In this excerpt from her book Frankenstein: A Cultural History, Susan Tyler Hitchcock discusses
the ways in which Frankenstein’s name has been used throughout history. The
Victorians—who didn’t believe that the scientific breakthroughs of human beings
could really add anything to the world—saw Frankenstein
as a model of “mistaken idealism” (Hitchcock 263). Cartoonists used the image
of Dr. Frankenstein to satirize political decisions, they felt, were leading the
social system to an upheaval. In these situations the working class became
Frankenstein’s creature, ready to destroy their creator. In other situations,
such as wartime political cartoons, the creature often represented the opposing
force, feral and ready to destroy the underprepared British forces.
Essentially, to the Victorians, Hitchcock argues, the creature represented a
dangerous other who, not only, did not deserve sympathy, but who was also
capable of leading the misguided ‘Frankenstein’ to ruin. It was only the “radical
philosophers [of] the late 1800’s” (Hitchcock 265) who saw the monster as a
positive comparison as he was the force capable of making change, despite the
situations he was faced with.
Mary Shelley 1797-1851
In the United States in 1852 the myth was being used in a
way similar to how it was being used in the UK. The creation represented
something not necessarily evil, but certainly misguided, that required others
in the community to educate it and show it the light. The creation in this
scenario being the working class or the general public, while Frankenstein
represented those in the upper class who were capable of providing education. In
the 1900’s, as the United States aged their first colonial war against the Philippines,
Frankenstein became a symbol for the United States itself while the creature
became a symbol of a giant destructive force bent on ruining the American way
of life. Due to the shifting sympathies between Frankenstein and Frankenstein’s
monster, by the 1900’s people were beginning to use the name Frankenstein interchangeably
to describe both. This was a result of people being unfamiliar with the novel
and instead only being familiar with how the myth had been used in political
cartoons, articles, and other modes of opinion that utilized Shelley’s story.
This confusion over the characters also occurred because there were few copies
of the novel actually in circulation and it wasn’t until 1912 that the general
reading population actually had access to the text.
Hitchcock provides her reader with useful information about
how the Frankenstein myth has been used and abused. From people only having a
vague sense of what the story is about, to characters being seen in accordance
to completely different sympathies, Hitchcock argues that through societies use
of the Frankenstein myth, the original
meaning has been lost in a wider cultural sense. The ‘us’ versus ‘them’
mentality being applied to Frankenstein
is potentially problematic when looking at the original text because it loses
all sense of connection between Frankenstein and his creation. Of course it
keeps the sense of responsibility, the sense that Frankenstein brought his monster into the world,
that he tried to defy nature, but it loses the sense of Frankenstein as a failed
parent, as a mother. Focusing purely on Frankenstein’s God complex—as the
political cartoons often do—loses Victor Frankenstein as an individual. Once
the personal aspect has been lost then the story becomes less about a person
and more about a society.
Susan Tyler Hitchcock
Frankenstein did not just create the creature out of some
need to defy nature. Frankenstein from early on seems to be reverent nature to
an extent. Watching the power of lightening, being overwhelmed by the beauty of
the sublime in nature, finding comfort in the outdoors, it seems Victor cares
less about overcoming nature and more about being a part of it. Nature is often
referred to as a feminine force—Mother Nature—Frankenstein creating his monster
wasn’t about him being a God, it was about him being a mother. The need to
create and be an equal to the world he loves so much. Victor labored over his
child, worked hard to create a creature that would reflect his ideal new life.
Spending months away from the world, hardly eating or sleeping, until finally
he had created something he had thought to be beautiful. Victor’s sin doesn’t
lie in the fact that he created this being, his fault lies in the fact that he
reduced him to a monster. Reducing the complexities between Frankenstein and the creature to a relationship where Frankenstein
was misguided and created something beyond his understanding undermines the femininity
of the story, the issues of motherhood, and the responsibility of being a
parent. It is through this reduction of the relationship between Frankenstein
and his monster that cultural understanding of the text becomes simplified to a
problematic extent.
For excerpts from Susan Tyler Hitchcock's book Frankenstein: A Cultural History, go here.
For a very strange 'Monster Mash' parody video that will probably disturb you on multiple levels, go here.
Discussion Questions:
1. At various points in history, depending on the situation, the opinion on whether or Frankenstein or the creation is the hero seems to shift. Often they still represent the same things in political metaphors—Frankenstein being the political force or upper class while the creation represents the working masses—only the sympathy changes. What do you think this says about the ways in which readers were interpreting Frankenstein?