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Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and the Gothic - exploring the individual psyche and operating as a form of social critique

English Language and Literature Studies - Literature


Author

Meike Kohl
9 Texts

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Category
Essay
Institution / College
Grade
1,3

Meike Kohl
QUB 2006
18
th
century and Romantic literature
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and the Gothic ­ exploring the individual
psyche and operating as a form of social critique
2
The Gothic often employs a first person narrative focussing on the inner lives of its
protagonists. The psychological processes revealed reflect political and social issues
arising in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. The Enlightenment, French,
American and Industrial revolution had set in motion a reshuffling of traditional social
orders; a new middle class, the bourgeoisie emerged, and with it mercantilism and
rationalism. The Gothic can be seen as a reaction to overtly rational thinking, exposing
the hidden fears of that time, and criticising the new models of society. The core text
used as a representative of the genre Gothic is Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. However,
Frankenstein
is not only a Gothic novel, but is closely connected to Romantic thoughts
and ideas. Vice versa, some of the tropes of the Gothic novel can also be found in
Romantic literature. Frankenstein is intertextually connected with Wordsworth´s and
Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads through references to Coleridge's `Rime of the Ancient
Mariner' and Wordsworth´s `Tintern Abbey'. Romantic poetry focuses on the
individual, too. Although the form of novel and poetry inevitably differs, and thus also
the extent to which a character or issue is presented, a lot of similarities can be found
which stand for a discourse typical of that epoch.
A prerequisite for the exploration of the individual mind is a narrative exposing the
processes of the protagonist's mind. The suitable narrative form is thus the first person
narrative employed in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, as well as in some of the Lyrical
Ballads
. In a time of political and social upheaval very few things appear stable, and
neither does the individual mind. Cultural and individual change is paralleling each
other.
3
In Wordsworth's poem `Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey', the
changing of a personality is addressed. Time is an influential factor for change: `Five
years have passed: five summers, with the length / Of five long winters!'
1
. Whilst the
setting and therewith nature herself seems to have been untouched by the course of
time, the narrator is aware of the changes which occurred in himself and in his attitude
to his surroundings. Nature serves as a base for contrasting his former and his present
state of mind, as stated in self-reflective lines such as:
And so I dare to hope
Though changed, no doubt, from what I was, when first
I came among these hills; when like a roe
I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides
Of the deep rivers, and the lovely streams,
Wherever nature led; more like a man
Flying from something that he dreads, than one
Who sought the thing he loved.
(115, ll. 65-73)
Nature is also presented as a reliable source of `tranquil restoration'(114, l. 31), like the
domestic relations, that is the lyrical persona's sister, focused on in the last lines. This
interpersonal relationship anchors the self between now and then, for, in opposition to
nature's invariable attitude, the sister remembers the past and perceives the present:
My dear, dear Friend, and in thy voice I catch
The language of my former heart, and read
My former pleasures in the shooting lights
Of thy wild eyes!
(117, ll. 117-120)
This self-observation of a character changing and maturing over the years is enabled
through the first person narrative of the lyrical persona.
1
Wordsworth and Coleridge. Lyrical Ballads. (London, New York: Routledge, 1988) 113, ll. 1-2
Subsequent references will be marked in the text..
4
In Frankenstein similar issues are addressed, but far more problematic. Nature plays
an important role for all narrators, and family bounds occupy the heart of their thinking.
The first person narrative is constructed in three layers. Opening with Walton's letters
to his sister, Victor Frankenstein's narration is told in an apparently first person voice,
including his family correspondence. To add to the complexity, the monster's narrative
is embedded in Victor's, and within it the De Lacey's. Finally it returns to the `real' first
person narrator, Walton, who also accounts for a first person meeting with the creature.
At a first glance this constellation seems to pose questions about authenticity, since
truth and fiction cannot be told apart and nothing outside of Walton's narration validates
the story itself. But it is agreed that Walton, Frankenstein and the monster as individuals
show `patterns of doubling and reversal' and may function as doppelgangers.
2
Beth
Newman argues that the different voices in Frankenstein should not be read as
expressions of individual psyches, but as a repetition of narrative persuasive
techniques.
3
Still it is possible to attribute individual approaches to the same topics to
each narrator, read as different aspects to the same story. Hence, Frankenstein's frame
structure with its multiple narrators serves to emphasise psychic processes within the
early 19
th
century individual, estranged from itself and society.
One common denominator is the longing for domestic happiness and tranquillity ­
and the failure in achieving this. Family is regarded as the stable and ideal environment
for personal growth, protection and harmony. In this ideal world the story is set,
2
Fred Botting. Gothic. (London: Routledge, 1996) 104.
3
c.f.
Beth Newman. 'Narratives of Seduction and the Seductions of Narrative: The Frame Structure of
Frankenstein'. ELH.
53:1 (1986): 141-63.
Excerpt: 5 of 12 pages -  scroll top


Description

Title:
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and the Gothic - exploring the individual psyche and operating as a form of social critique
Event:
None
Author:
Meike Kohl
Year:
2006
Pages:
12
Archive No.:
V117646
ISBN (eBook):
978-3-640-20037-5
DOI:
10.3239/9783640200375
File size:
98 KB
Language:
English

Notes:
Im Rahmen eines Auslandsaufenthalts verfasst. Da es sich um einen Essay handelt, existiert auch kein Inhaltsverzeichnis, dafür aber Literaturangaben.
Tags:
Mary Shelley Frankenstein Gothic

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Meike Kohl, 2006, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and the Gothic - exploring the individual psyche and operating as a form of social critique, Munich, GRIN Publishing GmbH

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