DePaul University Via Sapientiae College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences Theses and Dissertations 6-2018 Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: Prometheus liberated Bintou Sy DePaul University, bintou.com Follow this and additional works at: https://via.edu/etd Recommended Citation Sy, Bintou, "Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: Prometheus liberated" (2018). College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences Theses and Dissertations.edu/etd/254 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at Via Sapientiae. It has been accepted for inclusion in College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Via Sapientiae. For more information, please contact digitalservices@depaul.
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: Prometheus Liberated A Thesis Presented to The Faculty of the Graduate Division English College of Liberal Arts and Sciences In Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts By Bintou Sy June 2018 DePaul University Chicago, IL Abstract Prometheus Liberated: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein Bintou Sy This thesis investigates the influences of Mary Shelley and trace her construction of Frankenstein. While previous studies have researched Mary Shelley or her novel, little attention has been devoted to considering both. This study takes a close look at the life of Mary Shelley and her novel Frankenstein as a linchpin, reading it as a reflection of Mary’s influences and as a document which itself serves as an influence to others. I examine in what ways the novel impacted English society and could have been read as an allegory for the human condition.
2 In the summer of 1816, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley, and their young son William, accompanied by Mary’s step-sister Clare, traveled to Switzerland and rented a house near George Gordon, 6th Lord Byron. A testament to the strange environment in which Mary found herself can be seen in Percy’s journal entry description of Lord Byron as “an exceedingly interesting person, and as such is it not to be regretted that he is a slave to the vilest and most vulgar prejudices, and as mad as the winds.” 1 The Shelleys would take guided excursions touring the surrounding area to such places as Chamonix. Situated at the junction of France, Switzerland, and Italy, this small commune would leave an imprint on the couple, enchanting them, especially Mary. She would write in her journal “there is something so divine in all this scenery that you love & admire it even where its features are less magnificent than usual….
this is one of the loveliest scenes in the world…. As we mounted still higher…the most beautiful part of our journey.” 2 Mary was enamored by the surrounding natural beauty of Switzerland. It would eventually serve as the backdrop for her gothic tale, where Frankenstein’s creature would be “elevated by the enchanting appearance of nature.” 3 The fateful contest between Percy, Mary, Lord Byron and Byron’s physician and travel companion John Polidori at la Villa Diodati, would take place on a rainy evening in July of 1816. Each of her companions would promptly draft a story or poem, but Mary wanted to labor over her contribution.
She “busied herself to think of a story” that would be worthy of its name and possibly worthy of her parents. 4 Mary dedicated her novel to her father, William Godwin, even sending him the draft manuscripts to review. 5 Embedded within her novel, would be references to two of Godwin’s most popular works, a political treatise, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793) and a novel, Things As They Are; or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams (1794). Perhaps Mary’s reading of her father’s works gave her pause to consider the negotiations and 3 conflicts that existed between affluent society and the proletariat, such as religious doctrine.
Religion painted an image of humanity that postulated man’s free will and choice, but perpetuated a dogma which outlined a particular hierarchical structure that made Western theology—Protestant Christianity—an ideological baseline for all thought. William Godwin was a known Atheist and his beliefs were widely made public in his writings. Godwin argued against organized religion because of its bias and power within state affairs for “wherever the state sets apart a certain revenue for the support of religion, it will infallibly be given to the adherents of some particular opinions, and will operate, in the manner of prizes, to induce men to embrace and profess those opinions.” 6 Ecclesiastical leaders in England held a considerable amount of power, particularly the Church of England which positioned the King as not only head of state, but also head of the church. How then could Frankenstein penetrate the minds of nineteenth-century England to convey an alternative path towards religious fulfillment? Mary Shelley would rattle the hearts and disturb the minds of Britons by writing a “supremely frightful,” novel.
It would contain a moral and physical evil that “mock[ed] the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world” to not only question blind allegiance to religion, but also present man as a figure that challenged Christian doctrine by usurping it. 7 This thesis investigates the influences of Mary Shelley and trace her construction of Frankenstein. While previous studies have researched Mary Shelley or her novel, little attention has been devoted to considering both. This study takes a close look at the life of Mary Shelley and her novel Frankenstein as a linchpin, reading it as a reflection of Mary’s influences and as a document which itself serves as an influence to others.
I examine in what ways the novel impacted English society and could have been read as an allegory for the human condition: 4 essentially, asking who could take advantage of human rights and who or ‘what’ counted as human. My argument is developed through a historicist reading of Frankenstein by first examining the relationships of Mary Shelley’s inner circle—William Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Percy Shelley—who left their marks on Mary, shaping her views and how she lived her life. 8 Proof of their influence can be seen in the family units that she creates for Victor and his daemon. Next, I consider the ways in which Frankenstein mirrored crucial aspects of the psychological, political, and social realities of England from the late eighteenth-century to the early and mid-nineteenth century.
Mary Shelley speaks to the burden of national identity, the political shift to Imperialism, and the fear and excitement of the coming industrial age by conjuring the philosophical arguments of her father through her depiction of Victor Frankenstein and his belief systems. Victor’s narrow view of the world originates from a position of privilege and authority. It is through the lens of entitlement that he gives himself permission to judge what was normal, acceptable, and beautiful. These same belief systems were perpetuated not only in England, but also throughout Europe.
For example, the tide of modernity had strengthened the people of France, but had crippled her government; thus bolstering post-Restoration England, which had a new found self-confidence and interests in the world around them. According to Carol Margaret Davidson, Shelley’s gothic novel is “a unique battleground bearing traces— among other things—of a momentous confrontation between Enlightenment and pre- Enlightenment belief-systems, ideas and values.” 9 These two value systems collide in the novel, compelling the reader to consider the question of selfhood and the values of modernity. 5 Transitioning from Mary’s inner circle and the influence of her novel, I conclude by exploring Frankenstein as a response to a fear of the “Other” that gripped Europe in the wake of the French Revolution. For the purpose of this thesis, the “other” includes those not belonging to a privileged group based on class, nationality, and race.
A new Europe was emerging, one that witnessed an increase of migrants from Asia and Africa and a tightening grip on the traditional values observed by the ruling class. This ruling class would employ science to determine race and judge beauty. 10 Colonialism and slavery would become necessary evils which had to be controlled and kept out of sight. Frankenstein summed up the conscious and unconscious fears of a society that was eager to fulfill its destiny, but was still very afraid of what the future could bring.
In essence, Shelley’s depiction of the daemon creature serves as a cautionary tale about the evils of man. She continues a dialogue that functions as “an echo of radical dialogues that demanded universal human rights,” a dialogue that would continue through dramatic portrayals of Frankenstein. 11 Two hundred years after the publication of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus (1818), readers and scholars are still fascinated and drawn to its tale of horror and its plea for humanity. Victor Frankenstein and his monster have been portrayed in multiple retellings beginning with the first cinematic Frankenstein, a 16-minute silent film screened in 1910 made by Edison Studios.
Hundreds of adaptations have since followed from comedic renditions such as Gene Wilder’s “Young Frankenstein” (1974) to Kenneth Branagh’s 1994 near-faithful film adaptation “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.” Recently, made-for-tv series have reimagined the novel’s protagonist, Victor Frankenstein, as a young, aloof, genius pathologist who can’t get a date in “Penny Dreadful” or a sadistic serial killer copycat who dismembers and reassembles children in “The Frankenstein Chronicles.” What is striking is that most of the 6 homages to the original Frankenstein fall short of what Shelley intended for her readers. David Pirie comments that “there is simply no way in which the kind of ‘noble savage’ monster which Mary Shelley envisaged, reading Paradise Lost and expounding moral principles to its creator, could be presented in the cinema without immediately becoming ludicrous.” 12 However, what the films do get right is that within each adaptation in which Frankenstein’s creature appears is a world that is experiencing or suffering through great change. By the time Frankenstein was published, England was transitioning from the Georgian era to the Victorian age that saw rapid developments in almost every sphere including medicine, technology, and immigration. The nineteenth-century saw many advancements in science and medicine, such as the invention of Anesthesia in 1846.
However, three years after the first publication of Frankenstein in 1821, English surgeon James Price recognizes the use of electricity on the body to cure illness. In a widely read essay, Price candidly wrote about electricity as “that subtle, elementary fluid, whose agency appears to be universally employed in producing the phenomena of nature, of unlimited extent: its importance in the system of the universe is beyond the comprehension of man.” 13 Britain was certainly not on the decline, as it held control over more colonial territories than any other country, maintained a first-rate navy, and set an intentional agenda to position the United Kingdom as a global leader. Shelley personifies that hunger for power and prestige, as well as the fear of these changes, through her characters as they try to define themselves. However, “man is a machine,” wrote la Mettrie.
He is “constructed in such a way that it is impossible first of all to have a clear idea of it and consequently to define it.” 14 Shelley offers an interpretation of what could happen when the benevolent nature of humanity falls apart in its 7 haste to dominate and frame man. This theme would present itself multiple times through slavery, ethnic cleansing, and religious wars. I Frankenstein is a semi-epistolary novel told through the narratives of multiple characters. Each biography unfolds revealing the story of the next character and progresses deeper into the question of the human condition.
The framework of the epistolary novel was made famous by Samuel Richardson author of novels Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded (1740) and Clarissa, or the History of a Young Lady (1748). Readers were given an intimate look inside the mind of characters giving the fiction the appearance of a possible reality. Richardson thus evoked an empathetic response from his readers who saw the novels as portrayals of a variety of human experiences.
