Frankenstein and Universal Mystery
Though it was first written as ghost story submitted to a contest between friends, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein has deeply ingrained itself within the collective consciousness of Western civilization. Its brilliant scientist, Victor Frankenstein, drunk with power, imbues life into a body sewn together from corpses, and is forced to pay the price for his usurpation of powers not meant for man to wield. The image of science gone horrifically wrong has incredible relevance to the modern era, as the real and foreseeable dangers of nuclear weaponry, genetic engineering, and cloning weigh heavily upon the minds of every human being. Even more profoundly, Frankenstein explores some of the deepest mysteries of the human condition: what is humankind's existence, and what are its limits? Through the investigations into these questions undertaken by both Frankenstein and his creation are ultimately futile, they offer powerful commentary upon human nature and existence.
Victor Frankenstein's scientific endeavors make him a symbol of the seemingly inexorable force of Progress, the energy inherent in humanity that drives scientific and technological advancement. "It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn;" says Frankenstein. His quest takes him on a tour of Medieval European science, and he becomes engrossed in the works of alchemist Cornelius Agrippa, eventually moving on to the more modern science conducted by the likes of Issac Newton. This rehashing of Western science from its earliest beginnings to the cutting edge of 1816, when Mary Shelley penned Frankenstein, cements Victor Frankenstein's status as symbol of that scientific history and the urge that powers it. Frankenstein's association with the ideas of the ancient alchemists also brought him in contact with the search for the "elixir of life"—a quasi-magical substance believed to grant immortality. Frankenstein says that this search "obtained my undivided attention," culminating in his discovery of the secret to creating, if not indefinitely sustaining, life. His motivations for creating the monster that is now so famous are twofold, a mixture of the admirable and the selfish: "Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds," he says, "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..." Though he nobly wishes to illuminate humanity by breaking the bonds of death, he is consciously playing God, setting himself up as a revered idol. He also reveals his hubris, the presumptuous overstepping of bounds into realms that humans were not meant to enter. It is this loosing of the chains of life and death that leads to his doom, which he admits, crying that the monster is a "living monument of presumption and rash ignorance that I had let loose upon the world."
Frankenstein's ultimately self-destructive desire to "unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation" touches on a theme that has run through millennia of human thought and literature: the simultaneous danger and god-like power inherent in knowledge. It was a fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil that tempted the Biblical Adam to his Fall, with the serpent telling Eve "that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil."—perhaps one of the earliest examples of this idea in mythology. Goethe's tragic hero Faust also desired God-like knowledge, selling his soul to the Devil in return for the power. The myth of Prometheus, which the novel directly addresses through its subtitle, which calls Frankenstein "the Modern Prometheus," carries a similar theme. In the Greek myth, the God-like Titan brings knowledge of fire to man, and is tormented by the Gods for his crime. As an analogue of Prometheus, Frankenstein unleashes forbidden knowledge upon humanity, and pays the price of a tormented existence. Though each of these characters was "sinful" in their pursuit of knowledge, there is a tragic nobility in their sacrifices, suggesting that the investigation of the mysteries of the universe is at once futile and essential to humanity—without our sometimes arrogant aspiration, we would not be truly and tragically "human."
As Frankenstein's experiences reveal this aspect of human nature, his creation's misery leads it to explore the inward mysteries of humanity. Hollywood misinterpretations of Shelley's novel have created a popular image of the monster as a shambling, mindlessly evil zombie, but Shelley's creature has a striking humanity—a quick mind, powerful, oversized body, and an injured goodness that turns it to rage and revenge. The monster's disgusting features are cobbled together from parts "selected... as beautiful" but become horrible when combined, forming a terrifying creature that so disgusts its maker that it is abandoned upon the eve of its unnatural birth. If Frankenstein's hubris was his first crime, this shirking of responsibility is his second, causing the monster to become forever alienated from the humanity that it wishes to be a part of. "Am I not alone, miserably alone," laments the creature. "I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend." The creature turns inward when spurned by the society of man, asking itself, "Who was I? What was I? Whence did I come? What was my destination? These questions continually recurred," it says, "but I was unable to solve them." The creature has stumbled upon the same eternally vexing problems confronted by philosophers and mulled in private by every human individual. Though it turns to a vengeful killing spree against its hated creator's family, the monster is actually a pitiable creature, human in that it is agitated by the same doubts that plague humanity. Its alienation from humanity becomes symbolic of mankind's alienation from ultimate truth, which leads to the feelings of angst and dread articulated in the twentieth century in existentialist philosophy, of which Frankenstein is sometimes seen as a forerunner. Existentialism and its companion philosophy, absurdism, eventually came to the conclusion that man truly is isolated—from God, from other humans, from truth and morality, leading to a sort of solipsism, in which only the individual can create a moral framework or justification for any action. This freedom carries a terrible responsibility, which correlates with Frankenstein's punishment for his refusal to accept accountability for his creation. Though the monster never attains knowledge of its place in existence and resigns itself to death, but its search for meaning illuminates the life of every person, raising awareness of our responsibilities and provoking the sense of compassion that also makes us human.
The monster's exploration of humanity's metaphysical reality, and Frankenstein's quest to better understand the physical reality of the universe combine in an image of human beings as creatures searching for truth, failing miserably at every turn, but noble in their dogged persistence. It might be easier to accept ignorance, but it is more human to fling oneself unto the breach, as does the monster, crying its last words: "I shall ascend my funeral pile triumphantly and exult in the agony of the torturing flames." Though Shelley's novel can do little to solve the mysteries that have been part of humanity since man first thought, her work does allegorically explore the human condition, laying bare humanity's faults, limitations, and worst fears.