Mary Shelley and Frankenstein



Mary Shelley and Frankenstein

“All Romantic Horrors” as said by Harold Bloom (1965), "are diseases of excessive consciousness". This statement complies quite well with the exceptional interpretations of Gothic novels as being psychological. Specially, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein bears tremendous influx of a huge diversity of psychological methods and has a touch of feminine fear of goving birth to a child. Mary Shelley begins writing novels since she was eighteen years old and the most prominent material that stick to her consciousness (and unconsciousness, of course) was regarding the death of her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, when she was delivering her second child; named Mary Shelley, after a week (Brennan M. C., 1989). However, it was depicted in the novel as Victor's fascination with the origin of babies and Frankenstein's atrocious and insistent sexual desires (Kaplan M. and Kloss R., 1973). This psychological trauma is solely due to death of her mother, and she critically wanted to forge her own adult personality.

The psychological matter in her writing, “Frankenstein” was also due to her attitude towards landscape as well as daydreaming. Hence, what make her suffer the disarray of motherless childhood? Shelley answered it in this highly novel's introduction by saying that it was due to her extravagance in "waking dreams as they are her only source of pleasure. Shelley emphasizes on the “black and deary” landscapes that have promoted her youthful voyage of endless imaginations. More precisely, the landscapes were the vast escape out of her sense of loss and her gateway out of the bleak rational consciousness. By writing the Frankenstein, Shelley was trying to disperse her fears in the masses who are somewhat terrified from the character; The Frankenstein. (Ketterer D., 1979).

Some of the literature offers other insight of the psychological complexity of Frankenstein. J.M. Hill (1975) reasons that Victor's "dominant incestuous root for Promethean sin seems to take hold in uncompromising psychic wishes for exclusive love, and in possession of the mother -- the source of first love.” Also, a psychiatrist in 1982 argues about Mary's essay of perceiving herself “exception to the rules,” who has suffered partially because of her mother's death (Myers W.A., 1983). However, William Veeder believes that the novel is nothing but the reflection of author's childhood and lifelong concern of psychological ideal of hermaphroditic origins (Veeder W., 1986).

Therefore, she starts her first novel in which she writes of a grown-up Victor Frankenstein who has also faced his mother's loss; named Caroline. The story shows Victor as a loving son demanding some attention from his father. Although, he never conquers the grief which has been undertaken by him being a monster. Using this projection, Shelley seeks to overcome the censorship of painful memories off her mind and therefore, resolve her unanswered grief. This unresolved feeling parallels the Victor's wish to resurrect the death and escape from his monstrosity. Victor's grievance is symbolized as three experiences in nature which are the understanding of natural inspirations that induce forgetfulness of his sorrow, ...