Book Club: Frankenstein

I fought to defend Frankenstein’s creature as if my own life depended on it. This was during my first read in a high school literature class, before understanding that Max (as I preferred to call him, as he was unfairly unnamed) was essentially an incel and not completely innocent of blame.

I’m not sure I could add much to the conversation around this genre-defining masterpiece that hasn’t already been thought and said in some way. However, Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus has forever altered the way I analyze and understand people and the larger world we live in.

Mary Shelley writes, “how can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe,” and encapsulated my own reaction. I feel rage at the creature’s treatment, at Victor’s retreat from responsibility and determination to worsen the lives of anyone around him in exchange for the tiniest taste of control. I felt profound sadness for Justine- a supposedly cherished friend, caretaker, and honorary family member- left to an unjust execution to protect Victor’s reputation from even potential judgment. Clearly, he was not aware that I stand behind the fourth wall in the most vitriolic judgment there is.

There is genius in what Shelley created, and the story of her story’s creation is just as iconic. She effectively out-wrote the famous writers surrounding her simply on a dare.

First, to release a text at all.

For it to be transgressive,

Subversive, eternal.

Then forgotten.

For a man to be given credit,

For its value to be questioned,

Its authenticity.

Then to attach a name

And be reviled.

For opinions to switch,

For what’s in a name to be worth more

Than what’s in a monster.

Then, to know the truth.

For it to be despised anyway,

For language too flowery,

For complaints of redundancy

Attributed to a woman.

To know the history and

Prefer it rewritten.

-1818

FotMP has inspired an endless supply of beautiful works. My favorite adaptation being a single song from #BarsMedleyVolume2, the final performance from a NYC artist workshop run by Daveed Diggs and Raphael Casal (find it on YouTube!!). This original musical interpretation covers every aspect of the original text that I found the most spellbinding, and features incredible talent, lightning, and concept. The artist playing our sad corpse boy sings “a nightmare he sees, a nightmare he gets,” as the creature’s actions mirror each instant of new abandonment by Victor.

Now, Max (the creature, the monster, the poor sad corpse baby) was not alone in being abandoned by Victor. We see Victor very actively abandon Justine, but there is another, perhaps more striking, abandonment on a close read. Not only does Victor fail to bring up his brother, Ernst again in the book, but Shelley never concludes his story. Personally, I choose to interpret this as Victor chasing the monster across the arctic rather than abandoning his hatred and living out a life with his last remaining relative.

Did Victor ever really think he would get revenge on the creature and save humanity from an impending rampage we never see proof of, or is he once again fleeing from the consequences of his actions? Was his reputation more important than healing the wounds he not only inflicted, but dug up from the ground to sew together into a God-pride project? Victor could never handle how ugly his symbolic reflection was. We all hate the parts of ourselves that we can see in others. Let this text be a lesson to reject your personal Victor and embrace your DeLacey. Frankenstein offers a reflection of the world that we can all hate, and if we are brave enough to confront it with compassion, we might just learn to love it.