Now, after engaging with a couple of redditors about the novel, there is an obvious debate about “Who is the real monster?”. I mean obviously, that was the entire point of the book. Most answers to this debate seem to side with The Creation over Frankenstein (Victor Frankenstein). Sure, most critics/readers/reviewers who offer more than a surface level comment on the novel admit and appreciate the entire gray area that the book resides in, and understand that none of these two characters in the book can be called labeled entirely ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Still, sympathies are more often relayed to The Creation as opposed to Frankenstein. In fact, from what I’ve seen online, it seems as though most readers seem to find Frankenstein quite detestable during their reading.

That left me feeling like a psychopath because when I read the book – no joke – I was often charmed and inspired by the revolutionary, ambitious mind of Frankenstein and found myself sympathising with him more than I did his Creation, at least as the book progressed beyond The Creation’s suffering under the hands of humans. Actually, even before that, I never really ever found myself repulsed by Frankenstein like most readers seem to have been. In fact, I found his ardent undertaking of the materialisation of his ambition through his cleverness, like, thoroughly inspirational.

Now, why this disconnect? It isn’t that I don’t understand the root of the affectations of other readers who side with the Creation. Of course, the part of the novel where the Creation camped outside the home of the villagers, longing for belonging and love and being lashed out on and abused upon the presentation of himself to them, got me all choked up just as much as the next reader. However, the pity which the tragic story of the Creation elicits is first dented by his murder of William and entirely shattered by the Creation’s framing of Justine in full knowledge of the consequences of doing so; i.e. her execution. Much like Frankenstein himself, I found myself deeply moved by the beginning of the Creation’s story but cold with anger towards the end.

The real monster?

And I also empathise with the source of the repulsiveness that Frankenstein seems to elicit in some readers. He is arguably selfish, lacked courage, ran away from his mistakes, failed to assume responsibility, and instead plunged himself into self-pity. But is this not the nature of an imperfect human being? Do we know anyone who possesses the moral perfections to always face every obstacle with courage and never, even for a fleeting minute, attempt to run away from their problems? Arguably not; I certainly know no one, and I myself am guilty of, more than once, attempting to flee from my past errors and comfort myself with self-pity. Maybe, This is what encouraged my sympathies towards Frankenstein: sure, he was selfish in his pursuits, but he never pursued any action with conscious malicious intent. Quite the opposite can be said for the Creation. In my opinion, his terrible crimes against the innocent don’t seem justified by the factors that push him to do so, regardless of how tragic they might be. Should he have only attacked Victor, and others who had abused him, I might have regarded him differently. And contrary to some reviewer’s opinion of the Creation lacking a moral compass, I think he did build one. In his time observing the peasant family, he does perform acts of kindness to minimize their sorrows. Driven by anger and rejection, The Creation seems to consciously and willingly forgo his moral compass and in full knowledge of the consequences, exerts murderous revenge on Victor through the blood of his innocent loved ones.

Yet, in hindsight, the Creation makes a good point about the unfair and discriminatory opinions of humans; that it is unfair that we should find his murders unjust and repulsive but feel entirely justified in wanting to murder him. I wonder, however, how much this sentiment would hold should he have not murdered William and Justine (indirectly) right before the statement? In fact, I wonder how willing Frankenstein would have been willing to help and assume responsibility for his creation should he have been reached out to (despite his probable initial rejection of a conversation) before the creation went ahead and squeezed the life out of his brother; he certainly did seem moved by the Creature’s story and compelled by duty to create a bride for him which shows that Frankenstein was at least willing try and assume responsibility for his creation.

Blame and Responsibility

Another common sentiment fostered among critics that I debate would be that Frankenstein is responsible for all of his creation’s mistakes. I guess it is understandable that the creation was indeed a blank slate and the creator’s abandonment of inducing a moral compass into his creation is the cause for his descent into evil. However, once again, I question just how much he was missing a moral compass. Like I said before, he does seem to have inculcated a sense of justice and unfairness. Furthermore, this argument reminds me (and is probably supposed to remind one) of the relationship between God and Man – more specifically of the philosophical problem of Evil or Descartes’s problem of Error.

These essentially question the seemingly paradoxical simultaneous existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent being and evil/ error-prone human beings. Descartes argues his way out of this conundrum by alluding to God’s provision of Free Will to his creations that breaks the chain of responsibility which culminates in the actions of said creations.  Similarly, surely the provision of Free Will to the creation would entail that the argument would follow and absolve Frankenstein of responsibility for its actions/mistakes.

Duty

However, if we change the analogy from the God-Creation relationship to a parent-child relationship, I guess it elicits a different response. Wouldn’t we be mortified of a parent who abandoned his child because of his physical deformity? Wouldn’t we be more scornful of the parent and more sympathetic toward the child who, abandoned and abused, turned to violence as a means of regaining control and purpose? Is it not the moral duty of a parent to care for his child? I guess, we could view the Creation as a child; he certainly possesses both the brute rashness and tantrum-throwing nature of one. Yet his intelligence (and beautiful, contrived long dialogues) subverts this analogy to some extent; this is perhaps why I instinctively took a side to Victor over his creation. Although, in hindsight, victor’s abandonment of his moral duty to raise his creation, with this analogy, seems crueler and more unforgivable. 

Immorality of ambition?

It is quite blatant that the novel wants to push this idea of the immorality of ambition. After all, a synopsis of the book cites Frankenstein “as a young scientist [who] pushed moral boundaries in order to cross the final scientific frontier and create life.” Now, what is this moral boundary that he pushed? The fact that he tried to play God?  i think it’s a little more subtle – I think it refers to the ambition that leads him to try and play god. After all, Frankenstein’s message to the ship captain seems to be a caution of ambition:

“Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge, and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to be greater than his nature will allow.”

Surely, however, the necessity to create something big, something revolutionary to change the world for its betterment isn’t harmful? After all, our society as we know it was crafted by and still remains crafted by a handful of revolutionaries: from Jobs to Musk. And surely the human impulse to seek knowledge isn’t a vice but is a virtue for our evolution?  I’m ambivalent about the supposed moral lessons from the book. I would even go as far to say that the novel flaunts feathers of anti-science sentiments.

Closing Thoughts

All that being said here’s what I consider to be the lessons to take away from the book:

1. Be a revolutionary but with full consideration of the consequences and a willingness to take responsibility for them. Victor’s main flaw, at least in my opinion, was his lack of foresight, overall cowardice and insufferable self-pity – not his ambition. 

2. Secondly, be aware of the influence of society or more specifically societal exclusion and ridicule can have on an individual. As I said, the monster was a blank slate creation who, at least in the beginning seems to have noble intentions and motivations, but it is the ridicule and exclusion he faces and the depths of loneliness he plunges into as a result that turns his heart cold with revenge and anger.

In conclusion, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a wonderful novel. If you can get past the contrived prose form with multiple compound sentences and flowery language (or if you can learn to enjoy the dramatism), I’d recommend you indulge in the novel to debate morality and duty – and revel in a little bit of sorrow, pity, anger, and fear over a rainy, quarantined weekend.

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