Vivian Trinh

December 12, 2016

ENL 3660.01 Gothic Literature

Final Essay

The Significance of What We Call Frankensteins Creation

Many readers of Mary Shelleys Frankenstein are quick to dismiss Frankensteins

Creation as brutish and malevolentcharacteristics of a true villain. They refer to the

Creation using periphrastic terms, one of the most common being Frankensteins

Monster. This phrase echoes the words of Victor himself, who seemed to go out of his

way to avoid naming his creation, instead using an abundance of periphrases: wretch,

demon, and devil being among the many. The issue with these terms, however, is

that they are hardly definitive of the individual that they aim to label. The Creation is not

the same monster that the terms imply, and to call him such is to ignore his genuine

humanity.

Names carry with them a connotation of personal ownership and identity. When

Victor failed to name his creation, already he had cheated in his responsibilities as a

parental figure. Yet the one to suffer for this was the Creation, who was subsequently

rejected from the parental household and left to fend for himself in a vastly unforgiving

and unjust society. Without a name and identity, the Creation could do nothing but seek

characterization on his own. The odds were stacked against his favor, however: his lack

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of a name, of a signifier that constructs identity . . . mark[ed] his alienation by and from

the world of human existence (Duyfhuizen 480). Even worse, it illustrated his lack of a

family and his exclusion from a chain of generation (480), which prompted the Creation

into thinking about the nature of his existence: no father had watched [him] in [his]

infant days, no mother blessed [him] with smiles and caresses (Shelley 137). Removed

from a generational line, the Creation stepped into the world without a context and a

story, what we conventionally call identity (Duyfhuizen 480). He was truly alone, with no

others resembling [him], or claim[ing] intercourse with [him] (Shelley 137). He wails to

Victor regarding his desire for a name, saying that he ought to be [Victors] Adam but

is instead the fallen angel (119). Despite this, it would soon become apparent that the

Creation was capable of kindness. Though his figure may have been grotesque, his

mind was sound, and in this sense, he was human. Unfortunately, despite his efforts to

fit into society, he would again be kept from a name and rejected on the basis of his

physical appearance, not his disposition.

The Creation came into the world as a gentle but naive soul, unwilling to hurt

anyone and uninterested in malice. Evidence of this temperament can be seen when he

spoke to Victor about his experience with the De Lacey family (which he recollects

through masterful use of languageproof of his intellectual capabilities). He was initially

inclined to steal part of the familys food for his own benefit, but when he later realized

that doing so inflicted pain on the cottagers, [he] abstained (128). Such an example

highlights both his naivete as well as his good-hearted nature. Additionally, the Creation

often . . . brought home firing sufficient for the consumption of several days (128). If

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the Creation was the monster that everyone seemed to label him as, he had no purpose

in gathering firewood and giving them to the De Laceys. He had no purpose to [clear]

their path from the snow, and [perform] those offices that [he] had seen done by Felix

(131). The actions were scarcely for his own benefit; they were actions of genuine

benevolence, and for this, he finally earned a respectable name: good spirit (131). His

endeavor to save the girl who fell in the river was also an action of benevolence; there

was nothing he could have gained from going out of his way and exerting extreme

labour [against] the force of the current (153) to save a strangers life.

Unfortunately, the Creations benevolent actions were answered with blind,

aggressive retaliation. It was an aggressiveness brought on by nothing but the

Creations physical appearance. Whereas he was labeled a good spirit (131) by the

De Laceys when he was working out of sight, he was promptly considered a threat the

moment the family laid eyes on him, and thus his name was stripped away. His identity

was lost, replaced by a superficial analysis of his being. The De Laceys had horror and

consternation on beholding [him] . . . Agatha fainted; and Safie . . . rushed out of the

cottage. . . In a transport of fury, [Felix] dashed [him] to the ground, and struck [him]

violently with a stick (148). This family, whom the Creation had so purely admired for

their kindness, acted without hesitation and spared not even a moment to consider that

the ghastly yellow skin (83) that wrapped his body held together the flesh of a friend,

not a monster. Similarly, after the Creation saves the girl from drowning in the river, a

man with relation to the girl saw him and immediately darted towards [him] . . . tearing

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the girl from [his] arms (153). He then aimed a gun . . . at [the Creations] body, and

fired (153). Such was the reward of [his] benevolence (153).

These misfortunes incited strong emotions within the Creation, emotions of which

then influence his transformation into a monster. As Felix assaults him, [his] heart sunk

within [him] as with a bitter sickness, and [he] refrained from tearing Felix limb from

limb, as the lion rends the antelope (148). As the Creation writhed under the miserable

pain of the wound inflicted by the man with the gun, his feelings of kindness and

gentleness, which [he] had entertained but a few moments before, gave place to hellish

rage and gnashing of teeth (153). Here, the Creation gives up his own humanity,

choosing to indulge in his monstrous impulses. I was benevolent and good, he later

tells Victor. Misery made me a fiend (119). It is not until this point that the Creation

truly becomes a monster, murdering others for his own benefit. Even so, to call the

Creation Frankensteins Monster would still be inaccurateSocietys Monster seems

more fitting. Alone, Victor did not create the monster. Alone, Victor merely assembled

the pieces that composed the Creations physical body. Victor did, however, contribute

to the birth of the monster by his negligence. After being repulsed by the Creations

horrendous physicalities, he abandoned the Creation even though it was his

responsibility to care for him. Because of his actions (or, rather, inactions), Victor

became one of the many in society to create Societys Monster.

Consider how the monsters in other works of similar fiction are never called The

Monster but instead by their actual names. Examples include Ambrosio in Matthew

Gregory Lewis The Monk and Falkland in William Godwins Caleb Williams. These

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men, like the Creation, never started out as monstersthe seed of monstrosity grew in

them for one reason or another. For Ambrosio, it was lust, and for Falkland, it was

selfishness. Similarly, the seed of monstrosity grew in the Creation as a result of his

frustration and anger at humanity. The difference between the two men and the

Creation is merely physical. Ambrosio and Falkland were born naturally and were not

composed of the stolen body parts of others. The Creation was created artificially and

took the parts of corpses to use as his own (though not out of his own choosing). The

details of his production should not be a substantial reason to call him Frankensteins

Monster when the other two men (the other two monsters) are not named as monsters

at all.

Such discussion leads us back to Victor Frankenstein, the true monster of the

novel. Throughout the text, Victor refers to the Creation using an abundance of hostile

periphrastic terms, the first of which he uses just as the Creation takes his first breath of

life: I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive

motion agitated its limbs. How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how

delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to

form? (83). From the very beginning, Victor had already rejected the Creation despite

not knowing anything about him aside from his physicalities. He calls the Creation a

wretch simply upon sight; such a decision is telling of his capacity for empathy. Not

once does he consider that the Creation may be more than a crude amalgamation of

dead body parts. Not once does he stop to question whether the Creation is capable of

intellect or emotionperhaps a human in a nonhuman body. Immediately, Victor

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discards him, and he does so after only regarding the Creations terrible ugliness. Such

an action is fit for a monster, one who abandons their child shortly after birth.

Furthermore, Victors refusal to take action in light of the Creations murderous

warnings highlights another aspect of his monstrosity: his selfishness. First, it must be

made clear that Victor is not a monster because he created something that would later

kill othersno, Victor did not craft the Creation with such malevolent intentions in mind.

Instead, Victor is a monster because of his conscious silence when faced with injustice

in order to preserve his own self. This silence is wholly intentional. When Justine is

accused of murdering William, Victor suspects that the true culprit is the Creation, and

yet he says nothing to prove her innocence. After the Creation warns that he shall be

with [Victor] on [his] wedding-night (194), Victor decides to leave Elizabeth alone,

vulnerable to the Creations oncoming attack. Ultimately, it is this selfishness that

premeditates the death of these two women. Not only does he keep quiet about

Justines case in fear of being accused of murder himself, he later wallows in his own

self-pity as Elizabeth comforts Justine, putting his own misery before hers. He says that

Justine, the poor victim . . . felt not as [he] did . . . and none ever conceived of the

misery that [he] then endured (108-110). During the Creations attack, he leaves

Elizabeth alone, taking great measures to ensure his own safety, walking up and down

the passages of the house, and inspecting every corner that might afford a retreat to

[his] adversary (197).

When he confronts the Creation on the ice caps later on in the story, Victors

stance is nearly unshakable, and he adamantly refuses to sympathize with the Creation,

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saying that he reproach[es] [him] with [his] creation (118). This highlights Victors

shortsightedness; the Creation was not a monster upon creation, as previously

mentioned. Though we know now that the Creation was responsible for the murder of

William, this encounter juxtaposes the Creation with the creator and contrasts the

temperament of both. The Creation at this point detests Victor for abandoning him, and

yet he still refers to his creator using his name, Frankenstein, as he pleads his case:

Believe me, Frankenstein: I was benevolent; my soul glowed with love and humanity:

but am I not alone, miserably alone? You, my creator, abhor me; what hope can I gather

from your fellow-creatures, who owe me nothing? (119). Victor, on the other hand,

continues to ignore his pleas, responding by calling him names such as monster and

devil (119). The Creation emphasizes that he is content to reason with [Victor]," and

his words are compromising but firm. The monster here, then, is Victor, whose hostile

responses clash with the Creations sympathetic requests.

In fact, Victors insistence on using periphrastic terms to address the Creation is

actually a mechanism of evasionhe tries to divert the listeners attention away from

his own monstrosity. He accomplishes this through use of repetition. Though Victor

uses many terms when referring to the Creation, he is partial to wretch (contrary to

monster, as most readers use). By the end of the story, it seems abundantly clear that

wretch is the signifier used for the Creation, who is the signified. Closer analysis,

however, suggests that this may not be the case: the signified is actually Victor, who is

first identified with the term wretch long before the Creation appears for the first time.

In the beginning of the story, Robert Walton writes that he had never seen a man in so

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wretched a condition (59). Roberts recollection of his encounter with Victor echoes the

Creations own story. Robert describes Victors ghastly physical appearance: His limbs

were nearly frozen, and his body dreadfully emaciated by fatigue and suffering (59).

Victor then faints, reducing his body to a corpse-like state, prompting Robert and his

crew to [restore] him to animation (59). Victor eventually [shows] signs of life, but it is

not until two days later that Victor is able to speak (59). First-time readers of

Frankenstein may overlook the choice of words used in this scene, but a revisit to the

story makes the connection clear: Robert has just described Victor in a manner similar

to the Creation, a gruesome-looking man who must be revived from the dead and who

was not able to speak until some time after his reanimation.

Thus, Victors experience and the Creations story bear striking similaritiesbut

with one critical difference. Victor is brought into Roberts care in a practically

corpse-like state, but upon reanimation, he is not rejected. Instead, Robert shows Victor

kindness. Robert starts to love [Victor] as a brother (60), whereas Victor never offered

the Creation any sort of familial love. Robert takes time to sympathize with Victor and

considers his past: [Victor] must have been a noble creature in his better days (60).

Conversely, Victor never thought about the Creations better days. Notice here, too,

how Robert uses the word creature, a term that is associated with the Creation, once

again emphasizing the similarities between the Creation and his creator. And yet,

regardless of how both men are wretches, it is Victor who receives kindness despite

his selfishness and the Creation who receives hostility despite his generosity. This

discrimination is, again, attributed to the Creations grotesque body.

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 Jeffrey Jerome Cohen writes that monsters are never created ex nihilo, but

through a process of fragmentation and recombination in which elements are extracted

from various forms and then assembled as the monster, which can then claim an

independent identity (Cohen 11). This applies especially to the Creation, whose body

was crafted by stitching together the parts of the anonymous dead. According to Cohen,

this fragmentation and recombination, whether literal or not, is dangerous because it

threatens to undermine the fragile definition of the Other: The monster is difference

made flesh . . . an incorporation of the Outside, the Beyond (7). Monsters are

displacements of the world outside the authors realm; they represent fear as seen

through the eyes of the ignorant. This fear of the unknown applies to multiple domains,

such as culture and race (7). The Other is always seen as less than oneself; difference

is a vice that can only be remedied through conversion. To this degree, the monster,

which has been created from various others, threatens to erase difference from the

world of its [creator] (11) by subsisting as a walking, breathing statement against the

status quo. The monsters very existence declares that difference is arbitrary and

potentially free-floating, mutable rather than essential, and thus the monster

jeopardizes the very cultural apparatus through which individuality is constituted and

allowed (12).

For the Creation, this means that his heterogenous body strikes fear on two

levels: one, on a strictly visual level, because he is hideous; and two, on a psychological

level, because his existence threatens to merge the unknown and the known. What the

characters of the novel fail to see is that the unknown is only frightening while it is

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unknown and because it is unknown. Victor does not know what he has created, so he

rejects it; the De Laceys do not know what is in their home, so they reject it. Neither of

these two parties take the time to learn about the unknown, such as how an ignorant

individual might travel to learn about the other cultures they have never understood.

Instead, they are content with their blindness, and because theyespecially Victordo

not know what the Creation is, they resort to calling him indirect words, removing his

potential for the identity he so desperately craves.

Regrettably, the same can be said about the real-life readers of Shelleys novel.

It is profusely clear that all the Creation desires is kindness on its most basic level. Such

a desire permeates and unifies the human experience, and yet he is denied even this.

The characters in Frankenstein offer him no hospitality in light of his hideous, macabre

countenance, and they insult him further by refusing to assign him a proper name. The

Creation is known as the wretch, the demon, the deviland the same terms are

used both before and after his transformation into the monster society already thought

he was. Society sees no change in the Creation because society had never known the

Creation; it only knew the idea of him as the Other. Society then forces its own beliefs

onto himabout what he should have beenand he subsequently becomes the

menace to society created by society. But the real-life readers stand behind the glass,

uninvolved in these events. They observe, and from their perspective, they may see all.

Despite their omnipresent perchdespite how they were able to see everything in

totality and not just in fragments, as the characters didreaders continue to use the

term Frankensteins Monster. And the usage of name alone reveals a frightening

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reality: even when given a stance where one may see all, the people in real life possess

the same shortsighted mindset as those in the novel. We are not God, and when we try

to pretend, the outcome is the downfall of our own constructed systems of reality. Such

was the case with Victor, who tried to create life when life was not his to dictateand

consequently brought his own demise.

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 Bibliography

Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome. Monster Theory. University of Minnesota Press.

Duyfhuizen, Bernard. PERIPHRASTIC NAMING IN MARY SHELLEY'S

FRANKENSTEIN. Studies in the Novel, vol. 27, no. 4, 1995, pp. 477492,

http://www.jstor.org/stable/29533087. Accessed 12 December 2016.

Godwin, William. Caleb Williams. New York: Oxford UP, 2009. Print.

Lewis, Matthew. The Monk. New York: Oxford UP, 2008. Print.

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein (The Original 1818 Text). Ed. D. L. Macdonald and

Kathleen Scherf. 3rd ed. N.p.: Broadview Editions, 2012. Print.

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