Men, Monsters, and Materialism...
A World of Contrasts…
When you mention any date in the 1800s people automatically assume you are talking about the Victorian period. This is because Queen Victorian’s reign dominated the century for the most part. There is, however, a small period at the beginning of the century that is known as the Regency Period. Stretching from 1811 to 1820, it is in this period that a good deal of female British authors found their voices. One example is Fanny Burney who was an amazing satirist that often took aim at the aristocracy. Known for her quick wit and gorgeous agrarian settings, Jane Austen is another famous female author of this period. Anne Radcliffe also found her voice in the Regency Era literary world and helped to shape the genre that we now call Gothic Literature. When talking about female authors of Gothic literature none is more famous than Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly (aka Mary Shelly). This is odd since what Shelly wrote was not so much gothic as it was what we today would call Science Fiction.
While Austen centered on a world that held garden parties and spent lazy summer days on summer estates, Shelly's work often focused on urban lifestyles. This is especially true of Frankenstein. Given the staunch contrast between the works of Austen and Shelly, it is sometimes hard to reconcile the fact that these women were living and working during the same historical timeframe.
Austen’s work is usually held up as the example for the Regency Era literature as well, but it is Shelly’s work in Frankenstein, or the Modern day Prometheus that actually gives the best insight into the swift changes that were sweeping across England and the British Isles during this brief period. This was a time in British history when massive population shifts were occurring courtesy of the British Industrial Revolution. This is also a time in history in general when women were struggling to find agency in the literary world.
Surviving the Patriarchy…
The world that Austen and Shelly occupied was not very kind when it came to the publishing efforts of women. In fact, both women needed a bit of a boost from the men in their lives to even get published. Fast forward around 200 years and these women are still struggling against the patriarchy as the authorship of many novels written by females during the Regency, Romantic, and Victorian periods have been called into question. Most notable are the works of Jane Austen whose brilliance was downplayed by Professor Kathryn Sutherland a few years ago.
After looking at 1,100 of Austen’s handwritten manuscripts, Sutherland claimed that Austen was far from being the perfect stylist. Sutherland also credited most of the brilliance of Austen’s prose to the men who edited her work such as John Murray. The main thing that Sutherland relies on to make her case is the fact that Austen’s first three novels that were not published by Murray are actually sloppy and closer to the original manuscripts. What Sutherland fails to account for is that authors often go back and revisit their own work years later and clean it up. Sutherland also seems to negate the reality that ALL writers rely on their editors to create the finished product. This means that it is more likely that the first three Austen novels that she is referring to might just be the product of Austen’s bad collaboration with her editor rather than any real fault on Austen’s part.
Politics and Self-Promotoion...
So what does Sutherland’s critique of Austen’s works have to do with Mary Shelly’s work? Well, it seems that someone is claiming that Shelly’s work was not actually written by her. In this instance, a retired market analyst named John Lauritsen is claiming that Shelly’s masterpiece was written by one of her male family members. Lauritsen took a dive into the literary world in 2007 and came up with a three-part thesis concerning the novel which stated:
First, Frankenstein was often misinterpreted.
Second, Percy Shelly is the person who actually wrote the novel.
And third, the main theme in Frankenstein centers on Romantic male friendship.
The first part of Lauritsen’s thesis is vague enough to be applicable to all pieces of fiction in a variety of ways regardless of the author. What Lauritsen seems to be doing here then is establishing his right to interpret Shelly’s work in a way that he deems fit. Since no academic or reader worth their salt would argue this point this statement by Lauritsen seems more like a desperate attempt to establish credibility for himself rather than for his argument. He is also guilty of massive and shameless self-promotion on the internet so be careful that any article you read concerning his work is not, in fact, authored by him.
Credit Where Credit Is Due...
The second aspect of Lauritsen's thesis—that Percy Shelly is the actual author of Frankenstein—falls apart under real academic scrutiny as well because Percy Shelly was better at prose than the writer of Frankenstein. For instance, look at the way that the narrators of the piece speak in long-winded paragraphs. This has been pointed out by many literary critics as being demonstrative of an inexperienced writer. The lack of full-bodied descriptions when it comes to climactic action speaks of inexperience as well. For Percy to have written in such a way stylistically he would have had to digress as a writer to a point before his first publication eight years prior to the release of Frankenstein.
The fact that Victor Frankenstein seems to take on more of a motherly role with the creature also speaks to a woman's voice in authorship. This feminine style can be seen in Victor's unwillingness to destroy his creation until the very end, and in how he continually sympathizes with the creature’s plight until the creature kills Elizabeth. If nothing else clues you into the fact that Mary Shelly did indeed write Frankenstein, the fact that Victor Frankenstein continuously feels faint and feverish when placed under stress ought to as well. Hint Hint: think back to the many times that Laura or Anne felt feverish and faint under stress in Wilkie Collin’s work The Woman in White.
Repression Versus Lifting Up...
Given Lauritsen’s obvious love for the story found in Frankenstein, it is no wonder that he would want to claim some part of the narrative for himself. The themes and plot spoke to him. This is exactly what good literature ought to do. Lauritsen’s approach to Frankenstein is also very in line with the types of arguments that sell non-fiction literary critique books these days as well since many people have taken an interest in LGBTQ rights as of late. There is no need to negate the achievements of one section of society to lift another one up though, and this feels very much like what Lauritsen has tried to do with his critique of Mary Shelly’s work. In the process, Lauritsen actually fumbles his attempt to hold both Percy Shelly and the story of Frankenstein up as a brilliant achievement for the gay community.
Lauritsen’s reader experience—and his desperation to be heard on the matter—seems to have made him forget that Mary Shelly came from two very accomplished and brilliant parents. Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin and her mother was Mary Wollstonecraft (author of 8 books including her most famous work the 1792 A Vindication of the Rights of Women.) Given her lineage then, it is no wonder that Mary Shelly’s first attempt at writing would carry such deep and philosophical themes. Lee Suddaby and Gordon Ross also make it clear that by studying the diction and style in Frankenstein there can be no denying that Mary Shelly is indeed the author.
The Reader Experience…
Lauritsen’s main claim that Percy Shelly may have been a closeted homosexual who wrote Frankenstein in an attempt to explore and reconcile his personal struggles seems to be born more so out of his own reader experience than any actual evidence. He relies heavily on the fact that Mary Shelly often wrote things down for her husband and spends little to no time exploring Mary's sentence structure and diction--both of which are very telling when it comes to an author’s style. Because Lauritsen spends no time focusing on evidence that can be separated from the reader's experience, his entire thesis collapses in on itself. That said, there is no denying that the third component of Lauritsen’s thesis might have some possibility for use in seeking to understand male relationships during the early part of the 19th century.
It is true that Frankenstein does explore a relationship between two men, but the reader must be careful what they bring to the text versus what Mary Shelly might have intended. Keep in mind that men during the Regency Period had a bit more familiarity with one another than is acceptable for straight men today to enjoy for one thing. This is because the genders were a lot more segregated during this period so bonds formed in ways that might seem homosexual in nature by today’s standards. It is this type of relationship that I saw when I read about the interactions between Victor Frankenstein and Robert Walton.
As I read the novel, I viewed the two main male characters more as a father/son, mentor/mentee, or older/younger brother type rather than a romantic one like Lauritsen did. The fact that Lauritsen and I read the same story and saw the relationship between Robert Walton and Victor Frankenstein in two completely different ways speaks to the reality that the reader's experience is a personal one. That said, it is more likely that because Lauritsen is a longtime gay activist he may have just brought his own life experience into his reading of this novel than it is that Percy wrote this masterpiece.
Lovers and Friends…
Even as I do not believe that Percy Shelly wrote the piece, Frankenstein could be read as an exploration of male companionship—Lauritsen’s botched attempt notwithstanding. This becomes evident right from the start when Robert Walton asserts that he bitterly feels “the want of a friend”, and “greatly need[s] a friend who would have sense enough not to despise [him] as romantic, and affection enough for [him] to endeavor to regulate [his] mind.” Read as Lauritsen would like you to, the words romantic and affection are the indicators that give context to what type of relationship Walton is seeking from Frankenstein. The word friend is actually the key to understanding the entire passage though.
Throughout the passage, Mary Shelly makes that clear by asserting that Walton has no friend at the beginning of the passage. She also tells the reader that he bitterly feels “the want of a friend” in the middle of the passage, and even asks “How would such a friend repair the faults of your poor brother” in that same passage. Textually speaking, it seems pretty clear that the type of relationship Mary Shelly is describing is not a romantic one. Walton never speaks to or about Victor in a romantic or sexual way either so this lends further credence to the idea that he truly needs a friend, not a lover.
Perhaps the third part of Lauritsen’s thesis rings the truest for those who chose to believe it because it is the component of the story that speaks most directly to Lauritsen’s own interests as a person and a critic. The fact that Lauritsen is able to connect in this way with a piece of writing that is over 200 years old also speaks to its timelessness. There is something else in the narrative that keeps Frankenstein relevant to the modern-day reader as well. This is its subject matter which deals directly with two of the biggest realities of life, which are that we will all encounter monsters in our lifetime and that we all must someday die.
Monsters, Mortality, and Materialism…
Anyone who says that they do not fear monsters of death is a liar. Monsters may not be eight feet tall and be stitched-together corpses, but monsters are indeed real as well. Sometimes these monsters are our parents, siblings, toxic family members, bosses, or fellow employees. There are also the monsters of alcohol or drug addiction which can plague human beings and consume our lives. Other times these monsters reside in our heads in the form of depression, anxiety, overthinking, perfectionism, or imposter syndrome.
The point is that we all have something to fear, regardless of the confidence that many of us project outwardly to society. All of us fear death as well, and it is this fear that Shelly taps into with her masterpiece Frankenstein. We see this in Victor Frankenstein’s attempts to overcome death through the creation of his monster. It is not by chance that the monster is created after Victor loses his mother. She dies and he changes the focus of his studies. What Victor quickly learns though is that playing God is a very bad idea.
Victor’s attempt to play God could also be read as a critique of materialism. Defined as relating to the theory that nothing exists except matter and its movements and modifications. This is what Shelly relies on as she allows Victor to reanimate dead corpses through the use of science. You can see this when you look at the text and realize that Victor only ever refers to the body parts he is stitching together as the materials needed. He never clearly articulates that he has stitched together pieces of various corpses, but the reader clearly understands it to be the case.
Sci-Fi, Throwbacks, and Influence...
The use of materialistic philosophy by Shelly, and the fact that Victor Frankenstein continually refers to himself as a natural scientist and chemist of sorts are what critics point to as they claim Frankenstein to be the first Sci-fi novel. Incidentally, this materialist approach to the human body is what many cryogenic scientists rely on to some degree to sell their ware in today’s world. This approach to life and death is also what many a zombie writer has relied on from William Seabrook’s 1929 novel The Magic Island onward.
No one should be surprised that Shelly uses materialism in her work given that she hinted at the Greek origins of her story with the title of the piece. Materialism finds its origins in 5th-century Greek philosophy and remerged with the work of Karl Marx in the 19th century. The story of Prometheus also dates back to 7th and 8th century Greece, and like Prometheus who gives the sacred fire of Mount Olympus to mankind, Victor Frankenstein has gifted mankind the secret behind creation and immortality. Both have disastrous consequences.
The Macabre…
There is no denying that what Victor Frankenstein does is macabre. The macabre is what makes for good gothic, sci-fi, and horror novels though. Indeed, these types of fiction identify with a style of writing that is characterized by elements of fear, horror, death, and gloom. These types of novels also have a touch of romanticism to them which is what we find in the love story between Victor and Elizabeth, and perhaps between Victor and Robert Walton (if you chose to read it that way).
Romance can be found in the diction that Mary Shelly uses, and her word choice is sometimes indicative of the Enlightenment period which proceeded with the publication of Frankenstein. This writing style has been termed Romanticism, and it is this literary movement that bridges the gap between Victorian literature and the Regency Period literature of Jane Austen. Like Oscar Wilde’s diction used in his story, The Picture of Dorian Gray, the writing style that Mary Shelly is using in Frankenstein though demonstrates a nod to the past with an eye to the future.
When looking at the writing produced through the 19th century in and around England there is also a touch of the macabre to be found. This displays itself in the ghostly apparitions in the works of Henry James and Charles Dickens. It can be seen in the horrid painting in Oscar Wilde’s work, and Wilkie Collin’s work flirts with it openly by presenting Anne Catherick as a ghostly figure who lurks around in graveyards and seems obsessed with the past and those who are dead. Shelly takes a more open approach to it though with the monster as did Robert Louis Stevenson in his story The Body Snatcher.
Relevance, Femininity, and Application…
Because Frankenstein was written over 200 years ago, it may be hard for some to find it relevant in terms of modern-day problems. A deep read of the piece reveals why it is considered a classic though. For all of Shelly’s overly philosophical proselytizing, there really is a message for each reader who picks up the novel. For instance, Lauritsen saw the theme of male companionship that spoke to him. For others, the adventure in the story of the race to the North Pole speaks the loudest.
There is also the feminist read which places Victor in the role of mother to the creature. This type of reading speaks to the strength of intelligence that women possess, even as Regency and Victorian society saw them as emotionally and physically fragile. a feminist reading also requires that you admit that a woman actually wrote Frankenstein though, and that Victor is a projection of the author onto the page. There are many other ways to apply this work to modern-day life as well. One is by looking at it as a glimpse into megalomania. Another is by looking at Frankenstein as an environmentalist novel. There is also a cautionary tale regarding evolution if you look closely.
Megalomaniacs…
You don’t have to look very far in today’s world to find a megalomaniac. These are people who are obsessed with the exercise of power, especially if it allows them to dominate others. Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerburg, along with their pal Elon Musk come to mind. What do these men have in common with the men that existed in Mary Shelly’s time? For starters, their hunger for money and their lust for power. Indeed, Shelly was writing during the Industrial Revolution. This was a time of great scientific and technological advancements. It was also a time of great political and social upheaval. To put it plainly, the world was in transition and that left a great many people scared and confused about the future.
When populations become scared and confused they are more likely to relinquish their worldviews and rights to anyone who can offer them a simple solution to their everyday problems. Enter the megalomanic. Bezos offers consumerism to cure what ills the world. Zuckerberg offers escapism that encourages consumerism and Musk is all about projecting power and elitism as a way to control the world around himself. When compared to Shelly’s time, Bezos, Zuckerburg, and Musk represent the industrialists who got rich at the expense of others in the later part of the 18th and early part of the 19th century. Like these 19th-century industrialists, Bezos, Zuckerburg, and Musk have unleashed their goods and services on the world and take no responsibility for the trouble that they have caused. This seems a bit like Victor Frankenstein who let the monster loose on society and claims to be guiltless as he complains about his woes while taking no responsibility for the part he played in causing them.
Environmentalism and Evolution…
The theme of environmentalism can also be seen when examining Frankenstein. This is most evident in how Robert Walton and his crew attempt to tame the frozen wilderness. That wilderness resists again and again though which eventually forces Walton and his crew to retreat. The lesson here is that when you push nature too far it will always push back. Victor’s endeavors also end in revolt as when he makes his breakthrough in the natural science of creation his creation revolts against him. Here there is a hint of Shelly’s cometary on evolution here as well in that the monster can withstand elements that would kill a fragile human being. The monster is thus a new species created by man that eventually poses a danger to man when pushed too far.
Is Frankenstein a cautionary tale against cloning, designer babies, and biochemical warfare? Is it a tale of how when you push nature too far it will eventually push back? Many people have read it this way and there is certainly textual evidence to back it up if you pull the diction apart carefully.
Onward…
Frankenstein is a fascinating journey through the minds and mechanics of what it means to be human. It is also credited with being the first sci-fi novel ever written. This novel forces the reader to ask as much about themselves and how they relate to the world around them as it tells them about the world that Mary Shelly lived in. As interesting as Frankenstein is it is time to move on to my next in-depth analysis though. In an upcoming post, I will be taking on Bram Stoker’s Dracula. I will be discussing why it has gained broad appeal and how it became a timeless classic. I will also be looking into just what the narrative says about its author and his own lived experiences. Until then, feel free to come and visit Grace Slick and me on our Instagram account by clicking any of the pictures in this post. You can also read many of the books I have discussed here free online by clicking their associated links. Now, go read and seek joy!
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