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ARNAB SENGUPTA
S0MAELIT20200292
SEMESTER-2
M.A. ENGLISH LITERATURE

The Quest for a meaningful existence: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has often been the centre of critical debates which reveals to us
the thematic richness of her magnum opus. The thematic analysis mostly has been focused on the
gothic elements, the disastrous scientific drive which brings in the debate between religion and sci-
ence.
According to Patricia Comitini, she interprets “the novel as a social critique of the domestic
sphere, patriarchal relations, gender formation and feminine creativity” (Comitini 204) For another
group of critics, the character of the monster is the representative of all the repressed “others” who
finally manage to break the chains of containment and take vengeance on their oppressive society.
Despite all the creative endeavours of deconstructing the novel through various lenses, the aspect of
individuality and the quest for a meaningful existence hasn’t really been focused upon.

In the novel, Victor Frankenstein’s monster had been suffering from the dilemma of the mean-
inglessness of life since his creation. The monster never chose to be alienated, rather the society
alienates the monster. All human beings struggle to find a purpose and to exist with a wish to sur-
vive on to the environment they belong to. It is actually applicable to all the living creatures in the
world.

The existence of a particular species is not dependent on the organism or an individual, but
the surrounding, proper conditions and social relations plays a pivotal role. In the novel Franken-
stein, the creature after being created had a quest for creating a meaningful existence. It successfully
acquires an isolated space for itself in the human society but in the periphery. The monster picks up
the values, language and cultural traits of human beings for its survival but the monster’s appear-
ance is what set him off.

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His will to live can be studied under the essential category of existentialism. M.M. Madison
comments “Camus agrees that the universe is irrational, but that is as far as he is willing to
go...Camus argues that human life can have value and purpose, though the chaotic universe stands
in powerful refutation. In reality, then, man and the universe are antithetically related giving the
age-worn struggle between good and evil the form of rational man versus irrational nature; and the
good life must be lived not in harmony but in defiance of the natural order of things.” (Madison
223)

The famous maxim: “In order to exist, man must rebel” (Madison 227), becomes, "I rebel,
therefore we exist.” Camus terms the first form of revolt as "metaphysical rebellion," and he defines
it as "the movement in which man rises up in protest against his condition and the whole creation."
This protest is against the irrational universe that challenges human significance. (Madison 228)

The monster’s rebellion comes in form of harnessing his physical ability to harm people. He
wanted Frankenstein, who gets a Supreme existence because he is the creator, to experience the ex-
istential crisis faced by him at an individual level. So, the monster ploys the murder of Franken-
stein’s youngest brother, William and plants the picture of Caroline Frankenstein that the boy was
holding and places it in the folds of the dress of a girl who was sleeping in a barn, who turns out to
be Justine Moritz, who is later executed for William’s murder despite claiming innocence. The crea-
ture takes revenge against its creator in order to make him to realise the pain it experienced in soli-
tude. The monster also kills Henry Clerval, Frankenstein’s close friend to which Frankenstein finds
himself in prison. Later when Victor and Elizabeth get married, the monster kills Elizabeth. This
tragic end of Elizabeth, consumes him and honing to this tragedy, Victor’s father dies a few days
later. Victor’s inability to live to his word of creating a companion for the monster is one of the rea-
sons for his rebellion.

The first rejection faced by the monster is his creator itself. The creature is abandoned by its
creator because Victor confesses that he is “unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created, I
rushed out of the room and continued a long time traversing my bedchamber, unable to compose,
my mind to sleep.” (Shelley 50) So, it seems the creature when it gained consciousness was ex-
posed to the world without any prior knowledge of culture and humans and who he really is. In fact,
the epidermal procedure of categorising the creation as a “monster” strips away all the societal priv-
ileges and the very basic privilege of forming a human relationship. The second rejection he faces is

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when he enters a hut for the search of food. The old man inside runs away in fear. The monster pro-
ceeds to a village where people flee when they encounter the monster.

R. Rajan asserts, “We can consider Frankenstein as a partial human being who keeps on trying
to acquire a position in the humanistic society. But the flaw exists because it was created by aimless
purposeless creator that results in the monster‟s life and makes it a meaningless one which results
in nothingness towards its life.” (Rajan 104)

It created an impact on its creator Victor. But at the same time, the creature exhibits a kind of
adaptability towards the humanistic society to survive, while it undergoes the adaption process it
experiences a kind of alienation and stumbles to find a place in the society which leads it to the fail-
ure of its existence. In order to find meaning in life, living species resort to the factors such as habi-
tat, mate, physical environment and social acceptance. In the final phase of the novel, the creature
feels a sense of meaninglessness in its life after the death of its creator Victor.

His quest to find a companion always revolved around Victor. After his death, he lost his pur-
pose of existence as he knew society would forever treat him like a pariah. M.M. Madison further
comments “Death, rather than being a beginning, is the end of the road to happiness. Thus man
cannot wait to escape the evils of the world but must find his happiness within the limits of his fi-
nite existence. At this point in his effort, man is confronted with the irrational. He feels within him a
desire for happiness and for reason.” (Madison 224)

The monster’s desire to have a companion is what shows this aspect of existential dilemma.
Also, his attempt to master society norms and other language conventions shows his social attempt
to find connection and happiness within the human world but all efforts in vain.

In conclusion, categorising the creature as a “monster” is inhuman as he is rejected by his cre-

ator and the society. His quest for a meaningful existence is clearly evident throughout the novel but
in the end, when Frankenstein realises that “God” that is his creator is dead, his quest for a compan-
ion and his purpose of existence expires.!

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WORK CITED

Adams, Will W. “Making Daemons of Death and Love: Frankenstein, Existentialism, Psychoanaly-
sis.” Journal of Humanistic Psychology, vol. 41, no. 4, Oct. 2001, pp. 57–89,
doi:10.1177/0022167801414004.

Alizadeh, Ghiasuddin. “More Horrible than the Monster: Social Antagonism and Mary Shelley’s
Frankenstein.” Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities, vol. 10, no. 2,
2018, doi:10.21659/rupkatha.v10n2.19.

Madison, M. M. “ALBERT CAMUS: PHILOSOPHER OF LIMITS.” Modern Fiction Studies, vol.

10, no. 3, 1964, pp. 223–231. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/26278672.

Rajan, R. “A Journey In Search Of Meaning For Existence In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.” Jour-
nal of Research in Humanities and Social Science , vol. 6, no. 10, 2018, pp. 101–104.,
www.questjournals.org/jrhss/papers/vol6-issue10/P0610101104.pdf.

Shelley, M. Frankenstein, San Diego: Icon Group International, 2005.