Term Paper on "Shelly's Frankenstein"

Term Paper 6 pages (1583 words) Sources: 4 Style: MLA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Sickness in Frankenstein

Frankenstein is one name that everyone who has ever read a book would be familiar with. The name has become synonymous with monstrous desires and pure evil. Many often use it synonymously in place of the word monster but the truth is that Victor Frankenstein was not the monster; the monster was the creature he created and never gave a name to. Why would a man create a monster? Well that was never Victor's intention but whatever his intentions were, they were definitely not approved by God. And thus Victor continued to suffer all his life. In simple words, Victor was sick. He had a serious sickness of mind and heart that did not allow him to think like a normal happy human being. He was obsessed with doing something different and in conquering the world of science. And this pursuit led him to create a human being that turned out to be a ghastly error. Nature continued to act against Victor as he continued to rebel against God and that is why sickness is a very common theme in the novel.

Throughout the novel, sickness is mentioned so very often that it seems like the only real theme of the work. It was not just physical sickness that we read about, there is also sickness arising from fear, gloom, depression and pure horror. But the theme of sickness is there in a major way. Sickness in the form of illness is found throughout the novel. Victor or someone he loves continue to fall sick in the novel every now and then. Victor sees illness as a bad omen when it happens right before his departure for further studies in the beginning of the novel.

My departure was therefore fixed at an early date, but before the day resolved upon could arrive, the first misfortune of my life occurred -- an omen, as it were, of my future misery. Elizabeth had caught the scarlet fever; her illness was severe, and she was in the greatest danger." (Chapter 2)

Elizabeth was one of the very few persons that Victor truly cared about and her illness meant that something bad was to about to befall upon Victor himself. If it was not enough, Victor's mother also fell ill during the same period. He had told his mother not to attend to Elizabeth but she wouldn't refrain from it: "...she could no longer control her anxiety. She attended her sickbed; her watchful attentions triumphed over the malignity of the distemper -- Elizabeth was saved, but the consequences of this imprudence were fatal to her preserver. On the third day my mother sickened; her fever was accompanied by the most alarming symptoms, and the looks of her medical attendants prognosticated the worst event. On her deathbed the fortitude and benignity of this best of women did not desert her. She joined the hands of Elizabeth and myself." (Chapter 3)

The theme of sickness should be studied in the framework on nature against evil ambition because only then can we fully understand why Frankenstein and his dear ones fell ill so often in the novel. Mellor (2003) offers a very clear and sound explanation for sickness in Frankenstein:

Victor's scientific experiment, as the world knows by now, does not succeed. This is not merely because the creature turns on him, but also because "Mother Nature" fights back. She destroys Victor's health (he is frequently sick with both physical and mental diseases and dies of "natural" causes at the age of twenty-five); prevents him from creating a "normal" creature by denying him the maternal instinct or the emotional capacity for empathy; and stops him from engendering his own natural child by diverting his desire for his bride on their wedding night into a desire for revenge. Pointedly, Nature pursues Frankenstein with the very electricity - that "spark of being" with which he animated his creature - that this "modern Prometheus" has stolen from her." (p.19)

The illness often befell Frankenstein himself too. It was during after a stressful period and all through his dangerous experiment and its results. He was so ill that he could write to his dear ones. Elizabeth was worried about him and wrote: "You have been ill, very ill, and even the constant letters of dear kind Henry are not sufficient to reassure me on your account." This had actually been true as Victor himself agreed that "But I was in reality very ill, and surely nothing but the unbounded and unremitting attentions of my friend could have restored me to life."

As I mentioned earlier, sickness in Frankenstein is not always in the form of physical illness. Victor goes through several bouts of depression and anxiety. These anxiety attacks make him sick at heart. He felt sick because of his fear of the monster as well. "I was alone; none were near me to dissipate the gloom and relieve me from the sickening oppression of the most terrible reveries." (Chapter 16)

He knew very well that the monster could bring an end to his life and to the life of his dear ones. That was a gloomy dream and one that could easily make anyone sick at heart. Victor was completely defeated by the wretchedness of the monster and his sickness had cont8nued to grow since he had laid eyes on that ghastly figure. "I felt sick and hardly able to hold the rudder, when suddenly I saw a line of high land towards the south." (Chapter 16)

Part of his sickness also comes from misunderstood and misplaced guilt. Frankenstein should feel remorse for his action but he doesn't see his actions in that way. His obsession of creating a human being was grounded in purely egoistic beliefs. He was hungry for fame and power and wanted to be above everyone else. He actually felt that he was far superior to other people and felt that science would allow him to dominate the society. He hopes to use his creation as a slave or a servant when he proclaims: "Remember that I have the power...You are my creator, but I am your master..." Like a person who is impressed by social status and rank, Victor also possesses a desire to rise above the common heard and be counted as an important person. His aspirations turn him into a keen student of life and death phenomenon, which sets the stage for all the trouble in the novel. The gothic in this novel doesn't need to be unearthed; it is present in its full force from the beginning till the end. The fantasies that Frankenstein harbors as a young child, his time at the laboratory and his ultimate creation of a monster are various ways in which gothic affects Frankenstein's growth in this novel. Frankenstein is driven by an intense desire to do something outrageously different in order to earn high social status and immense fame and recognition, which shows his deep yearning for social superiority. "No one can conceive the variety of feelings which bore me onwards, like a hurricane, in the first enthusiasm of success. Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world. A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me." (40)

Victor fails to understand the root cause of his sickness though. It was true that he was falling sick because Nature was acting against him to oppress his evil plans but at the same time, it was his isolation from the world that was causing him to behave in evil manner and was the main cause of his sickness. All his gloominess and melancholy can be… READ MORE

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