"Frankenstein" - Of Men and Monsters

Frankenstein's Monster by Bernie Wrightson, 1983

I have read Frankenstein three times so far. It was not until the last time that I started questioning not only the reliability of the heteroglossia (that is, the many voices telling the story, the many points of view) that serves as the novel's skeleton, but also my reliability as a reader. As a reader, I can empathize with Victor, the mad scientist who tries to play God, albeit failing miserably. There is the fatal human flaw of wanting to be more than one is, which exists in both of us. In all of us. Even if it is for a brief moment, even if we do not act upon it. 

But when I find myself thinking about the monster, I end up at an impasse. To begin with, what is a monster, and what makes it such? We call human beings monsters as a way to equate them to a being that has crossed the bridge between the shore of humans, and has ended up on the shore of - what? Everything that humans are not? What is that? And more importantly, how are we to understand the mental mechanics of another species when we claim that there is nothing in common between us and them? How am I to speak of monsters if I am so sure I am not a monster myself? 

Think of fables, for example. We personify animals, we write of their big and little misadventures to teach ourselves a lesson we were unable to learn when in the human flesh. Except we will put a coat on top of their fur as a reminder that we stay on focus. This is not a story of a sly fox, let alone a story for the fox. The fox itself is not of value; it becomes a metaphor, a vehicle that brings forth a speck of wisdom from the human world. Because, as we know, fables never speak of animals that have become humans, but of the humans hidden underneath animal masks. Literature creates the illusion that we can fully understand and empathise with the characters we are reading about. Because, really, through literature one can only see oneself. 

And because of this immense power, literature can breathe life into any creature, real or not, that may pass through the mind in the act of imagination. However, this flow of creation kicks one door open, while firmly holding closed another. Whatever the imagined, it must, for it cannot otherwise, pass through the lens of the human angle. It is a limit, because you cannot ever become what you are not; therefore, you can always write about it as if you are it - and you must assume and accept that you will always be wrong. What I mean to say is that the monster can only be looked at through the human gaze, it was invented by human imagination, and because there is no one else like it, it is impossible to compare it to anything else. The monster is a fundamentally isolated soul. 

You have to pay really close attention to the language of the monster, for the way one sees the world comes through the way one talks about it. The way the monster tells its story is in itself an insight into its soul.  The monster tells its story as a retrospection at a moment when its vocabulary is not only polished, but its understanding of and interaction with the world has reached a level beyond the bare clinical terminology - this is a tree, and that is a bird, and these are people, and so on. Rain comes “when the heavens poured forth its waters.” The monster is a poet, I think. 

And like any other poet, its mind now has these levels of reality and space and time. The fox, as far as we know, lives only in the here and now, but the monster listens to the words and sounds around it, memorizes them, and tries to conjure up a meaning: “The words induced me to turn towards myself.” Like any other human being, the monster is introspective, and it makes out subtle connections, it reasons, and it adds value to things and people, because the human books it has read have taught it the morality of humankind. The monster perceives goodness to be the “highest honour”.  And when it is denied the opportunity to be a member of the world that brought it into existence, this very same intelligence is what brings it to the realization that the more knowledge it acquires, both through reading and interacting with the world, the more clearly it sees “what a wretched outcast I was.” Just like us - the more we know ourselves, the more we strip ourselves of our illusory innocence. 

But what is, then, a monster? 

Do you see what troubles my mind? How is it that the same being that has been denied any form of human connection, because it is deemed unworthy of it, too ugly for it, is also the one that can compare its situation with the “highest honour” it wants to live by and deem it, rightfully, I think, unfair? What other species but the human species, when confronted with rejection, abandonment, and resentment from the ones he most desires to receive love from, chooses to take such brutal revenge? I am yet to find a fox like that. 

Victor Frankenstein abandons his creation, and there are many ways to explain why. One, for sure, is his inability to cope with what he has done. So he flees, yet not too far away from the repercussions of his choices. Sooner or later, they catch him by the ankles and throw him to the ground. There is a clear moral to this story, as I believe most of us would like to satisfy ourselves with.  

But what is the moral for the monster? You, wretched creature, didn’t choose this life, but there it is; someone made you what you are and left you to your own devices. You are alone and you always will be. 

That is not a moral; that is just a fact. The fact of the human condition no one can escape. So the only thing that separates us from the creature is that we can distract ourselves from time to time from the fact that we are ultimately alone in this world. The monster lives with this fact every moment. There is no opportunity for distraction because no one wants to play the game of make-believe with it. And I understand why Victor refuses to create a female companion for his monster. Now that he has seen what his vanity is capable of, why on earth would he repeat a choice that brought only endless misery and desperation? 

Run, Victor, run. But why are you running when you know, you must know, you cannot escape the monstrosity of your condition? It will always outrun you; each thought of it will always feel like a dagger in your heart, and you can never escape it. Can you ever escape yourself?