Frankenstein

Frankenstein was written when the theories of Darwin and scientists like him were widespread. The world was taking a new leap in terms of science. The hype for becoming more & more industrial was taking form as it was considered to lead to better lifestyle and better civilization. During these times, Mary Shelly was also undergoing many fatal psychological changes, she has undergone multiple miscarriages and was also suffering from postpartum depression as she was having troubled sleep patterns. It has been conjectured that these led to the making of a monster in her novel Frankenstein. Also, the times in which Frankenstein was written also suggests that, "Did Mary Shelley foresee the industrial revolution as a monster devouring all?" Well, the political radicalism of her father & mother brings us to another interpretation of it as radicalism in those times was also compared to monstrosity as of rioting and sedition. Despite all these, if we take the former interpretation into account, that is of industrial revolution as a monster devouring civilization, it brings us very close to what Mary Shelley subtitles her novel with "The Modern Prometheus". Prometheus being a Greek god who stole fire by defying god & giving it to humanity as civilization. Frankenstein in the same light is also the hero who ventured to put light or life into a body that led to the making of the first human being not by birth but by scientific methods in a laboratory. Is the industrial monster, the same monster which Frankenstein created that would devour civilization? Is Frankenstein the same "Modern Prometheus" as the industrial monster who is venturing to devour civilization? Can a male-mother actually give birth to a child defying god or in that sense nature ? 

Frankenstein as a male-mother cannot take the nutritive means provided by a natural mother because this would be against nature and if done would result in the creation of nothing but a monster. Male-mother as a patriarch snatching this only left role from the female sex would bear forth a monster and perform not the nutritive role but the role of subjecthood which is the prime notion inherent in patriarchy. Frankenstein created the monster to show the world what capabilities he has over other scientists, how he is far superior to all and in consequence of this also wants  his creature to worship him for bringing him to life. This endorses the same master-slave relationship of a patriarch, he wants others to submit before him, have mastery over them. On the other hand, a mother doesn't bring forth a child to claim any mastery of that sort, her role is to nurture without any self desire of submission from the child. This makes us agree very much that the being created would not be one of the most beautiful creatures for which Frankenstein laboured for but a monster after all and nothing else.

The industrial setup & patriarchy also follow a close relationship in that sense. Industrialism as a parent to capitalism bursts open the mother-nature and deprives her of her nutritive role for the sake of mere greedy men who want to submit whatever comes their way. When anything that's natural is deprived of its role then the actual doom starts as we can see in the choking & polluted cities nowadays.

Frankenstein as a novel is a synonym to monstrosity, abandonment & wretchedness. The doom echoes everywhere inside the novel. On a biographical note, Percy Shelley also abandoned his wife who was pregnant with a child to elope with Mary who afterwards was found drowned. So, "Can we say the guilt now is haunting Mary when she was suffering from depression for the loss of her children one after another?" To support this, we may bring the great French philosopher Rousseau into account to whom Mary allegated several harsh criticisms.Though she esteemed  Rousseau as a man of great thinking still she couldn't get over the fact that this very man abandoned his children for the sake of his own self interest. She thinks upbringing of a child as the necessary duty of a father which made her question, "How come a man so devoid of justice dared to preach about universal justice at all?" She was once reported saying the guilt Rousseau sustains within some deep corner of his heart makes him talk about universal justice not the justice which he inherently believes in. It's a disguise he wears to hide his very true nature which is very much against justice.

Though there are very few instances that say that she has faced the same abandonment from her father William Godwin whom she represents by the name on the cover page of her novel rather than as her father. That makes us think if everything is really alright between the two? Some instances point that there is a difference of political opinion between her father and herself that might have made her father being represented as the author of "Political justice &c." rather than any emotional estrangement as such. Mary has never been as radical as her father. She settled instead for a rebellion within the domestic sphere. She served to depoliticize the monster( which was a symbol of rioting & sedition) in the times of French revolution. She shifted from politics to psyche. Whatever  happening in those times was kind of destabilizing Mary. So, she focussed on the dilemma which a human being faces on an individual level rather than on a social level. The monster in Frankenstein takes our attention to the psychic disturbances that happen when someone to whom we look for acceptance & love denies to do so on account of mere outward appearances. It focuses on what one underwents when one is abandoned by his/her fellow beings. Not everyone seeks for social acceptance, mere acceptance by one's loved ones is enough sometimes. The monster is denied this when his only parent refuses to recognize him & even left him without a name, without any discussion on account of why he did so, why he is escaping from the responsibility he has being a parent towards his child no matter how he turns out to be and that too soon after he opened his eyes? 

Mary Shelley asks this question in the epitaph too by parodying Paradise Lost's famous line written by Milton which even Milton left unanswered. So, is the monster in comparison with Milton trying to put the same question? Is Mary Shelley asking the very same question to God or better against God? Or, "Is she into a trauma of her own life misfortunes that being the fatal miscarriages she underwent?" Is she dreaming of her dead children asking her why she bore them if they are to die before even coming to life? Are the children the very monsters she dreamt that couldn't make her go a sound sleep? 

When we look at the possibilities or rather at the genre of Frankenstein being Gothic we are also pushed to ask the same question which one critic mentioned, "How come a woman so young at age bear forth such a hideous idea & bring life to a monster?" And it after all transports back to her biography because her mother Mary Wollstonecraft also died after giving birth to her. Is she missing her mother in the traumatic experience she has been facing after the death of her three children?

We cannot deny the fact that when we are psychologically depressed we are in desperate need of someone to care for us, to guide us through our trauma. So, there might be a possibility Mary Shelley is asking the question to none other than her mother. She might be thinking if her mother would have been there she might have guided her or rather supported her in the traumatic experience she has been undergoing because a woman understands a woman after all. She might have been thinking she kills everything she puts her hands on. Her mother, her children, her husband's wife. These are no coincidences that make us think so. But I would not end here on such a conservative note but rather go into the epigraph in a full fledged way. Back to the question,"If Mary Shelley is asking the same question which Milton asked to god?"  She by bringing forth the monster is asking the very same question which the monster asks Frankenstein.The monster being the second Satan asking like him why when god knows he would raise against him bear forth him? When he knows he would be thrown into hell and face deadly torments, why did he even create him? Is god by doing so not a tyrant on its own who just wants to make a show of his powers and wants constant approbation of it by making his inferior submit before him? Also, when we apply the same logic to Adam; Is Adam also not asking it that when god knows his propensity to sin why did he even create him? Was it not better he would not have been born and humankind would not have been doomed at all? Is god not taking the guilty pleasure because this shows he wanted to doom mankind in the first place to show what he is capable of.

When we go back to the male-mother notion, would we not say that if the god which is 'He' as Milton says is wrong in even making Adam because that goes against nature's role which is, a woman can only bring forth children. When a man aspires to do so he dooms as Adam does by the 'Great fall of mankind". Considering these all, Marry Shelley is surely asking the question not as Milton 'To God' but 'Against God'.

By the inscription of writing not as Mary Shelley but as 'author only' says much about the play of patriarchy against which Mary Shelley has been writing throughout the novel let it be in a subtle manner. Because if she would have written as Mary Shelley, she knows she would not have been considered serious and when she is suffering from the authorship crisis that doubles the cause of writing merely as an author. Or, Is it her husband's doing? When in the preface Percy Shelley has been heard echoing that "The tale is excited in a playful desire of imitation", we least expect any other person in the literary domain dominated by men in those times to take the novel seriously. So, that drops the charge against Mary Shelley writing with an omission of any gender identity.