For those who are unaware of one of the most famous stories
in Gothic literature, I would like to introduce you to “the story of
Frankenstein… I think it will thrill you. It may shock you. It might even
horrify you.” You won’t find any of these lines in the original 1818 novel,
although the author once famously remarked that she had wanted to write a story
that “…would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature, and awaken thrilling
horror -- one to make the reader dread to look round, to curdle the blood, and
quicken the beatings of the heart”. The image of Whale’s “Frankenstein” is just
one example of several horror icons that have become more readily identified
with their filmic representation than their source material. Colin Clive’s
hysterical portrayal of Frankenstein set the “mad scientist” stereotype, which
was far removed from Shelley’s original tragic Faustian version, and Boris
Karloff’s simple-minded, grunting, lumbering portrayal of The Monster was even
further away from the intelligent, blighted and scorned figure of Milton-esque vengeance
in the novel. However, the novel has bitten back over the years since Universal
did such a great job of immortalizing its own icons. The 1980s proved to be something of a
watershed in this respect and this is where we find the first publication of
Maurice Hindle’s edited text. It is this influential edition of the novel,
which has subsequently been reprinted in the same format several times now; I
am reviewing rather than the original story.
I have published several reflections and reviews of Mary
Shelley’s seminal work, so I see little point in going over the plot outline
again. Nevertheless, due to the fact that the vast majority of dramatic
adaptations barely resemble the original text, perhaps I can offer some useful
insight to those who don’t know the story. “Frankenstein” is a Faustian tale
about a science undergraduate of Ingolstadt who, having been initially inspired
by his childhood reading of alchemy and driven by the sudden death of his
mother, pursues a dream to impart human life to lifeless matter. Upon
successfully achieving his ambition he is immediately appalled by his creation
and abandons it, hoping to live a normal life. However, his sins return to
haunt him in the form of the murderous Monster he has created and has since
been hardened by a life of rejection and scorn. Frankenstein will battle in an
effort to take responsibility for his actions in a tragic adventure that will
see him race across countries to the North Pole only to discover a kindred
spirit hell-bent and hell-bound to pursue his own over-reaching ambitions.
Suffice to say you won’t find detailed descriptions of the
“science” that is used to create the Monster, which has become an expected
staple of most dramatic adaptations of the novel. A bolt of lightning that fells
a tree and a reference to infusing “a spark into the lifeless thing” is the
only real indication that Victor Frankenstein will use this electricity to
bring his arrangement of corpse body parts to life via an alchemical perversion
of Luigi Galvani’s theory on “animal electricity”. Likewise, you won’t find a
vivid account of how Mary imagined her Monster. A single description is
provided by Frankenstein who tells us that all his careful selection of white
teeth, lustrous and flowing black hair, and proportioned body parts to make his
Monster seem beautiful come to naught when the composite corpse becomes
animated.
The scene is representative of the unforeseen consequences
of what happens when a person, however well-intentioned, chooses to challenge
God. The story’s alternative title, referencing Prometheus who was punished for
stealing fire from the Gods of Olympus, and the Monster’s identification with
Milton’s Satan of “Paradise Lost” all echo this premise. Mary Shelley, despite
becoming the wife to an avowed atheist, and a daughter to two radical social
reformers, remained a militant moderate. This is a point Maurice Hindle makes
in his detailed introduction to the 1985 Penguin Classic edition.
Mary Shelley was living amongst radical liberals at end of
the libertine era and on the eve of the starkly prudish Victorian fashion.
These celebrities were the blueprint for the modern rock star. They were upper
classes who were practising “free love” in the western world almost a century
and a half before it became part of the counterculture of the 1960s. “Frankenstein”
should be seen as a counter-enlightenment piece and despite the fact that
Shelley was clearly very supportive of Mary’s novel, there is much within it
that could be seen as his wife rebelling against his excesses as well as the
radical liberalism that surrounded her at home and within her social circle. Mary
may have been daughter to the pioneer of the Feminist Movement, but her book is
far from a feminist a work. As rebuttals to the claim that it was really
written by Percy Shelley have clearly pointed out, the story’s theme is very
much a maternal fable and a chastisement for not taking personal responsibility
for one’s child. Much is often made of the story reflecting Mary’s own tragic
losses and it is difficult not to see these parallels.
Mary and Dr William Polidori both would go on to write two
of the most influential stories in literary history after their famous
experiences staying one stormy summer with Percy Shelley, Claire Clairmont and
Lord Byron at Byron’s Villa Diodati near Lake Geneva. Hindle makes the now
often accepted argument that just as Polidori’s vampire antagonist, Lord
Ruthven, was clearly modelled on his notorious patient, the exiled poet Lord
“Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know” Byron so Victor Frankenstein was based on the
almost equally notorious poet, Percy Shelley.
Hindle quotes Shelley’s biographer, Thomas Jefferson Hogg in his
description of Shelley as perfect example of the poet’s similarity to the
figure of Victor Frankenstein:
"[He] then proceeded, with much eagerness and
enthusiasm, to show me the various instruments, especially the electrical
apparatus; turning round the handle very rapidly, so that the fierce, crackling
sparks flew forth; and presently standing upon the stool with glass feet, he
begged me to work the machine until he was filled with the fluid, so that his
long, wild locks bristled and stood on end. Afterwards he charged a powerful
battery of several large jars; laboring with vast energy, and discoursing with
increasing vehemence of the marvellous powers of electricity, of thunder and
lightning; describing an electrical kite that he had made at home, and
projecting another and an enormous one, or rather a combination of many kites,
that would draw down from the sky an immense volume of electricity, the whole
ammunition of a mighty thunderstorm; and this being directed to some point
would there produce the most stupendous results."
One can see how future filmmakers, including James Whale,
might have drawn upon these observations to help recreate the scene of the
Monster’s creation that is clearly missing from Mary Shelley’s text.
Hindle justifies the inclusion of not only Polidori’s
novella, “The Vampyre: A Tale”, which would provide us with the blueprint for the
Dracula character and the most popular image of the vampire, but also Lord
Byron’s “A Fragment”. The latter was the source for Polidori’s story and we
learn of Byron’s public disgust for anyone believing that “The Vampyre” was his
original work. The Penguin Classic also includes all the original text from the
original 1818 edition of “Frankenstein” to accompany the 1831 edition, which is
the focus of the book. The majority of later editions of “Frankenstein”
respected Mary Shelley’s wishes and republished her work in the revised form.
However, Hindle’s inclusion of the largest passages in their original format as
an appendix serves to make this a complete volume.
Looking at Hindle’s introduction and the book’s three
significant appendices, we get something of an appreciation for the imaginative
dynamism present during that time and the fears of an individual like Mary
Shelley who suffered tremendous emotional trauma through most of her life. The
presence of Byron’s obscure literal fragment of a novel, which is far more
subtle than the supernatural descriptions he presents in some of his poems –
most notably “The Giaour” – and Polidori’s story provides us with some context.
Victor Frankenstein is originally inspired by the occult aspirations of
pre-enlightenment “sorcerers” and that contamination is then married with the
new aspirations of the scientific Enlightenment, the ideas of which Mary
Shelley tells us she overheard Byron and her husband discussing in typically
excitable reverence.
One year after Hindle’s edition was published Ken Russell’s
“Gothic” was released, which told the story of the Villa Diodati. Two years
later two other films set around the events of the Villa and the genesis of
“Frankenstein” appeared, “Haunted Summer” and “Rowing with the Wind”. The story
of the creation of the “Frankenstein” story and the roots of the aristocratic
Dracula vampire had taken on a life of their own. These trappings allow us to
see that although “Frankenstein” is an early example of the science fiction
novel its roots are firmly in Gothic literature.
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