings and added notes and prefaces to them. Mary spent the last
years of her life in the loving company of her only son and died in 1851 at the age of fifty three.
Plot
Dr. Victor Frankenstein is a scientist obsessed with his desire to penetrate the secret of life
and create a "perfect" creature. He studies and makes experiments to produce life from dead
bodies. At the moment he gives his creature the spark of life, the doctor is overwhelmed with
the ugliness and unnaturalness of what he sees in front of him. He abandons the creature,
who, refused by humanity, begins to pursue him to search for acceptance. At first
Frankenstein agrees to create a mate for him, then, at the last minute, he reconsiders. The
living thing, to get revenge, kills all those who Frankenstein loves. The doctor begins to pursue
him throughout Europe, till the Arctic, where he dies and the creature takes his leave "soon
borne away by the waves, and lost in darkness and distance."
Sources
Autobiographical sources- In the summer of 1816, nineteen-year-old Mary Wollstonecraft
Godwin and her lover, the poet Percy Shelley (whom she married later that year), visited the
poet Lord Gordon Byron at his villa beside Lake Geneva in Switzerland. Stormy weather
frequently forced them indoors, where the couple and Byron's other guests sometimes read
from a volume of ghost stories - Fantasmagoriana or Tales of the Dead translated from the
French by Sarah Elizabeth Utterson (1813). One evening, Byron challenged his guests to write
one each. Mary's story, inspired by a dream, became Frankenstein. Fruit of that prodigious
night was also The Vampire, by another guest, the scientist John William Polidori, then
published in 1819. Mary Shelley herself confessed in her introduction to the third edition of
Frankenstein
“[…] When I placed my head upon my pillow, I did not sleep, nor could I be said to think. . . . I
saw--with shut eyes, but acute mental vision--I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling
beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and
then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half
vital motion. Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human
endeavour to mock the stupendous Creator of the world. [---]”
Literary sources - The subtitle of the novel is The Modern Prometheus. It refers to the figure
in Greek mythology, Prometheus, who stole Zeus's fire from the sun. He was soon severely
punished by Zeus: chained to a rock in the Caucasus, every night, Prometheus was visited by
an eagle who ate from his liver. During the day, however, his liver grew back to its original
state. It also refers to the story of Prometheus plasticator who was said to have created and
animated mankind out of clay. Mary Shelly wanted to underline the influence of the old lege nd
according to a romantic view: she can be seen as the Modern Prometheus who sacrifices her
life to bring light to men and Victor Frankenstein is a man who suffers because of his creation.
This vision still belongs to the romantic tradition that made a cult of suffering and self torture
(S. T. Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner; Th. De Quincy’s Confessions of and Opium
Addict). Another reference could be the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast known in England in
1757 thanks to the translation from the version by Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont
(1756). The themes of Beauty and the Beats are instinct, passion, and the challenge to the
society, topics present in the Gothic novels, sub-genre started in the second half of the 18 th
century with the novel The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole (1764) and that impressed
young Mary Shelly’s imagination (see autobiographical sources). The atmosphere of horror
and suspense of these novel were theorized by Lord Byron and followed by the young writer.
Nowadays it is difficult to make people feel terror while speaking about Frankenstein as
almost everyone associates the name of Frankenstein to the idea of a monster and to a
creation also because of the many adaptations – and often manipulation – of the story into
films. The real novelty of the book is the scientific element which makes of it one of the first
examples of science fiction: the electricity is the basic ingredient for the creation and Victor
challenges God by trying to reproduce a human being.
Setting
Geneva, in Switzerland, is the home of the Frankenstein family and the place of William and
Justine’s violent death; Ingolstadt, in Germany, is where Victor studies and creates the
monster in his laboratory; Mont Blanc, a mountain near Geneva, is a homage to Mary’s
husband, Percy B. Shelley, who wrote a poem about the mountain; a hut in the Orkney Islands,
in Scotland is where Victor stays to create the companion to the monster; Chamounix is where
Victor tries to escape his guilt and depression, and where the monster lives in an ice cave.
Frankenstein is a novel which touches a great part of Continental Europe, but the place where
it ends is mainly significant, the North Pole, destination of Robert Walton and his ship as well
as of the monster and Victor. Captain Walton's ship in the frozen waters of the Arctic receives
Victor Frankenstein’s last confession. Being stuck in the ice is an experience which reminds
the reader of Dante’s Divina Commedia: the ninth circle of Inferno is reserved to the ones who
have committed betrayal. Victor himself says that the monster was "a thing such as even
Dante could not have conceived". Here all the sinners are stuck in icy water, and Satan is
there, of course, in the middle of the frozen lake to explain that the worst kind of betrayal is
against God. And Victor Frankenstein has tried to penetrate the secrets of nature, a betrayal to
God. Also in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (Lyrical Ballads , 1798) by the Romantic poet
Samuel Taylor Coleridge the sailors get stuck in ice: the old mariner of the title has shot an
albatross and together with his crew, is punished for a crime against nature.
Characters
The real characters are Victor Frankenstein and his creature. The others have been described
and invented in order to exemplify characteristics of human behaviours. The case is different
for the two protagonists and narrator of the stories which develops by means of letters,
diaries and confessions.
Frankenstein and the creature are depicted as two good natured men who react to their
alienation from the society. They are father and child, two persons with a same root, two
aspects of the same personality(double). The main difference between them is that Victor
chooses to be alone and alienated from the society to satisfy his scientific search for
knowledge and bring on his project; on the contrary, his creature would like to have a social
life, but is deserted by the others who see his monstrosity. But what he does not totally accept
is the abandon of his father and pursue him to the extreme North. The creature represents the
instinctual side of Victor, the scientist. For some critics the creation is a sort of sexual
satisfaction for the scientist, it is a substitute of the sexual impulse which frightens the
scientist. In creating the monster Victor succeed in having a child without the aid of a woman
and murdering Elizabeth the monster satisfies Victor’s desire to be alone, a virgin father. This
explanation is rooted in two great events of the novel: the dream which reveals a sort of
Oedipus complex –Victor dreams about Elizabeth, his fiancée and when he is going to kiss her
she becomes his dead mother - and on his wedding night –he is in bed with Elizabeth but the
monster takes advantage of his sudden absence to kill her and get his revenge.
Robert Walton is the captain of the ship which meets Victor and his “son” in the North Pole.
He is the character to which Victor tells the story of his life and makes him play the role of a
narrator with his letters. Walton is similar to Victor in some ways: he is an explorer, looking
for that “country of eternal light”—the unknown knowledge. Victor, on one side, exhorts him
to go on in his pursue, on the other he is an example of the dangers of careless scientific
ambition. Walton finally pulls back from his mission, having learned from Victor’s example
how destructive the thirst for knowledge can be and goes back. He serves as a foil in the story
- his actions contrast with, and thereby highlight, those of Victor’s.
Commentary
The pursuit of knowledge is at the heart of Frankenstein: Victor attempts to overcome human
limits and to penetrate the secret of life; Robert Walton attempts to go beyond human
explorations and to reach the North Pole. The northern ices are chosen as a background for
the monster’s last chase of the scientist. The sublime natural world of the Romantics which
gives relief and influences the characters’ mood, becomes the symbolic setting for his final
struggle against the monster. The ice described contrast with the light of knowledge and the
fire used to give life to the creature. For Victor, light symbolizes rebirth, enlightenment while
the natural world is a place of dark secrets; as a consequence the goal of the scientist is to
reach light. Strictly connected with the light is the fire, mentioned in the title with the
reference to Prometheus. The monster’ s first experience with a flame reveals the dual nature
of fire: it gives light in the darkness of the night, but also it harms when it is touched. The
danger of knowledge is represented by the living thing – the monster - created with the help
of lightning. Reading deeply the text, Mary Shelly better explains who is the real monster: the
monster is not only the creature with his grotesque appearance; the monster is hidden in
Victor himself who secretly and selfishly animates a mix of stolen body parts with strange
chemicals. The creature - his attempts to get in touch with people around him, and also help
them – is an example of how the society does not accept the different , whoever it is. Strangely
enough for the daughter of a feminist , women have not an active role in the story, they are
remissive and accept their destiny with resignation. But a modern concept strictly linked with
women’s condition is the idea of abortion, often mentioned in the text to express the sense of
repulsiveness for the creation – the physical appearance and the idea itself. The destruction of
the female monster is an abortion of the act of creation, as Victor prevents her from coming
alive.
To conclude with , Mary Shelley’s novel is a source for discussions still open nowadays: the
scientist's responsibility for the consequences of his own actions; the fatal desire of stepping
beyond "natural" human knowledge to create new life (i.e. become a god); the basic need for
human acceptance – even if different - and relationships, without which one cannot become
truly human, or develop a moral sense. In the 18 th century it also became a symbol to explain
the relationship of the artist and the artistic creation.
Fortune and adaptations
As to literature, Frankenstein supplied material for many authors. A famous story probably
inspired by the monster was The Hunchback of Notre Dame written by Victor Hugo in 1831
about the deformed creature hidden in Notre Dame de Paris who falls in love and helps
Emerald, the beautiful gypsy. The novel has been turned into many films (see Notes).
Useless to say that the monstrous side of man of Frankenstein or the Modern Prometeus
gave the start to a numberless series of films about the creature from the silent period of the
movies on, unfortunately most of them did not catch the psychological implications present in
the novel. Among the most remarkable examples are
- Frankenstein, silent black and white film directed by J. Searle Dawley in 1910.
- Frankenstein, directed by James Whale in 1931, starring for the first time Boris
Karloff , the most popular monster in the history of the cinema.
- Bride of Frankenstein, again by James Whale shot in 1935.
- Frankenstein, directed by Howard W. Koch, in 1970
- Young Frankenstein, a parody directed by Mel Brooks in 1974.
- Frankenstein, a frightening and faithful movie directed by Kenneth Branagh in 1994.
The rejected monster gave rise to other “different “ characters , both taken from real life and
from the fictional world.
Mask (1985) is an American drama film directed by Peter Bogdanovich, starring Cher, based
on the life and early death of Roy L. "Rocky" Dennis, a boy who suffered from
craniodiaphyseal dysplasia, an extremely rare disorder known commonly as lionitis because
of disfiguring cranial enlargements that it causes.
The Elephant Man is a 1980 drama film directed by David Lynch and based on the true story
of Joseph Merrick (called John Merrick in the film), a severely deformed man in 19th century
London.
One of the most representative among the fictional characters is the sweet and lonely
Edward Scissorhands, protagonist of the movie directed by Tim Burton in 1990 about an
unfinished creature - the creator died before he could finish his work and Edward is left with
metal scissors for hands - whose creativity is not understood by the conformist members of a
tidy American village. The role of the mad scientist is performed by Vincent Price, one of the
most famous horror film stars together with Boris Karloff.
The Phantom of the Opera, is the story of a disfigured musical genius, hidden away in the
Paris Opera House, who terrorizes the opera company for the unwitting benefit of a young
protégé whom he trains and loves. It was shot first in 1943 under the direction of Arthur
Lubin and in a musical version of 2004, by Joel Schumacher.
Beauty and the Beast (French: La Belle et la Bête), the love story between the girl and a man
turned into a beast by a spell adapted as a musical animated film by Walt Disney Animation
Picture in 1991, directed by Kirk Wise &Gary Trousdale.
Notes
Gothic novel The origin of the term Gothic is not very clear. A certain type of novel
was called Gothic because the story usually concerned people and events of the Middle
Ages (13th and 15th centuries). The main elements in these novels are monasteries,
ruined churches, subterranean passages, hautnted castles;the themes are murders and
mysteries. This form of fiction probably started in Germany, but the most famous
example is the Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole (1764).
The rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge is a poem included in the
Lyrical ballads – the Manifesto of English Romanticism - written by Coleridge and
William Wordsworth in 1798. It is the story of a Mariner who is punished together
with his crew for having killed an albatross, God’s creature. It mixes natural and
supernatural elements by means of the power of imagination.
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822; second generation of Romantic Poets) wrote Mont
Blanc - Lines Written in the Vale of Chamouniuly, 1816 (published 1817). Shelley
wrote of this poem: "It was composed under the immediate impression of the deep and
powerful feelings excited by the objects which it attempts to describe: and as an
undisciplined Overflowing of the soul, rests its claim to approbation on an attempt to
imitate the untamable wildness and inaccessible solemnity from which those feelings
sprang."
Beauty and the Beast – fairy tale first published with the version of Gabrielle-Suzanne
Barbot de Villeneuve, in 1740. The best-known written version was an abridgement of
her work published in 1756 by Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont, in Magasin des
enfants, ou dialogues entre une sage gouvernante et plusieurs de ses élèves; an English
translation appeared in 1757. The story is about Prince Adam who is cursed to a beast
form by Enchantress because of his arrogant heart. He can break the spell only if he
starts loving another and earn her love in return before the last petal from his
enchanted rose falls, on his twenty-first birthday. Famous adaptations: Beauty and the
Beast (1987), a musical version, directed by Eugene Marner, starring John Savage as
Beast, and Rebecca De Mornay; Beauty and the Beast (1987 to 1989), a television
detective series centred around the relationship between Catherine, an attorney who
lived in New York City and Vincent, a gentle but lion-faced "beast" who lives in the
tunnels beneath the city. A reworking of the TV series started in 1987.
The hunchback of Notre Dame - (Notre-Dame de Paris, Eng: "Our Lady of Paris").
15th century Paris. Quasimodo, the deformed and kind bell ringer of Notre Dame, is
hidden from the world by archbishop Frollo in the bell-tower of the cathedral. During
the Festival of Fools, Quasimodo, meets the lively gypsy girl Esmeralda and the
handsome soldier Phoebus. The three of them find themselves to fight against Frollo's
cruelty and Quasimodo must desperately defend both Esmeralda and the very
cathedral of Notre Dame. Films adaptations of The Hunchback of Notre Dame in 1923,
directed by Wallace Worsley and starring Lon Chaney; in 1939 directed by William
Dieterle starring Charles Laughton and Maureen O’Hara; in 1956 directed by Jean
Delannoy with Anthony Quinn e Gina Lollobrigida ; in 1996
animated musical produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and directed by Kirk
Wise and Gary Trousdale; Notre-Dame de Paris, opera written by Luc Plamondon and
Riccardo Cocciante in 1998.