Life in a Horror Story

Joseph McNerney

Eng 102

Laura Cline, Instructor

October, 13, 2011

Life in a Horror Story

Was Frankenstein’s monster alive before Mary Shelley wrote the book? It would appear so.  There comes a time when we all wrestle with ideas and belief systems that we thought were unshakable. For most of us, the process will be an internal one, sorting things out in our heads. For others like Mary Shelley, they choose to express their struggle through some form of art. Mary Shelley expressed hers through literature, through the book “Frankenstein”. “Frankenstein” encompasses many struggles that Shelley was working through. The ideas of love and motherhood, and those of rejection and pain. “Frankenstein” was primarily a written form of her endeavor to discover what people for generations before her had sought: the real meaning of life. But to understand the novel, we must understand also the author.

            Mary Shelley was accustomed to loss. She was born to William Godwin, to whom the book “is piously dedicated to, and is written in the spirit of his school.” (Croker 189) She dedicated the book to her father, who was also a writer. Why not also to her mother? Barbara Johnson explains it very well in her essay entitled “My Monster/ My Self”. “Her own mother, indeed, had died upon giving her birth.” (Johnson 246) Mary knew the pang of growing up without her biological mother. Victor, Her hero, if he may be called that, also experienced similar loss. At the death of his mother he laments, “Yet from whom has not that rude hand rent away some dear connexion; and why should I describe a sorrow which all have felt, and must feel?” (Shelley 25) Mary Shelley no doubt felt that same pang of loss. Who would not? To lose a close family member or friend brings inexplicable pain. This pain is seen thoughout the book.

            It is seen also in the creation of Frankenstein’s monster. Frankenstein labors for around months, though not quite a whole year, in the creation of his new being. This is parrelleled in pegnancy. The nine months before birth are spent in the womans body forming a baby that will one day be her pride and joy. Victor stands in for the woman as he says “I became myself capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter…No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I could deserve theirs [the new species]” (Shelley 30-32) While the father of a child is no doubt important in procreation, it is the mother who will form the child, feed the child, and protect it from harm for nine months and afterward. Motherhood was something that Mary Shelley knew very well, both the good and the bad. While only eighteen, she bore Percy Shelley a daughter who would die soon after birth, and the next year a son. Both she conceived and bore while he was still married to Harriet Shelley. (Johnson 246) Having a child out of wedlock, in adultry, and watching that child die is pain beyond explanation. Miscarriages and early deaths are hard for any parent to cope with. Mary Shelley insinuates these emotions as well into her novel. Frankenstein, after exclaiming the above mentioned cries, is ready to animate his creation. What he beholds is not what he expected. It has been six or seven months in creating his new species. He brings it to life and beholds a monster.

“His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes…his shrivelled complexion, and straight black lips.” (Shelley 34)

Does death not come to mind? Shrivelled complexions and yellow skin, black lips and malformed limbs all denote the idea of a fatal problem in the formation of his monster. The problem would be as fatal as the premature death of Mary Shelley’s first child, born premature. The correlation is perfect. The six or seven months mirror the prematureness of her child. The horror of a deathly appearance correlates to the far more real death of her daughter. But death is not the only pain in “Frankenstein”. Rejection and ostracization permeate the book as well.

            It is noticeable to anyone who has read “Frankenstein” to see that emotions, particularly those of rejection and loneliness are highly focused on. From Victor Frankenstein’s exulatation to the monsters despair in the cottage and his feeling utter solitude, emotions are easily seen. (Shelley 30, 90)Percy Shelley, the authors own husband relates this well in his short essay entitled “On Frankenstein”. He writes,

 “This novel rests its claim on being a being a source of powerful and profound emotion. The elementary feelings of the human mind are exposed to view; and those who are accustomed to reason deeply on their origin and tendency will, perhaps, be the only persons who can sypathize, to the full extent in the interest and actions which are their result.” (P. Shelley 185)

Yet, it is predominantly the feelings of rejection that fill the book. Take the example of the point in the book where Victor Frankenstein destroys the second monster intended for the first as a companion. “The wretch saw me destroy the creature on whose future existance he had depended for happiness, and, with a howl of devilish despair and revenge, withdrew” (Shelley 115) The monster had depended on this female creature for company and love. When Frankenstein destroys it, the monster  again feels he has no hope of ever living in community with and creature on earth. What does this bear on Mary Shelley’s own life? As we have already mentioned, she had two children out of wedlock. If that is frowned upon in today’s society, how much more back in 1818 when Frankenstein was written? Their rejection from society would have been complete when we learn the list of improprieties and misfortunes that befell the Shelley’s. Barbara Johnson gives a list of them: the near disowning of mary Shelley, five or six illegitamate relationships, suicides, and becoming a widow at the age of 24. (Johnson 250) Is it any wonder that Mary Shelley could write about rejection, loss, loneliness, and the other sharp human feelings so poignantly?

            Frankenstein then is much more an encrypted autobiography than a horror novel. Mary Shelley’s life itself was full of pain and horror. Frankenstein was written as a pasttime. “…Mary, Shelley, Byron, and several others, picked up a volume of ghost stories and decided to write a collection of spine-tingling tales of their own.” (Johnson 247) In Mary’s case, the ghost story became a phantom of her own life. In the words of Victor Frankenstein, “Listen to my history, and you will percieve how irrevocably it is determined.” (M. Shelley 17) Horror or autobiography? Perhaps it is both.

Works Cited

Croker, John. "From "Quarterly Review"." Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Ed. J. Paul Hunter. Norton Critical. New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1996. 187-190. Document.

Johnson, Barbara. "My Monster/My Self." Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Ed. J. Paul Hunter. Norton Critical. New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1996. 241-251. book.

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Ed. J. Paul Hunter. Norton Critical. Vols. I-III. New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1996. III vols. Book.

Shelley, Percy. "On Frankenstein." Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Ed. J. Paul Hunter. Norton Critical. New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1996. 185-186. Book.