Frankenstein
Published:
- Opens with a man rescuing (presumably) Dr. Frankenstein in the arctic who was (presumably) searching for his monster, who was riding a dogsled. Frankenstein then recounts the story to the captain (who is a proud fellow indeed)
- Frankenstein is possessed to animate the inanimate. He studies hard, and has a moment of insight, and proceeds to obsess over it over many months/years. Neglects his health, personal relationships, which will (presumably) manifest themselves in the outward appearance of the monster he creates.
- The older Frankenstein, in recounting his tale, hints that this lack of tranquility in one’s work is bound to generate unrest, something untranquil. The qualities of the creator find themselves in the created.
- After a series of unfortunate events, and months of anguish, Frankenstein goes to summit a mountain to clear his mind. Up there on the glacier he finds his monster. The monster entreats him to listen to his story.
- The encounter occurring in an ice field is reminiscent of the icy pits of Dante’s inferno, where betrayers lay. The creator abandoning his creature is perhaps the ultimate betrayal.
- Frankenstein recounts his miserable beginnings: learning about the world and his senses, finding food, then fire, then shelter, then labour, then language… These latter learnings are developed in hiding next to a cottage.
- Interesting to contrast this with Frankenstein’s degeneration and his desire to unlearn the knowledge he’d accrued in his quest to create the monster.
- “I was, besides, endowed with a figure hideously deformed and loathsome; i was not even of the same nature as man. I was more agile than they, and could subsist upon coarser diet; i bore the extremes of heat and cold with less injury to my frame; my stature far exceeded their’s.”
- This superior agility, which is not portrayed in the popular Frankenstein renditions of the day, is interesting. I liken it to the superior abilities that technology affords.
- The monster ends up killing everyone Frankenstein loves. Frankenstein dedicates the rest of his life to pursuing the monster in futility, which delights (but also prolongs the suffering of) the monster.
- Frankenstein finally falls on a ship that rescues him in the Arctic Ocean. He maintains his thirst for vengeance until death. The monster comes to visit him after he dies, with mixed emotions. His revenge was satisfied, but he destroyed his creator.
- The arctic again reminds of Dante’s inferno, the lowest rung, where the betrayers lie frozen. There was a deep betrayal in Frankenstein’s neglect of his creation, so it seems fitting.
- The monster runs off to the North Pole to cremate himself.
- Hmmm, fire in the coldest place…