The Readers Review: Literature from 1714 to 1910 discussion

The Gothic Project - Frankenstein: The 1818 Text, Week 2 (Volume II)

1) How does the change in narration to the creature’s point of view affect the reading of the novel? Do you feel sympathy for the creature when he is rejected by humanity?

2) In this chapter, Victor finally expresses some ambivalence and even self-doubt—about the circumstances of William’s murder and about his treatment of the creature. Why?

3) How credible do you find the creature’s account (or, rather, Walton’s account of Frankenstein’s account of the creature’s account) of his early days and weeks? Do you find it surprising that the creature is such an exacting observer? Why or why not?

4) What crucial role in the creature’s development is played by the DeLacey family?

5) Why do the people the creature meets react to him with fear or hostility or both? Is it the same fear with which Frankenstein reacts?

6) What is the creature’s view of spoken language? Of what importance is it for him to say that he “learned and applied” (here, emphasis added) specific words? What is the difference between the words he learns and applies quickly and those that are still difficult for him?

7) How does the creature hope to overcome the “deformity” to which he attributes the inspiration of fear and hostility in the humans he meets? Is this hope reasonable?

8) When the creature arrives in Geneva and meets William, the child’s identity is unknown to him, and he does not have murder on his mind. He imagines that William is too young to have formed a prejudice against his deformity, but he is wrong and in his anger and discovery of William’s identity strangles the boy. Where does William’s prejudice (or fear) come from? Why is the creature wrong about William’s innocence of such knowledge?

9) If you were Victor, would you agree to make the creature a mate? Why or why not? Are there perhaps other, unexplored possibilities? Is the creature’s demand for a female companion a valid request?

10) What is the motivation behind the creature’s vow of “eternal hatred and vengeance to all mankind?”

11) Victor does not seek forgiveness from those he loves, choosing instead to withdraw further from human society. Are his choices so far forgivable? Why or why not?

This section was pretty lively reading but it certainly required the suspension of disbelief! When the creature first started speaking and spoke so elegantly and eloquently, my first thought was, “How?” and clearly the author felt some (a lot of) explanation was necessary, though the explanation given was pretty unconvincing. And I don’t recall her mentioning that the creature was speaking in French to Victor. It also seemed very implausible that the creature would stay in the little lean-to shed for months at a time when he couldn’t even sit up straight there, and come and go at night with armfuls of wood without the people in the cottage hearing anything. And how did he learn to read, peering through a chink in the wall at squiggles on a page? Is he a lump of clay slowly gaining sentience or is he a fallen angel? It was all pretty hard to accept.

The whole William incident didn’t add up either. Apparently he killed William not knowing his identity, but when he and Victor are yelling at each other when they first meet, doesn’t he say something about continuing to avenge Victor’s rejection by wiping out all his loved ones? (I am traveling and don’t have access to my copy of the book, so apologies for vagueness.) It would have made a little more sense if he had found out that William was a Frankenstein.

There seems to be an odd psychic connection between Victor and the creature—how else to explain that wherever Victor goes (if it’s a wilderness area), the creature is able to find him? Victor’s revulsion at the sight of the creature seems connected to that link between them, perhaps a combination of guilt at what he has done and fear that the creature is too much like something inside Victor’s own heart or mind—that there must be something monstrous about Victor himself that enabled him to create such an entity. There are also occasional vocabulary echoes in each other’s speech, ideas, and decision making processes that make them seem almost like two sides of the same coin, an idea touched on in last week’s discussion. Makes me wonder whether that idea was more explicit in Mary Shelley’s original shorter story and got partially obscured in the revisions. I also wonder whether Stevenson read this before writing Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, because I can see this story inspiring that one.

As for the creature’s “deformity,” it’s hard to understand exactly what that consists in. Victor didn’t feel his creation was ugly until he animated it, and then he made a couple of vague references to yellow eyes and a dark slash of a mouth. His horror seemed more a consequence of his experiment succeeding, that what had been a collection of parts lying on a table was suddenly moving and thinking and acting like a human while being something else. Perhaps he felt a superstitious revulsion at the violation of the laws of God and nature, the way some people are creeped out by clowns and humanoid robots. For others who encounter the creature, I wonder whether his eight-foot size had as much to do with their fear as his ugly mug.

Gem wrote: "The Gothic Project - Frankenstein: The 1818 Text, Week 2 (Volume II)

1) How does the change in narration to the creature’s point of view affect the reading of the novel? Do you feel sympathy for t..."

These are great questions! A few thoughts:

1. The change in narration is welcome, Victor is a bit of a sad sack and I was tired of his whining. I thought the depiction of the creature was a bit unrealistic, did he REALLY learn all that he learned out in the wilderness, even with the sporadic education he received? I did feel sorry for him, though, his visage would be frightening for any human, and there was little he could do to overcome that.

2. I think Victor realized that if anyone was going to be responsible for his creation, it would be him. After a day-long story of the creature's misery, some of his sympathy was aroused - but only to a limited extent.

3. Not believable at all! There is no way he was just 'born' and rapidly learned everything so quickly, and became so sensitive and eloquent. More likely, he would have perished.

4. The DeLacey family indirectly educated him on a vast number of things, but also taught him human emotion, sympathy and caring. He was able to see a 'good side' to humans being an observer that he would not have realized through direct interaction.

5. People react with terror because he is truly a 'monster' in their eyes, and they react without thinking, they are incapable of viewing him as a benevolent being. Victor's reaction is different, more hatred and disgust, because he is aware of the creature's origin and history.

6. The creature rightfully views language as a way to try to convince people to not hate him.

7. The creature thinks that if he can have a female companion similar to him then they can survive independently and avoid humanity. I think this is destined to fail, if such a creature is created.

8. The creature was angry and disappointed at William's reaction to him, but did he intend to kill him? It sounded to me like he tried to 'silence him' and may have accidentally killed him. Still, he was gleeful afterwards and happy to frame Justine. William reacted as any child would, it is outside of his range of experience and he was terrified.

9. I would definitely NOT make a mate, even though I think it is a valid request. Victor has no real awareness of the power of his creature, and it would be dangerous to create another, especially with the idea to let them loose in the world. One option would be to train and observe the creature.

10. I think at this point the creature has given up on humankind. The only kindness he received was the old man who could not see him.

11. Victor is selfish and obsessive. He withdraws into depression, and is unable to function. At this point I do not think his choices are forgivable, but I am hopeful he will evolve.

This section is another reason why I find Victor's tale of the creature to be suspect. He goes hiking in the mountains all alone and encounters the creature. The creature threatens Victor but also tells him a tale of observing a loving family and wanting to be a part of their lives. He does not sound like a person just learning a new language but rather comes across as a literature and scholarly man (much like Victor himself?). There are no witnesses to the truth of the creature's tale of living undiscovered among these people, and after the tale is told, he and Victor part ways again. Is Victor imagining all this? Maybe he has altitude sickness!

I can’t decide whether the creature is figuratively or literally the monster inside Victor’s psyche. If literally, then Victor would have killed his own kid brother, which seems unlikely. More probable to my mind is that Victor’s twisted ambition led him to create an external manifestation of his inner state of mind.

I don’t think Victor or the creature killed the little boy. I think Victor just believes the creature did it, but with absolutely no proof. I think he may be imagining all the encounters with the creature due to some sort of mental illness. Of course, I can’t prove my idea, and there is certainly nothing I know of that indicates that Mary Shelley believed the creature didn’t actually exist. I may be way off base, but it’s the thought that keeps coming back to me.

Well, if one believes that the creature is a literal entity, he confessed to the killing in his narration. Of course, if you’re right and Victor is hallucinating it all, then we can’t even rely on the fact of William having been killed because that is told us in Victor’s portion of the narration. We’d need a reliable fourth narrator.

One argument in favor of the creature being real is that the frame-tale narrator (I’m forgetting his name) saw him riding in a sled across the arctic ice before he saw Victor, and he commented on the creature’s enormous size as opposed to Victor, who is of ordinary dimensions.

You’re right that the men on the ship did see a huge man riding on a sled, but the man’s features were not clearly seen. Also, with William’s death, we have a trial, the family’s grief, etc. It’s just that Victor has a knee-jerk reaction that it was the creature that puzzles me. I’m probably all wet about Victor hallucinating the creature, but it’s a fun idea to play with.

I think we have to accept the narrative as "real". That's one reason there is so much frame story. It's like the urban myths that start, "this really happened to my friend's cousin's husband". The original book was just a short story so there was no necessity to go into all the detail. I just read Tarzan of the Apes and it also has a totally unbelievable story of someone learning to read and speak perfectly. And those of us who read The Last Man found that Mary Shelley makes all her characters speak in flowery phrases.

The big thing about the monster's development in this part of the book is that he didn't want to be a monster. He wanted to be accepted and loved. The pop culture view of this monster, who never gets a name in the book, is that he is terrible and frightening, but Shelley seems to be saying that isn't inevitable. This could lead to a discussion about nature vs. nurture and the role of society in shaping criminals. And of course the role of science - just because we can do something, should we? This is newly relevant in the age of artificial intelligence, gene splicing, and earth-destroying weapons.

Robin, that great information! I haven’t read anything else by Mary Shelley, so I didn’t have that perspective. And I agree completely that the creature’s humanity and longing for acceptance, as well as the role of science, can lead to great discussions.

Robin P wrote: "I think we have to accept the narrative as "real". That's one reason there is so much frame story. It's like the urban myths that start, "this really happened to my friend's cousin's husband". The ..."

You highlight an aspect of this book that I really enjoyed—the many contemporary ideas and controversies embedded in what’s on the surface a simple story. It seems made for debating. If I were a literature professor, I would certainly want this in my syllabus.