Who Wrote Frankenstein?

The supernatural story behind the famous Halloween icon.

Frankenstein is an icon of American cinema and pop culture, especially of Halloween. Everyone knows that squarish head, with green leathery skin and unsightly red stitches. The original story was written by a 19th-century Englishwoman named Mary Shelley. She was the daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. As such, she was the lovechild of two of the era’s most groundbreaking intellectuals. Godwin was the father of philosophical anarchism, while Wollstonecraft was the mother of Western feminism. Shelley’s Frankenstein became a definitive work of a European literary and cultural movement known as Romanticism, which emphasized the expression of visceral emotions. Her classic novel was written as a warning against the dystopian and frightening consequences of modern technology. 

Genre

Mary Shelley wrote her famous Frankenstein novel in the Gothic genre. The word Gothic originated as a term of derision and mockery, in reference to the Gothic barbarians who sacked Rome. It implies something that is terrifying, foreboding, dark and mysterious. Shelley’s ultra-famous novel was truly one of a kind. It can arguably be described as a wholly original form of horror, or even as the world’s first-ever science fiction story. Frankenstein was not completely without precedent. Much of the lore we know and love today was popular as early as the Middle Ages. This included ghost stories, werewolves, vampires, ghosts, and other paranormal entities. But what was so original about Frankenstein is that the monster was not a product of supernatural forces. The Frankenstein monster was entirely the artificial creation of man. As such, Shelley’s novel is sometimes regarded as the first true work of science fiction. Another possible description of Frankenstein’s genre is dystopia. During the Enlightenment of the 18th century, many European intellectuals expressed a utopian optimism about the ability of reason, science, and logic to improve the human condition. But Shelley’s macabre story rejected this vision, casting an uncomfortable light on the dark side of technological progress. 

Context

Prior to the 18th century, Europe was a very different place. Religion was used to explain natural calamities, such as earthquakes and diseases. Puritans in particular held that any misfortune was the direct result of God’s vengeance against sinners. There was also a strong belief in aristocracy and monarchy. This was based on the doctrine of the divine right of kings. It was commonly held that people were born into social classes, which they could not move upward in. Disobedience to fathers, lords, or kings was considered a sin. Shelley came of age at a time of immense social change in Europe. The Age of Enlightenment, sometimes called the Age of Reason, challenged the prevailing orthodoxies of the previous two millennia. Natural and scientific explanations became more popular than theological or religious ones. It spawned the idea that the application of human reason could actually solve problems. As part of this emphasis on science, the human body was treated much differently. In the Middle Ages, scientific study of the body was somewhat discouraged, based on the belief that the divine essence was still present in a human corpse. But the Enlightenment made a distinction between the body and the soul. In this Cartesian dualist view, the body was subject to the natural, deterministic laws of physics. The Enlightenment cast itself as a rejection of religious superstition in favor of reason and science. So there was no scrupulosity surrounding the scientific study and dissection of the human body and organs. Furthermore, the Enlightenment placed an emphasis on nature. Medieval Christianity held that all humans were born into a state of original sin. But Enlightenment intellectuals rejected this view. Instead, they saw human nature as a blank slate, or tabula rasa. From this perceptive, all human behavior was the product of environmental factors. As a corollary, this meant that human nature itself could be molded by changing society. Political reforms became a real possibility, rather than a taboo or sacrilege. The most dramatic expression of this utopian vision were the American and French Revolutions, both of which occurred near the end of the 18th century. In the United States, the American revolutionaries overthrew the British monarchy and established a constitutional republic. Back in continental Europe, in France, King Louis XVI was beheaded. Symbolically, it represented the death of tradition and the birth of modernity. Mary Shelley’s father, William Godwin, was himself a great thinker of the Enlightenment. He was a radical political theorist who followed the liberal tradition of John Locke. Godwin emphasized the need for government to represent its people. He supported the right of revolution to overthrow a tyrannical government. Mary’s mother was the more famous of her two parents. Wollstonecraft wrote the book Vindication of the Rights of Woman in the early 1790s. It was the world’s first-ever feminist manifesto. In this foundational treatise, Wollstonecraft argued that men and women were naturally equal. This meant that both sexes were equally intelligent. If women were educated like men, she argued, women would be just as successful. Her feminism shaped her views of marriage. Wollstonecraft argued that marriage should be based on equality, between two individuals with an equal capacity for reason. She emphasized marriage as a partnership, rather than a co-dependency. Both of Shelley’s parents moved to France just before the Revolution. Wollstonecraft died of infection shortly after giving birth to Mary. The theme of a child killing the parent was something that infused Shelley’s writings. Ideologically, Shelley sought to “kill” the utopian Enlightenment ideals of her parents. 

Frankenstein

After Wollstonecraft’s death, Godwin remarried another woman. Shelley disliked her stepmother. She regarded her upbringing as cold and academic. It was not a very affectionate environment. At the age of 17, young Mary eloped with a handsome Romantic poet named Percy Bysshe Shelley. Romanticism was a rival intellectual movement that emerged as a challenge to Enlightenment rationalism. Figures like Percy Shelley and Lord Byron hated the overemphasis on rationality, instead stressing the importance of emotions and the irrational. One of the most potent human emotions is terror, which would characterize the Frankenstein mythos. When Percy entered Mary’s life, he already had children from a previous marriage. Their unorthodox relationship certainly reflected the uninhibited passion of their Romanticist ideals. Mary and Percy Shelley traveled across Europe, up and down the Rhine. They indulged freely in open sexual liaisons. They experimented with drugs. On one occasion, the Romantic poets, including the two Shelleys, attended a bohemian party in Geneva, at the base at the Alps. They entertained themselves by telling ghost stories. A contest emerged over who could tell the scariest story. Mary Shelley proceeded to tell what we now call Frankenstein. Mesmerized, Percy and Lord Byron encouraged her to write and publish her story as a novel. There is plenty of lore about how Mary Shelley got her idea of Frankenstein. Some say it was named after a real-life Castle of Frankenstein, located south of Frankfurt. Supposedly, it was where macabre experiments were done to resurrect dead people. 

The monster

The best written description of Frankenstein comes from Shelley’s novel. The character Victor Frankenstein describes the titular monster as having dark black hair, sunken watery eyes, pearl white teeth, and wrinkly yellow skin. The first live-action depiction of Frankenstein was a silent movie from 1910. Because of Frankenstein’s cinematic appearances, many people wrongly assume that the novel is focused on the monster. Actually, Shelley’s novel is focused on Victor Frankenstein, the monster’s creator. The monster is never given a name in the original story. The story follows Victor’s attempt to craft the ideal human being, applying the ideals of the Enlightenment into practice. Reflecting those ideals, the monster is described as a superhuman creature with exceptional rationality and physical power. In disgust and horror, Victor abandons his creation. However, Shelley’s monster is not the big-walking, grunting Boris Karloff from the movies. In the original story, the Frankenstein monster is an intelligent philosopher. He can read several languages. He is highly educated and civilized. When the monster asks Victor to create a female version, the scientist begins to second-guess himself. He fears the consequences of the female Frankenstein rejecting the male one. And if the female likes the monster, Victor fears the breeding of a superhuman race that could destroy humanity. When Victor refuses to create a female Frankenstein, the monster is outraged. In the most tragic part of the story, the monster murders Victor’s wife Elizabeth on their wedding night. 

Interpretations

Frankenstein is a great story that is open to many different interpretations. The monster is an allegory of creation. Although not conventionally religious, Mary Shelley was nevertheless a deeply spiritual woman. She knew enough of the Judeo-Christian tradition to understand that, from the Book of Genesis, humans are made in God’s image. While humans have similarities to God, they are distinct from the Creator. So Shelley’s novel is a rejection of the scientific reductionism of the Enlightenment, which wrongly defined humanity in purely materialistic terms. The Frankenstein monster is frightening, because he is so uncanny and morbidly humanoid. Romanticism tended to favor art over science, and so Frankenstein is a reflection of that contempt for that pure and detached rationality. According to one interpretation, Victor and the monster can be understood as the same consciousness. Whenever the monster commits his murders, Victor is always in a weird dream-like trance. In this interpretation, Frankenstein expresses the theme of duality that is more popularly expressed in Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in the 1880s. Oddly, the victims in Frankenstein are usually people that Victor doesn’t really like in the first place. In this perceptive, Frankenstein—and the whole horror genre in general—represents a subconscious form of wish fulfillment. The compelling character of Frankenstein can be understood as an allegory for secular modernity. In the Middle Ages, human beings were always understood to have a divine purpose to their lives. But the rise of modern science has challenged this traditional teleological understanding of human nature. At the end of the novel, the Frankenstein monster regrets his own existence and prepares to commit suicide by burning himself in a funeral pyre. This could signify the existential angst and meaninglessness of a life devoid of any higher spiritual or supernatural significance. The trope of Frankenstein is frequently invoked as a warning against the excesses of modern technology. While technology has greatly improved human life, it has also created its own set of challenges and crises. Genetic engineering can cure hereditary diseases, but it can also be used for eugenics. The same technology that saves lives can also threaten them in unprecedented ways, such as the possibility of nuclear war. Shelley’s story is thus a warning against the dangerous detachment of scientific progress from morality. In any case, the breadth of these interpretations reflects the entrancing sophistication of the Frankenstein story. 

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