Pauline Faure

ENG 201

Professor Hearst

10.15.14
Frankenstein Essay: Victor Frankenstein as a Parent Figure
Frankenstein is a novel written by Mary Shelley during the Romantic Movement. It was initially published anonymously in 1818, and republished with Shelley’s name in 1823. (Hunter 17) The story is about the creation of life by a man called Victor Frankenstein and his refusal to take responsibility for the human being he has created. Victor totally abandoned and rejected the creature. This book largely evokes Mary Shelley’s own troubled family relationships that were complex and tragic. She was somewhat an orphan child. Moreover, “the family she herself began to establish reflected and replicated in some ways Mary’s own childhood”. (Hunter 13) By creating life from an inanimate body, we can see that throughout the novel, Victor takes both the role of the mother and of the father of the creature. In the first part, we will analyze Victor as a mother figure since he gives birth to the creature. Then, the theme of abortion that was a major current issue at that time, since in 1818 the English government was going to outlaw abortion after four months of pregnancy. (Historical attitude to abortion) Then, in a second part, we will look at Victor as a deadbeat father who fails to comply with his role.
When Frankenstein was written, women were generally passive characters, seen as companions that gave comfort and kindness to men. Their primary utility was to give birth to children. Like a mother, Victor brings a new life into the world. Indeed, the act of scientific creation sounds similar to pregnancy, confinement and the labor of life:
My cheek had grown pale with study, and my person had become emaciated with confinement (…) the moon gazed on my midnight labors, while, with unrelaxed and breathless eagerness, I pursued nature to her hiding place. (…) My limbs now trembled, and my eyes swim with the remembrance; but then a resistless, and almost frantic impulse, urged me forward; I seemed to have lost all soul or sensation but for this one pursuit. (Shelley 33)
Paleness and emaciation would have been common characteristics of difficult pregnancies. Furthermore, when Victor finally sees his creation he falls asleep like a mother after her labor.
Then, the theme of abortion is broached several times throughout the novel. When Frankenstein speaks about extinguishing the life he has thoughtlessly bestowed (Shelley 62), he takes again the role of the mother. Indeed, the decision to abort comes mainly from the future mother. Disgusted and scared, he runs away from his “son”. Even the creature knows that he is an unwanted life: “I, the miserable and the abandoned, am an abortion, to be spurned at, and kicked, and trampled on” (Shelley 160). Moreover, when Victor destroys his work on the female creature to prevent her from coming alive, he literally aborts his act of creation.
While Victor usurps the role of the mother, he also takes the role of the creature’s father. Technically, the creator of the creature makes Victor the father of it. Although Victor has had an idyllic childhood, he is far from being a perfect father himself.
Frankenstein fails to realize that the creature is a child. His creature entered life eight feet tall and very strong but with the mind of a newborn. He also does not realize that what he has created is not only an experiment but an actual human being with needs and wants. The creature reminds Victor that as is father, he has obligations towards him: “Do your duty towards me, and I will do mine towards you and the rest of the mankind” (Shelley 68). First of all, Victor does not even give his “son” a name. He only refers to it by words such as “monster”, “creature”, “devil” or “wretch”. The creature is totally deprived from any social identity and therefore from any self-esteem. Frankenstein fails to provide his creation any education (language and communication), love, compassion, values, morals or