John Axcelson, Rob Genter
Colloquium F2005x – Enlightenment and Revolution
December 12, 2000
Gods and Monsters
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is often called the first science fiction story. Whether this is true or not, it certainly portrays the awe and terror at undiscovered technology that have become a defining feature of the genre. Like Faust, Victor Frankenstein is the overly ambitious scholar who goes too far and too fast in his quest for a divine level of knowledge. And like Faust and Prometheus, he suffers greatly for his hubris. However, there is much more than a morality tale to this gripping novel, whose themes operate on many different levels and provide countless points of discussion. One of the more interesting and profound ideas that underlies this book is the subtle anti-religious argument which runs somewhat counter to the more apparent anti-technology theme of most sci-fi horror stories. While on one level this book certainly sets up Frankenstein as the doomed man who should never have interfered in God’s realm, in another respect, it is also a harsh statement about the nature of God according to prevailing religious beliefs.
As a science-horror story, this is one of the best, and one of the very few which seem more relevant with each passing year. Many science fiction stories quickly become obsolete or silly because their predictions of the future (often bleak) inevitably become comically unbelievable. These stories generally involve random, unstoppable invents such as alien robots invading Earth. The more lasting stories, however, are those that explore failed human endeavors, usually in the form of a character bringing ruin upon himself or his family because of his tremendous ambition. This genre is thousands of years old and includes such famous protagonists as Daedalus, Faust, Dr. Moreau, and the heroes of any number of “mad scientist” movies. As a testament to this novel’s success and influence, Victor Frankenstein is by far the best-known and most emblematic figure in this list. Certainly the scene of creation establishes the model for all such stories to follow, with the quiet, frenetic genius working alone up in his tower: “It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open.”[1]
Unlike many later science-fiction authors, Shelley doesn’t try to predict the potential impact of emerging or not-too-distant technologies; in fact, she sets her book in the past. This is because she is interested not in the technology, which was impossibly fantastical in her day, but in the human story of a man who leaves his home and family to pursue personal greatness. This is why she doesn’t invent any kind of scientific details for Frankenstein’s project but instead gives us only: “After days and nights of incredible labour and fatigue, I succeeded in discovering the cause of generation and life… [Y]ou expect to be informed of the secret with which I am acquainted, [but] that cannot be.”[2] Ironically, now that human cloning is nearly possible and bio-ethical issues are increasingly controversial, the science-fiction aspects of this novel are more relevant today than ever. But Shelley’s concern is with Frankenstein’s endless toil, his obsession with his work and isolation from both his environment and from history.
A common theme in science fiction (and in many current ethical debates) is the idea of progress achieved too quickly, of technology outpacing philosophy. Shelley suggests that Frankenstein advances without reflecting upon the significance of what he is doing. In his moment of triumph, he forgets his two years of constant work and reading and the hundreds of years of research that preceded him. As he confesses, “this discovery was so great and overwhelming that all the steps by which I had been progressively led to it were obliterated, and I beheld only the result. What had been the study and desire of the wisest men since the creation of the world was … opened upon me at once.”[3] Frankenstein’s total preoccupation becomes his undoing and he loses sight of his priorities and values. He is oblivious to the beautiful summer he is missing because he is “engaged, heart and soul, in one pursuit… And the same feelings which made me neglect the scenes around me caused me also to forget those friends who were so many miles absent… I knew my silence disquieted them, … but I could not tear my thoughts from my employment, loathsome in itself, but which had taken an irresistible hold of my imagination.”[4] By abandoning his family and friends, he forgets the importance of community and ends up making a creature without any thought of its need for companionship. Essentially, Frankenstein is so caught up in his radical discoveries that he does not have the necessary perspective to make appropriate ethical decisions. This argument suggests that science and invention must always proceed extremely cautiously, and that perhaps there are avenues of research that men are not meant to pursue. Furthermore, there is a great danger in doing something half-heartedly, and once someone starts down a certain path, he must see it through to completion or the consequences might be worse than if he had never begun.
One religious question that is of critical interest to Frankenstein’s reanimation technology, though never explicitly stated, is the issue of an afterlife. Many scientific developments are generally perceived as undermining religious authority by explaining phenomena that were traditionally considered the divine mysteries of the universe. This novel is no exception, as there is arguably no question or issue more central to every religion than the notion of existence after death, whether by reincarnation or through some sort of continued life of the spirit. So what happens to the Christian notion of an immortal soul if Victor Frankenstein is able to reanimate dead bodies? Does the soul which originally belonged to the body or bodies return into the monster? This doesn’t seem the case since the creature has no previous memories or consciousness of the many dead people it is made from. This leads one to wonder whether the monster has a new soul, in which case Frankenstein has truly become a god, or if it has no soul at all. Will it have any kind of afterlife? While not addressing this directly, this book seems to doubt the very concept. When Victor’s mother is on her death bed, she says “I regret that I am taken from you, … is it hard not to quit you all? But these are not thoughts befitting me; I will endeavour to resign myself cheerfully to death and will indulge a hope of meeting you in another world.”[5] There seems to be a certain bitterness underlying her final statement, not only resenting the unfairness of her young death but also a surprising difficulty in even hoping that there will be any immortality for her. This is a shockingly agnostic belief for an eighteenth-century peasant to have, and arguably it represents Shelley’s own strong doubts, perhaps influenced by her husband, in any kind of religious hope.
Even more provocative, however, is the interpretation of this book as a pre-existentialist story of man’s failure to relate to God. Like the Greek demigod Prometheus who has access to the divine power of fire, Victor Frankenstein is the lone man who holds the secret to creating life. By giving this power to mankind, both not only anger the real God(s), they forever change man’s status and relationship with divinity. But unlike Prometheus who literally gives mankind a godlike power, Frankenstein accomplishes this on a more meta-literary level by affecting those who hear his story. The most obvious example is its effect on Robert Walton, who learns a moral lesson and abandons his ambitious plans. But the real audience for Frankenstein’s story is us, Shelley’s readers.
Shelley ultimately accomplishes Frankenstein’s task in the same way Milton accomplishes Satan’s task in his epic poem Paradise Lost. Satan tries to make man a god by giving him the fruit which allows one to know good from evil. Satan doesn’t lie to Eve, as is commonly misunderstood—he tells her the truth, and because of it she and Adam become just as aware as God is, which ends their blissful state of ignorance or paradise. In the same way Shelley, by showing us Frankenstein’s cruelty in abandoning his own creation, gives us a glimpse of man’s own origin and isolation. Like the monster, we are left alone in the world with only a cryptic book to explain to us our creation. This is the reason for her title-page quote from Milton, in which Adam tells God that he did not ask to be created, that he had no choice. This quote emphasizes the tremendous burden of responsibility belonging to anyone who would create a life. Frankenstein clearly does not live up to that duty, but arguably neither does God. From this perspective, Victor Frankenstein does not represent Satan, the failed would-be God, which the standard anti-hubris reading would suggest. Satan is the one figure trying to enlighten man, and it is Shelley herself who represents him. Indeed, according to this existentialist reading, Frankenstein represents God – the true villain of Milton’s poem.
Some scholars suggest that Frankenstein is a failed version of the God of the creation myth, or a failed mother, but alternatively Shelley may be suggesting that God himself is the bad mother. Like Frankenstein, God gives his creature enormous powers of intellect but then leaves him to suffer the consequences: the constant awareness of his lonely and purposeless existence. When each realizes that his creation is as powerful as himself and cannot be adequately controlled, God and Frankenstein both expel their creatures into a world of isolation and suffering. In this interpretation, man and God are both alone, just as Victor and the monster are both alone. Like us, the creature feels an automatic obligation to his maker, even though Frankenstein is responsible for his miserable existence. Perhaps it is our identification with the monster that makes so many readers view him as more sympathetic and human than Victor.
Ultimately, there is no single correct interpretation of the novel. Although there are many other topics in this story one could analyze, at its core it is successful because it weaves together a strong anti-technology motif with a more unusual anti-religion one. Frankenstein himself summarizes the science-horror moral best: “Learn from me … how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow.”[6] But these could also be the words of Satan in Paradise Lost, which suggests the complex problems with the Judeo-Christian creation story, a myth that essentially emphasizes obedience and blissful ignorance over the angst that comes from a fully conscious existence. The question Shelley and Milton ask, then, is, Are we really better off having been created, and if so, are we better off being self-aware? The fact that the monster doesn’t take his own life, despite his misery and solitude, certainly suggests a positive answer. Frankenstein defies simple explanation and rises above other mass-market horror stories by fusing a compelling and exciting science-fiction narrative with a provocative religious argument profound enough to rival Milton.