Was Frankenstein a novel of unreliable narrators and homosexual love?

Mary Shelley - Frankenstein, ed. Maurice Hindle, Penguin (Harmondsworth 1991)

To my reckoning this is the fourth time I've read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus since it first cropped up on a Nineteenth Century Fictions reading list on my English & Drama degree. The last two occasions were Marilyn Butler's 1994 Oxford Classics edition of the 1818 text (highly recommended). This time I chose a different edition off the shelf.

There is something unavoidably alluring about this novel - possibly due to the imagery of the diminutive mad professor and his Herman Munster creation that has been firmly fixed within the public psyche since 1931, and possibly because of the persistent reminders of how little this truly reflects the actual content of Shelley's Romantic horror / Jacobin Gothic masterpiece.

I don't lazily subscribe to the traditional, canonical view when I call it a masterpiece. It's a bold, challenging, atmospheric work full of brooding weather, poetic descriptions, challenging ideas and posturing melodrama - hardly surprising when you consider its conception, as outlined by the author in her 'Standard Novels Edition' introduction which precedes the text. It's not really horror - although it is distasteful on occasions (and no doubt the concepts it deals with would have seemed horrific to many at the time). It's not science fiction since Shelley (wisely) avoids any indication of what exactly Victor is doing in any detail. Is it Gothic? Not really - although it tends to get grouped with Dracula and Jekyll & Hyde as the classic Gothic horror triumvirate thanks to the 'Monster'. Does it fit into the Romantic movement, along with PB Shelley's & Byron's poetry? Possibly. But there are also traces of the Jacobins from Mary's parents' works - particularly her father William Godwin's novel Caleb Williams (1794). Thus, like any true masterpiece, the book resists cataloguing and pushes boundaries.

Although for the most part it doesn't feel like it, it's actually an epistolary novel compiled of letters sent from Captain Walton to his sister Margaret back home in England. One of these letters, though, is nearly two hundred pages long (I'm unsure of postage rates in those days but I'm assuming this would have cost a lot to send!) This, the main body of the story, consists of Walton recording as accurately as possible the tale told him by the infirm Victor Frankenstein who he's just picked up on his ship as he journeys through the Arctic. Walton is undertaking his own voyage of discovery. He takes to Victor and they become close companions for their brief time together; Victor even approves of Walton's journalising his story and (we are told) corrects the proofs himself. Mixed in with this dictation is also Victor's recollection of the Monster's life story, as told to him on the slopes of Montanvert.
It is clear, then, that there are many authorial layers to this story and it assumes that the reader trusts the veracity of them all. But can we? Is Walton, in particular, reliable? He is clearly in awe of Victor's resolve, selfless drive and singlemindedness, whereas he is aware himself of his own shortcomings when trying to achieve similar reknown for pushing the boundaries of current knowledge and understanding. Is he setting the tone for us to feel the same way?
Almost at the very end, just before Walton and the Monster meet, we get a brief piece of writing 'to the moment' - such as Samuel Richardson was criticised for in his early novel Pamela (1740). It's unfortunate because it breaks the reader's attention by its complete artifice:

'I am interrupted. What do these sounds portend? It is midnight; the breeze blows fairly, and the watch on deck scarcely stir. Again there is a sound as of a human voice; but hoarser; it comes from the cabin where the remains of Frankenstein still lie. I must arise, and examine. Good night, my sister.' (p.210)

What follows would have read just as effectively without this brief section. With one contrived gesture Walton allows us to call into question his reliability as a narrator throughout the rest of the novel so far.

Besides the narratorial issue, the main feature of the book that struck me on this reading was how insufferably self-centred Victor Frankenstein is. Other people are necessary to Walton - he can't go anywhere without his crew, for example. But by comparison, for Victor other people are a nuisance, an obstacle. He has the gall to play at being God, creating his own Adam (and nearly his own Eve) and then rejecting it for not being in his own image. He's annoyed at the Monster for being ugly, and for being more lithe, strong and hardy than 'normal' man - rather than blaming himself for making the creature that way. Victor at all points refuses to tell anyone how he created a new body from parts of cadavers and miraculously imbued it with life, because it doesn't even enter his reasoning that this knowledge wouldn't make Walton (or whoever) rush off and create their own 'being'. He's not made these discoveries for the sake of the progress of mankind, he's done it all for himself alone. He's appalled at what he's done when the creation first shows signs of life, but he won't take responsibility for his work and kill it; instead he runs away and hopes the situation will take care of itself. When he returns to Geneva and Justine is being wrongly tried and executed for the murder of his little brother he takes every opportunity to state how his internal suffering is worse than that of others. For example: 

'The tortures of the accused did not equal mine; she was sustained by innocence, but the fangs of remorse tore my bosom and would not forego their hold.' (p.82)

We only have Victor's word (via Walton) that Justine was bearing up so well. How dare he? It's a measure of the discourtesy and disregard Frankenstein has for those around him that he can make so bold and ridiculous a statement as this. Victor impotently blames himself in his delirious rantings for the deaths of Henry Clerval and others, but he always has an excuse not to hand himself in to the law or report his previous doings. When he does eventually try, towards the end of his narrative, he's clearly seen as mad in the eyes of anyone sane, so it's conveniently too late to win anyone round to his side. Most frustratingly, when the Monster promises 'I shall be with you on your wedding-night' - which is often repeated - Victor can only see this as the Monster planning to kill him before he can obtain wedded happiness with Elizabeth - this despite the Monster already having stated clearly that he wants to make Victor totally broken and wretched. Only a totally self-centred fool could fail to see what this promise really threatens. It is a shame that so many innocent others come to harm because of Victor's self-centredness and narrow-mindedness, but through their suffering he at least gets what he deserves.

The reader's sympathies are almost completely with the Monster throughout, despite his dreadful deeds. The tale of his development (which relies on incredible coincidence and good fortune) is moving and endearing. His reappearance at the end, when we find that above all he loved his creator and only wanted Victor to love him back and honour him as his own creation, is equally pathetic and emotional.
This is the only time the Monster's words are reported directly through Walton, not filtered through Frankenstein first. I noted a strong suggestion of homosexual love here at the end. Was Victor gay? He never showed any physical interest in Elizabeth, or any other female, and she was certain he loved another. He told her he had a dreadful secret to reveal to her only after they were married. Perhaps Victor really created the Monster so he could express a love that otherwise he had to keep secret? When the creature came to life perhaps he was as much appalled at his own thoughts as he was at the fact that he had created his own 'man'? The description of the Monster when he is first animated (p.56) resembles a penis in many respects. Or maybe it's the Monster who's homosexual? He asks for a woman to be created in his image - but this is reported by Victor and filtered through Walton, so there are clear opportunities for censorship before it reaches the reader. And there's this repeated promise that the Monster will be with Victor on his wedding night which causes him perturbation and misapprehension. Can we as readers trust that the meaning of this is being truthfully portayed through the double censorship of Victor and Walton? Perhaps, also, Walton heightened the suggestiveness of the Monster's final words to cover for his own feelings of love towards the recently deceased Victor?

I'm only throwing these ideas out there - I have no particular view either way. 


There are some other thoughts that struck me as I read the book this time:

Why didn't Victor simply reanimate the corpses of those the Monster killed, knowing he could bring life to dead flesh?

Why didn't the Monster's brain recall any of its previous existence, before Frankenstein acquired it? This would have made a very interesting angle to the Monster's development, but would probably have been more likely a hundred years later, post-Freud.

There is a glorious assumption from Victor not only that the Monster will want to propagate itself with its demanded female companion, but also that the female he'll create in the same way will automatically be able to bear children! Highly egotistical on his part. This is apparently something that all women can do, even when compiled from cadavers.

There is a wonderful moment in Volume Three, Chapter III (p.160) when Victor questions whether the female he is creating will actually want to be partnered with his original Monster; she will have her own thoughts, feelings and opinions after all. It's a very forward piece of thinking to allow Victor not to make that decision for her and expect her to abide by it. This is certainly Mary Shelley's voice coming through in what must be acknowledged as a statement of female free-thought and emancipation worthy of her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft.


It may not make my top ten novels of all time, but Frankenstein is still a book I would recommend anyone to read - if only for the melodrama, and to remind everyone that Frankenstein isn't the monster, and also how little the monster resembles the wonderful Boris Karloff!


As for the edition itself, Penguin have given us a very long and workmanlike introduction from Maurice Hindle. I had a drink with him once at an Open University event - thoroughly likeable chap. Hindle's introduction is nothing profound, but it thoroughly contextualises the work and its author, reavealing sources and inspirations. Consequently we get few explanatory notes at the end to enlighten the reader further - which is good for those who don't want to be distracted by numbers or asterisks and the promise of further nuggets of information or clarity.

Hindle has made a very bold move with this edition. He chooses the 1831 single volume revised version of the novel, but prefers the three volume structure of the 1818 original edition. Thus we get a composite edition following the 1831 text but structured like the 1818 text. To the casual reader does this make much difference? Probably not. Most readers probably wouldn't fuss over whether it was the 1818 or 1831 text either, or bother to read the extensive list of differences between the two. But should a modern editor be 'editing' a classic text to this extent? Doesn't this add a further level of separation and distrust between the reader and the author(s) as discussed above..?

For undergraduate students working on the novel it will be important which edition of the text you use, and so it's probably best to avoid this Penguin edition with its own idiosyncratic text, although the introduction is very useful and the appendices are a valuable bonus, featuring John Polidori's The Vampyre: A Tale and Lord Byron's 'Fragment' from which the former was probably developed (discussed elsewhere in this Blog).