Frankenstein (idea)

The early nineteenth century was a fertile ground for new ideas. The eighteenth century espoused Reason and Enlightenment; the new ideas and new movements that it produced had just begun to flower. In literature and art, the Romantic movement was starting to take hold; in philosophy, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and others continued Kant's revolution in metaphysics. In 1817, the English Gothic writer Mary Shelley synthesized the two when she completed Frankenstein,or the Modern Prometheus, incorporating elements of Hegel's philosophy and Romantic thought. The central struggle in the novel--that between Victor Frankenstein himself and the monster that he creates--is a prime illustration of Hegel's master/slave dialectic.

This dialectic consists of a struggle between two "individuals" (or "self-consciousness [es ]") (Hegel 113). When they first confront each other, each seeks to prove itself. This attempt at self-certainty results in the desire to destroy the other, which causes the struggle ("They must engage in this struggle, for they must raise their consciousness of being for themselves to truth, both in the case of the other and in their own case" (114)). In this, one of the individuals stakes his life, and the other submits. This causes a lordship-bondage relationship: the lord achieves recognition, and the bondsman does not. The lord, however, "achieves this recognition" only "through another consciousness" (114)--that of the bondsman. The bondsman, on the other hand, becomes fully self-certain through a combination of "the two moments of fear and service" (119), the fear being the fear of death.

In Frankenstein, the struggle is initiated from the moment the monster comes into being. Indeed, the moment of creation is the breaking point; Victor says, "But now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart." (52). Frankenstein immediately flees. The irony of this is interesting: in the words of the monster himself, "You are my creator, but I am your master; obey!" (163). Frankenstein himself makes a reference to this Hegelian struggle when he " [springs ] on [the monster ], impelled by all the feelings which can arm one being against the existence of another." (94)

As the monster gains more and more self-awareness--he goes from the "confused and indistinct" "events" of his "original era of being" (97) to the metaphysical meanderings of Chapter 13--Victor's life becomes more and more dependent on him. His "heart palpitate [s ] in the sickness of fear" (54). This impression is heightened by the fact that it is totally irrational; the monster had barely opened his eye(s) when Victor fled into the night. He only conjectures that the monster is the murderer. On several occasions, the thought of the monster makes him severely physically ill.

The monster, on the other hand, functions through desire. His desire for knowledge leads him to learn the alphabet and everything else from the cottagers. In a way, Victor-the-bondsman satisfies this desire; it is his journal pages that answer the monster's pressing questions about his existence. It is his desire for recognition that causes him to burn the cottage down. It is his desire to harm Frankenstein that causes him to kill William. Thus, like Hegel describes, the monster "achieves his recognition" through his "object of desire." (Hegel 115)

He also achieves recognition through Victor, i.e. through the bondsman. He is "miserable" without Victor's "goodness and compassion." It is in Victor's "power" to "recompense" the monster for the hatred that mankind shows toward him (94-95). Victor, however, says that the monster "ha [s ] left [him ] no power to consider" whether he is "just" to the monster or not. Finally, the monster demands service of Frankenstein: "You must create a female for me with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being. This you alone can do, and I demand it of you as a right you cannot refuse to concede." (139). This desire for a female is another manifestation of the desire for recognition: "I shall feel the affections of a sensitive being and become linked to the chain of events from which I am now excluded" (141). Eventually, Victor concedes, and the monster leaves.

This exchange may seem to many to be more of the character of pleading than demanding. Despite the monster's rather pathetic wailing, however, it is Frankenstein who is in danger here. "Thou hast made me more powerful than yourself," the monster says. If Victor fails to comply with his "conditions," the monster will "glut the maw of death, until it be satiated with the blood of [Victor's ] remaining friends." Victor does not show that he is willing to stake his life; the monster is "willing to defend" his (94).

Later in the novel, Victor finally decides to resist. He becomes conscious of his role as a human being ("Had I right, for my own benefit, to inflict this curse upon everlasting generations?"). He shakes off the monster's bonds: "I had been struck senseless by his fiendish threats; but now, for the first time, the wickedness of my promise burst upon me; I shuddered to think future ages might curse me as their pest, whose selfishness had not hesitated to buy its own peace at the price, perhaps, of the existence of the whole human race." (161).

In Hegel's theory, the synthesis of fear and service would make the former bondsman equal to the lord, and each would achieve equal recognition. This is what happens in this book, but in a perverted way. Both lord and bondsman come to the realization that the destruction of the other is their final purpose. As he is on his deathbed, Victor cries, "I must pursue and destroy the being to whom I gave existence; then my lot on earth will be fulfilled and I may die" (208). The monster sees his dead creator as his final destination as well. "He is dead who called me into being, and when I shall be no more, the very remembrance of both of us will surely vanish" (217).

Ideas of self-awareness and recognition play very large roles in both the Phenomenology of Spirit and Frankenstein. They illustrate the ideas of the Romantic period: reexamination of the role of the individual and of this individual's relationship to the rest of the world. In Hegel's case, the individual is the Spirit that moves human history; in Shelley's, it is each of her characters. It is not unlikely that Shelley, the daughter of radicals and the wife of a poet, would find kinship with Hegel's monumental conception of progress as an individual entity. Her chief work bears this out.

Works Cited:

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. Phenomenology of Spirit. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1977.

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. St. Paul: EMC Publishing, 1998.