Frankenstein, the Man and the Monster

By Arthur Belefant

The hypothesis proposed in the book explains away the many inconsistencies and errors that appear in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and in doing so produces a new interpretation of the novel. Examined are such subjects as who actually wrote the novel, whether the novel is science fiction, incest as the driving force, and Victor’s motives for murder.
By a detailed comparison of the first (1818) and revised (1831) editions, the pulling together of many disparate sources, and a meticulous study of Mary Shelley's words, the author has determined that Frankenstein was not intended to be a science-fiction novel. Mary Shelley intended that her readers know that the Creature did not exist and that Victor committed the murders.
This analysis raises the level of Mary Shelley's novel from a simple horror tale to deeply disturbing psychological story based on humanity's most forbidden passions.
The book is copiously referenced to both texts of Frankenstein and to many academic studies. Several sites visited by Frankenstein and his Creature are reproduced.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arthur Belefant
• Release date: Feb 7, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311029096

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

In popular belief much confusion exists between Victor Frankenstein and the monster that he supposedly created. When the ordinary, non-literary person says Frankenstein, more often than not he is referring to the creation, not the creator.

Comic books, movies, and television shows, especially those intended for children, tend to enhance the confusion. Makers of toys, breakfast foods, children’s games, and T-shirts also blur the distinction. Those who have a literary bent and are familiar with the story written by Mary Shelley know the difference, although that difference may be more apparent than real.

Notes on the use of various editions of the novel:

There are two published versions of Mary Shelley's story. The first, Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus, was published anonymously in 1818. A revised version entitled Frankenstein was published in 1831. The revised version was credited to Mary W. Shelley. The vast majority of published editions of Frankenstein are of the revised version. In this study both versions will be referred to as Frankenstein.

Where a reference to a particular passage of the text is made, which is common to both the 1818 and the 1831 editions, the chapter numbering of the 1831 edition is used because that version is the one most readily available. See Concordance for the equivalent chapter numbering of the 1818 edition. When the wording is different, each edition is cited separately by indicating the year of publication.

In this study, to avoid any confusion, no one person is called Frankenstein, although Mary Shelley occasionally used that appellation for Victor Frankenstein. Of course, Frankenstein will be used to designate the family. In the texts Mary Shelley sometimes used the first name, sometimes the last name, and sometimes both names of the character to whom she was referring. To avoid any misunderstanding, I have used the first names of the principal characters throughout this study. In the Sequence of Deaths in the Appendix, the pertinent name is underlined.

Arthur Belefant.

Melbourne Beach, Florida

Chapter 1

DECONSTRUCTION OF THE NOVEL

Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin was only eighteen when she started writing the Frankenstein story. It was during that famous summer of 1816 when she, her half sister Claire, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Lord Byron were vacationing in Switzerland. Mary Godwin became Mary Shelley when she married Percy Shelley later that year. Frankenstein was finished and published after her marriage.

To understand the meaning of the novel, it is necessary to deconstruct the story as finally published. Frankenstein is assembled like an onion, with layer upon layer over an inspired concept. Each layer was written at a different time by a different author (See Appendix I, Concordance).

Mary Shelley, in her Author’s Introduction, describes the evening in Switzerland where she, Polidori, Byron, and Shelley read and told ghost stories to each other. Byron then challenged the others to write a ghost story. Mary could not. She went to sleep trying to think of one. Upon waking in the morning from a nightmare, she announced that

I had I had thought of a story. I began that day with the words It was on a dreary night of November, making only a transcript of the grim terrors of my waking dream.

At first I thought but of a few pages, of a short tale, but Shelley urged me to develop the idea at greater length.

From her own account of the writing of the story, Mary Shelley’s few pages were the inspiration which became what is now the beginning of VOLUME I, CHAPTER IV (1818) and Chapter 5 (1831), when the Creature is brought life and accosts Victor Frankenstein. The incident of creation contained in this paragraph constitutes the core, the innermost layer, of the story. We have no evidence of the development of the story from that first glimmer to the published final draft of the full novel.

That there were augmentations and revisions seem obvious. The novel grew from the simple concept to a short story describing the making of the Creature, to the addition of the Creature’s tale to Victor, to the addition of Walton’s letters, and ultimately to what appears to an addendum to the novel, Walton’s statement that he saw and spoke to the Creature.

The next layer, the introduction to the story, in which Victor Frankenstein tells Captain Walton how he got to the point of creation (Chapters 1 through 4), and the bulk of the novel, in which Victor tells Walton what happened to him after the supposed animation of the Creature (after the first three paragraphs of Chapters 5 through the middle of Chapter 24 when Victor dies), was added to the original core incident.

In another layer, within Victor’s story, Victor relates what the Creature told Victor of what happened to him after his animation. And within the Creature’s tale is another layer, the tale of the De Laceys. Victor relates the Creature’s tale including the enclosed De Lacey story to us through Walton. This much is Victor’s story. Thus the core incident is surrounded by a lengthy explanation by Victor of how the creation came to be and the consequences to him and the Creature of that conception.

Victor’s story is set in a frame of letters from Walton to his sister. Four letters open the novel and precede and introduce Victor’s story. In these letters Walton describes the arrival of Victor to his ship. Walton’s letters to his sister, which follow Victor’s death, describe his meeting with the creature and closes the novel. The letters constitute the outermost layer of the book itself.

The Preface, written for the 1818 edition, forms another layer. In it the author presents an apologia for the novel.

The Author’s Introduction, added to the book for the 1831 edition, is the outermost layer of the literary onion and must be considered in any discussion of the novel, because in it Mary describes the novel’s origins and authorship.

Chapter 2

ANALYSIS

The traditional analysis of the novel as a work of science fiction is supported by Mary Shelley, the author of the book. In the Author’s Introduction to the 1831 edition of her novel, she tells of how she came to write the story. She talks of a wholly physical creature, entirely separate from Victor Frankenstein, its creator. The Creature is not to be taken metaphorically.

Florescu finds the novel a realistic science-fiction story. He devotes two chapters of his book, In Search of Frankenstein, to detailing the history of the artificial man and the possibilities of creating one in the future. The reality of the Creature is assumed when he says:

There is, however, a deeper message to Frankenstein (no matter what others have chosen to read into it) . . . the moral of the story, one that Victor Frankenstein expressed several times [is] Learn from me, if not by my precepts at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge. . . . He has transgressed the moral law and hence suffers the inevitable retribution for his sins. (Florescu 332)

Tropp agrees with Florescu that the Creature is intended to be real when he says:

Frankenstein has been led to the 00000 wastes by his Monster and dies with nothing but his dreams to sustain him. . . . When Walton watches Frankenstein waste away from the cold and deprivation on his icebound ship he, like Dante, witnesses the terrible punishment extracted for the crime of pride and rebellion against the natural order. (Tropp 82, 83)

However, Rieger disagrees with both Florescu and Tropp that the work is a science-fiction tale. He says:

[I] t would be a mistake to call Frankenstein a pioneer work of science fiction. (Rieger xxvii).

The novel has been cited as a major psychological study. In the many books written about Frankenstein, much comment has been made regarding the ugliness of the Creature and how, in learning of the ways of humans, he copes with and reacts to the way humans are affected by his appearance.