Download Frankenstein Review

History of Ideas
Prof. B. Harvey
FRANKENSTEIN REVIEW
BIG PICTURE
--from Locke to Equiano: we studied the emergence of a “possessive selfhood,” a self defined in terms of the
delights (and protection) of property and a self, which by objectifying the world, gains rationalist mastery over
it.
--Wordsworth, Keats, and Shelley’s Frankenstein: bourgeois spaces (middle-class people & a state of
social being, in more or less cozy property/family scenario, which derived from above) are critiqued for a more
profound metaphysical need (Wordsworth’s “a sense of something far more deeply interfused” or Keats’s
longing to be out-of-time in his back-garden with the bird) or for a recognition of inward/turmoiled psychology,
i.e., Victor’s/the monster’s mix of love and hate (anticipating Freud).
--our next set of writers add a new concept of “deep time” (Darwin) or a concept of social
forces/relations changing over time (Marx) or layered-time/memories within (Freud). For Enlightenment
writers, although there was a sense of perfectibility and progress, the latter was deemed less in
evolutionary/dynamic terms than in the elimination of prejudice and partial perspectives, of tyrannies of the
mind and social sphere (Voltaire’s line about getting rid of kings and the church).
FRANKENSTEIN and ROMANTICISM (same as notes for Fuseli “Nightmare”, except for last point)
Wordsworth in “Tintern Abbey” fuses self to the natural scene. The sublime sense of “something far more
deeply interfused” saturates both the self and nature, overcoming the rift between mind (no dimensionality) to
what is external to mind (3-D).
But even as he writes hypnotic/narcotic poetry to pull you into this somber/tranquil/ ”zen being” state, he
recognizes he is self-conscious and not at “one” with nature as in his youth. Also, he hears the “Still sad
music of humanity”—i.e. death.
Romantics seek to inhabit realms of bliss and beauty, but such is always vexed by alienation and mortality,
which makes the bliss/out-of-time sensation (Keats’ “Ode to the Nightingale”) all the more poignant.
This mix of desire and death occurs in a more transgressive/aggressive form in the Fuseli painting. What is
the scene—imaginative rape or seduction by dark demon forces; is this a nightmare or a dream of desire?
Now to Frankenstein: the monster continually manifests longing & hate, a desire to be embraced by his
father-creator and a desire to destroy him. Victor loves his wife Elizabeth; but rather than a night of libido,
there is a night of murder. The story merges what Freud will call eros (sexual love) and the death instinct (a
desire to destroy/be aggressive). See page 186 (2 pages into chapter 23).
Narrative frame & structure of Frankeinstein = box within box within box, no geography/bourgeois space or
any space is lingered on; we don’t linger mimetically/realistically on a scene, but move thru one exotic locale
after another. Shelley is not attempting to mirror reality, but rather providing an imaginative lamp unto
“realities” that have nothing to do with day-to-day life, except that the family is obsessively returned to and
evaded, as if the family/nurturance is at once desired and spurned (which is true to our own psychological
development, kinky or not!):
1st third: Victor leaves family to create monster & to follow his egotistic ambition and will
2nd third: monster recounts his “upbringing” via voyeur watching of cottage family
3rd third: Victor leaves family again, chases monster, and monster slays V’s family