Authors: Dorothy Hoobler
Robert Walton is an explorer seeking to reach the North Pole. Much like Victor Frankenstein, he is ambitious to achieve a
great discovery that will benefit humanity. He reminds the reader of Shelley too, when he writes, “My life might have been
passed in ease and luxury; but I preferred glory to every enticement that wealth placed in my path.”
In Walton’s second letter, he expresses the loneliness of his quest, a trait that the reader will later discover he shares
with the monster. “I shall commit my thoughts to paper,” Walton writes his sister, “. . . but that is a poor medium for the
communication of feeling. I desire the company of a man who could sympathize with me; whose eyes would reply to mine. You
may deem me romantic, my dear sister, but I bitterly feel the want of a friend.” The twin themes of overweening ambition and
personal loneliness pervade the novel. Mary was witness to the former, and victim of the latter.
Polar exploration was of high interest at the time Mary was writing. In 1774, Captain James Cook had sailed to the edge of
the ice sheet that covers Antarctica. He wrote in his journal: “[My] ambition leads me not only farther than any other man
has been before me, but as far as I think it is possible for man to go. . . .” Yet people still wanted to know what lay beyond,
at the very points—north and south—on which the earth rotates on its axis. In 1818 the British government established a prize
for the discovery of the long-sought Northwest Passage, a sea route above North America to Asia. Earlier expeditions searching
for the passage had turned back because of the icy, frigid seas.
Because the polar regions were terra incognita, their nature was open to wild speculation. It was commonly believed that the
sun never set at the North Pole and therefore the region around it would experience continually warm temperatures. In the
first letter to his sister, Robert Walton describes what he might find at the Pole. “There, Margaret,” he wrote, “the sun
is for ever visible; its broad disk just skirting the horizon, and diffusing a perpetual splendour. There—for with your leave,
my sister, I will put some trust in preceding navigators—there snow and frost are banished; and sailing over a calm sea, we
may be wafted to a land surpassing in wonders and in beauty every region hitherto discovered on the habitable globe. . . .
What may not be expected in a country of eternal light?” Like Godwin and Shelley, Walton was seeking no less than a paradise
on earth.
Instead of paradise, Walton finds a starving and desperate Victor, who has pursued the monster all the way to the Arctic.
Victor warns Walton of the danger, not of the monster but of the quest for knowledge that created him: “Learn from me, if
not by my precepts, at least by my example, 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.”
Both Walton and Frankenstein disguise their lust for power by pursuing seemingly altruistic quests, and in Promethean fashion,
they are both undone by their ambitions. At the end of the book, Walton faces the mutiny of his crew and fails in his quest.
Victor Frankenstein, after witnessing the deaths of those closest to him, loses his life in the attempt to destroy his greatest
creation. Mary had real-life models for these characters: both her father and her husband assumed the roles of teachers, not
only toward her, but toward all humanity. They justified their actions by their lofty goals, but at the very time Mary was
writing she witnessed the terrible consequences of their arrogance: the abandonment of children and lovers, the suicides of
Fanny and Harriet.
Many Gothic novels, particularly those written by women, have a female heroine rather than a hero.
Frankenstein
is a novel of male voices. There are no major female characters to provide a counterweight of love and tenderness to the
males’ ambitions and desire for power. A modern feminist critic has declared that
Frankenstein
is the story of what happens when a man tries to have a baby without a woman. The result in the book, of course, is disastrous.
There can be no doubt that Mary was inspired by her own upbringing, with its overwhelming father figure.
Most of the book is set in the Alps and the Arctic—where the cold and ice symbolize the creature’s isolation and friendlessness,
and perhaps the cold, unfeeling personalities of Walton and Frankenstein. The setting also echoes Mary’s favorite poem, Coleridge’s
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,
which was set in the Antarctic. There would be specific references to that poem throughout
Frankenstein,
and several characters quote from it, including the creature.
The three narrators spiral the reader downward into the heart of the book, and from there outward again to its climax. After
meeting Victor Frankenstein, Walton serves as the recorder of Victor’s narrative. But Victor retains his desire for control.
As Walton relates later, “Frankenstein discovered that I made notes concerning his history; he asked to see them, and then
himself corrected and augmented them in many places; but principally in giving the life and spirit to the conversations he
held with his enemy. ‘Since you have preserved my narration,’ said he, ‘I would not that a mutilated one should go down to
posterity.’” Walton says that Frankenstein’s “eloquence is forcible and touching; nor can I hear him, when he relates a pathetic
incident, or endeavors to move the passions of pity or love, without tears.” Significantly, the monster will also use words
to persuade Victor—and the reader—of his humanity, even though his story reaches the reader thirdhand, contained within Victor’s
narrative that is in turn reported by Walton.
Indeed, the creature is much the most eloquent of all the narrators. “Listen to my tale,” the monster says to Frankenstein,
“when you have heard that, abandon or commiserate me, as you shall judge that I deserve.” Victor confesses to Walton that
the creature did have remarkable powers of persuasion, “even power over my heart.” Here the novel expresses one of Mary’s
deepest wishes: that she would have the ability to move the hearts of her father and her husband, that she could make them
understand her needs.
After the creature tells his story and flees, Victor’s narrative resumes. He destroys his scientific instruments, is unjustly
imprisoned for Clerval’s murder, and marries Elizabeth only to find her murdered on their wedding night. He dedicates his
life to the destruction of the monster and pursues him to the Arctic. After Frankenstein is found by the sailors, Walton then
takes up the narrative again. His ship is now immobilized in ice, frozen and immovable. The crew demands that Walton turn
back. Frankenstein, hearing this, scolds them, calling them unworthy of the great task on which they have embarked. “The ice,”
he tells them, “is not made of such stuff as your hearts might be; it is mutable, cannot withstand you, if you say that it
shall not.” It was a line that could have been uttered by Shelley, confident that a truly determined man need not be stopped
by the forces of nature.
When Walton nonetheless accedes to the crew’s demands, Frankenstein tries to rise from his bed and resume the chase on his
own. But he is too weak; in fact, he is dying. Frankenstein has a moment when he realizes his own folly and says to Walton,
“I am a blasted tree; the bolt has entered my soul.” Thus the sense of the power of lightning, which Victor first experienced
in his youth when he witnessed the destruction of the tree, has become internalized. He thought to harness that power, but
it has destroyed him.
Yet Mary apparently had trouble passing a final judgment on his quest. Frankenstein appears to show repentance when he advises
Walton, “Seek happiness in tranquillity, and avoid ambition.” Then he seems to have a change of heart as he adds with his
last words, “Yet why do I say this? I have myself been blasted in these hopes, yet another may succeed.” Mary cannot quite
allow him to admit that the quest has been wrong from the beginning, has always been futile.
The next day, Walton finds the monster in the room where Frankenstein’s corpse lies. Walton must close his eyes because the
creature’s ugliness is so overpowering, but calls on him to remain. The creature wants to find forgiveness for his sins, but
his creator can no longer give it: he is silent and cold. Walton summons up the courage to scold the “demon” for failing to
listen to “the voice of conscience.” The creature protests that he was mistreated and that far from lacking remorse, he suffered
more than Victor did. His self-hatred was greater than the contempt anyone may have felt for him.
Walton tries to quell the sympathy he feels for the monster, remembering Victor’s warning that it could be eloquent and persuasive.
He again chides the giant creature, who begins a long speech in which he compares himself to a “fallen angel,” like Satan
in John Milton’s
Paradise Lost
. “Yet,” he adds, “even that enemy of God and man had friends and associates in his desolation; I am quite alone.” As much
a Romantic figure as any of Byron’s heroes, the creature announces his intention to go to the North Pole and take his own
life. “I shall ascend my funeral pile triumphantly, and exult in the agony of the torturing flames,” he declares. Then, in
Walton’s words, “He sprung from the cabin-window, as he said this, upon the ice-raft which lay close to the vessel. He was
soon borne away by the waves, and lost in darkness and distance.” Mary cannot let the reader watch him die, as she herself
never saw the bodies of Fanny or Harriet. She thus leaves us with the impression that the monster might still be alive, wandering
somewhere.
M
ary finished
Frankenstein
in May 1817. In writing it, she had faced issues that she had a difficult time confronting in real life—a cold father, a
manipulative husband, a dead child, and a thicket of emotional problems in her relationships. The book depicted characters
with enormous ambitions that they sought to attain without consideration of the cost to others. Mary ventured to suggest that
even people of good intentions and genius—as both Godwin and Shelley considered themselves—can go wrong. But to criticize
these two titanic figures, quite literally the gods of her life, she had to disguise herself as a monster.
Nineteen years old, Mary had paid a high price for her quest for love. Eloping with Shelley had damaged her relationship with
her father and had been the cause of Harriet’s suicide. Now Mary realized, and resented, that Percy was attached as much to
Claire as herself. Pregnant for the third time, Mary was responsible for the care of her own child as well as Claire’s, and
had a husband who constantly complained of his health. It was amazing that she could write anything at all.
Mary read again the third canto of
Childe Harold
at the end of May and it brought back memories of that magical, haunted summer just a year earlier. Byron, in his absence,
had grown into a romantic figure for her. Mary wrote in her journal on May 28, “How very vividly does each verse of his poem
recall some scene of this kind to my memory—This time will soon also be a recollection—We may see him again & again—enjoy
his society but the time will also arrive when that which is now an anticipation will be only in the memory—death will at
length come and in the last moment all will be a dream.”
Toward the end of the month, Shelley and Mary went to London with the manuscript and submitted it to John Murray. Mary’s hopes
rose when she heard that Murray himself had liked it. But William Gifford, the editor of the Tory
Quarterly Review
and a literary advisor to the publisher, did not—regarding the book as too radical in its social and political implications.
The idea of creating a human being without divine help (considered much more important than the female contribution) was anathema
in those reactionary times. Following Gifford’s advice, Murray passed.
A second publisher rejected the novel with what Mary thought was insulting swiftness. In late August, another publisher, Lackington’s,
expressed interest in the book, and with Shelley negotiating the contractual details, the novel was accepted. In dealing with
Lackington’s, Shelley did not reveal the author’s name and insisted that the book should be published anonymously—a not uncommon
practice at the time. Shelley took over the task of shepherding
Frankenstein
through the publication process, editing and checking galley proofs. He also urged the publisher to advertise the book, which
had never been done for his own works.
There has long been controversy about Shelley’s role in writing the novel. He made a few changes in the manuscript, but does
not seem to have made any major alterations in the story; indeed, Shelley’s editorial comments tended to be minor and condescending.
When Mary wrote “igmatic” Percy corrected her in pencil in the margin: “enigmatic o you pretty Pecksie!” He used similar endearments
in other parts of the editing, acting more as a mentor than a co-author. Mary accepted almost all of Shelley’s changes, showing
her insecurity as an author who had never been published. As a rule, Mary favored simple Anglo-Saxon words and straightforward
or conversational sentences. Shelley had a more ornate style of writing and favored polysyllabic words; for example, he substituted
“converse” for “talk.” In only a few places did Shelley subtly change the meaning of the text. To Percy, the monster was like
a traditional Gothic horror figure. For example, when the female monster is destroyed, Mary has the creature withdraw “with
a howl of devilish despair.” Percy added, “and revenge.” Such changes took away some of the monster’s humanity. Percy also
introduced the word “abortion” to refer to the creature. Mary always saw him as completely human, though monstrous in behavior.
Percy’s changes to the manuscript also tended to justify Dr. Frankenstein’s behavior and portray him as the victim, rather
than the creator of the evil. This reflected not only Shelley’s lack of awareness but also his very similarity to Victor.
Mary Shelley always saw that Frankenstein was deluding himself. So too was her husband.