Week One: Frankenstein

Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, is one of the most influential romantic pieces written in story, being shaped, stretched, molded and adapted into many different forms for many years. And a story of which is filled with elements of the Gothic Literature.

Essentially, however, it is a story about creation, in which a doctor — Victor Frankenstein —  plays the role of “God” as he tries to create life by reanimating a corpse through the use of technology. Although his experiment succeeds and he manages to create life, Victor is horrified by his own creation and abandons it, leaving the monster to it’s own demises. Lost in the world and without a clue of how to be human, the monster tries to adapt to the society but is rejected due to his appearance, eventually embracing the villainous side that everyone appeared to label him with. Thus, Victor then starts to be targeted by his own creation who wishes for a mate, and after rejecting the offer, pure revenge against his creator who abandoned him.

In my opinion, this piece is a golden egg of Romanticism and Gothic Literature, as well as one of the most intriguing stories from it’s time. That can be proven by the fact that even so many years after it was released, it still influences many other works up until this day, be it in cinema, games, series or any form of art— the idea behind Frankenstein is still explored wildly around the globe.

 Frankenstein, however, isn’t only about a beast and his creator, but something much deeper with underlying meanings — something that is quite spectacular specially when aware that the author, Mary Shelley, was so young when she wrote the book itself. 

Some say the work was also based on Shelley’s own life experiences (losses such as her mother and child, the hope to revive the dead, issues within family and acceptance) as well as her own desires and ambitions. Still, Frankenstein is a piece that embraces the raw idea behind the Romanticism and Gothic aspects: drama, emotions, enlightenment, science discovery, philosophy and the unconscious.

Interesting enough, the Gothic Formula states that back in the day Gothic works were usually made to target women, as most of the audience who read such works were composed of such. Thus the stories are often composed of topics such as sensibility, and the POV of the character appealing to the reader as being something normal — thus, the captivating aspect of the book being basically  composed of letters. 

The fact that the book itself was written by a female author just adds even more magic to this idea of Gothic Literature as well. Some say the work was also based on Shelley’s own life experiences (losses such as her mother and child, the hope to revive the dead, issues within family and acceptance) as well as her own desires and ambitions, thus captivating even more the audience of back in the day, as well as recently. 

Another example is the idea of exploring the sublime, which is very visible in the work of Shelley, and a big characteristic of Gothic Literature as well. The sublime is a philosophical principle where the beautiful is contrasted with the ugly. The way the novel covers debatable issues such as the rejection of society, one’s own ego, as well as the hunger for knowledge and how far people are willing to go in order to achieve it is a great example of that. The idea of absolute knowledge is often explored in the piece as well, with Victor wanting to play the role of God by creating life itself and ultimately falling, as if it was a result of his own terrible ambitions.

One final example is the idea of "monsters" that often appear in literature, and specifically in this work. In gothic, however, the so called "evil" is often represented by a force rather than just a character, giving it a powerful energy which transmits the sense that, different from Disney movies, evil can prevail. 

Ultimately both Victor and his creation are monsters in each other’s perspective, so much so that it led to the destruction of both of them. None of them is a hero, if anything, both are villains of each of their stories as well as their own — and that is one of the things I find most amazing about this piece.