Frankenstein: To be Known and Loved
A reflection on the twisting of good desire into a grasping
If you have not read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, you may be surprised at my upcoming topic. This novel bears many sinister and intriguing characteristics of a gothic novel, but its purpose goes beyond a good scare. There are so many good themes that this novel offers its readers to reflect upon, such as the dangers of technological progress without a moral code. However, the topic I wanted to present in this reflection is the innate desire of man to be known and loved. Although Frankenstein’s creature is not a natural man, he is made from man and echoes man’s longing to be known and loved.
The Twisting of Desire
In Shelley’s Frankenstein, man seeks to create a perfected being of man. Instead, the creature is a disordered and grotesque form whose resemblance to humanity adds to the horror he inspires. The disorder in his appearance causes concern, but most importantly his emotions represent distorted humanity. Firstly, the monster's desire for companionship is a natural desire; what is disordered about the monster’s desire is that it later becomes egocentric. Secondly, the monster initially seeks to befriend man through acts of service, but he soon realizes that man does not reciprocate his goodwill. As a result, the monster’s goodwill towards mankind is quenched and his drive to satisfy his yearning for companionship takes on a self-serving role. Furthermore, he requests that his creator create a companion for him that will ease his misery and satisfy his desire for companionship but this is the direct opposite of the self-gift which ought to be present in love. Therefore, the monster’s fault is not in his desire to be loved and known per se, but instead in his misunderstanding of love as self-serving rather than self-giving.
The Desire For Companionship
As mentioned, the monster’s desire to be loved is a natural and good desire, both in his object and motivations. However, he later distorts this good desire after mankind’s rejection. Although the monster is a walking patchwork of a cadaver, it is evident in his confessions to his creator that he inherits this human desire to be loved. Since the Garden of Eden, man has longed to share the gift of his life with another: “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him”.1 In contrast, this creature is not supplied with an Eve by his creator to break his solitude, and he is keenly aware of this privation: “No Eve soothed my sorrows nor shared my thoughts; I was alone” and “my heart yearned to be known and loved.”2 He recognizes his innate ability and disposition to feel and understand emotions: “My heart was fashioned to be susceptible of love and sympathy” (239). Although his love becomes disordered, one still feels sympathy for the monster when he cries out in agony when he realizes his last chance of companionship has been destroyed: “Shall each man,” cried he, “find a wife for his bosom, and each beast have his mate, and I be alone?” (182). What is disordered are his motivations for acquiring a companion. His initial desire for companionship is natural and good, but his ultimate distortion of the meaning of love is where he is blameworthy.
From Self-Gift to Self-Serving
Mankind’s rejection of the monster’s offer of friendship distorts his initial understanding of love and distorts his conception of it. His understanding of love transitions from self-gift to self-serving. The monster’s initial desire upon observing the De Lacey family is to try to understand and assist them by endeavouring to learn their language, understand their emotions, and find ways to care for them. This is evident in how the monster tries to find ways to alleviate the family’s labour by anonymously completing their chores to ensure their comfort: “I found that the youth spent a great part of each day in collecting wood for the family fire, and during the night I often took his tools, the use of which I quickly discovered, and brought home firing sufficient for the consumption of several days” (118). His comprehension of the role of self-sacrifice in love is evident in his abstaining from eating the family’s provisions in order to prevent causing them further pain: “I had been accustomed, during the night, to steal a part of their store for my own consumption, but when I found that in doing this I inflicted pain on the cottagers, I abstained and satisfied myself with berries, nuts, and roots which I gathered” (117). However, these thankless acts of service and self-sacrifice are rewarded with horror and repulsion by the De Laceys when they finally behold him. In response to this rejection, he is left with the impression that all acts of kindness are meaningless, as man will never accept him. His self-sacrificing love quickly turns to hatred and rage after his rejection: “I could with pleasure have destroyed the cottage and its inhabitants and have glutted myself with their shrieks and misery” (146). The monster’s self-sacrificial love ceases once he realizes it will never be reciprocated, and this realization quickly turns his love into hatred for mankind.
Unrequited Love Turned to Hatred
Once the monster is rejected by mankind, he in turn swears to be man’s eternal foe. His spurned love fills him with hatred and twists his view of reality: “The mildness of my nature had fled, and all within me was turned to gall and bitterness” (150). The monster now feels utterly alone and resents mankind for their lack of pity and understanding: “There was none among the myriads of men that existed who would pity or assist me; and should I feel kindness towards my enemies? No; from that moment I declared everlasting war against the species” (147). However, even after this rejection, he later feels compelled to jump into a river to save a drowning girl from the raging current. Yet, the monster still finds himself portrayed as the villain, despite his heroic and selfless act, as he is shot for his pains. This act of violence quenches the last embers of goodwill in the monster for mankind:
“This was then the reward of my benevolence! I had saved a human being from destruction, and as a recompense I now writhed under the miserable pain of a wound which shattered the flesh and bone. The feelings of kindness and gentleness which I had entertained but a few moments before gave place to hellish rage and gnashing of teeth. Inflamed by pain, I vowed eternal hatred and vengeance to all mankind” (152).
The monster’s goodwill immediately ceases due to the violence issued forth to him for his good acts.
Love and Virtue
When the monster’s desire to be known and loved in friendship with humanity is extinguished, the monster decides that his desire can only be satisfied by requesting a mate from his creator. The monster believes he is deserving of companionship, saying, “I should not be so desolate in this peopled earth”, and will now go through any means necessary to attain this companionship (153). In his demand to his creator, the monster bargains for his Eve in exchange for his good behaviour: “Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous” (104). He argues that his vice stems from his forced solitude and that a companion would remedy his wrongdoing: “If I have no ties and no affections, hatred and vice must be my portion; the love of another will destroy the cause of my crimes” (159). The monster is under the illusion that he will automatically become virtuous and good once he achieves a companion: “My virtues will necessarily arise when I live in communion with an equal” (159). He also adds that he will extend goodwill towards humanity once it is established that mankind reciprocates: “Let him live with me in the interchange of kindness, and instead of injury I would bestow every benefit upon him with tears of gratitude at his acceptance.” (157).
The monster fails to understand that one should act virtuously regardless of reciprocation: man is not meant to be virtuous solely when it is pleasant and returned. Instead, virtue is meant to orientate one to the good and to enable him to be better able to give himself fully in self-gift: “A virtue is an habitual and firm disposition to do the good. It allows the person not only to perform good acts, but to give the best of himself. The virtuous person tends toward the good with all his sensory and spiritual powers; he pursues the good and chooses it in concrete actions.”3 The monster is wrong in his assumption that happiness causes virtue, as virtue should be pursued for its own sake. The monster now acts solely to attain his own desires and refuses to pursue virtue unless he is given a mate as an incentive.
Selfish Demand for His Eve
The monster’s desire for a companion is selfish and not what spousal love is meant to be. Instead of trying to emulate the beauty in the world that the monster admires, he instead orders that she be made “as hideous as myself” (140). He no longer looks to admire the “perfect forms” of mankind, but instead wishes the despair and self-loathing on this new creature that the monster himself experiences incessantly (120). There is no thinking of the good for the other: his demands concerning his future mate are utterly selfish. His request is primarily to alleviate his own suffering, instead of what love ought to be: “Our lives will not be happy, but they will be harmless and free from the misery I now feel” (157). Instead, love is meant to be a total self-gift and sacrifice of oneself: “True love involves the selfless pursuit of what is best for the other person, even if it means sacrificing one’s own preferences and desires”.4 In addition, the monster also fails to recognize that his misery will not magically cease because he has gained a companion. Moreover, he also fails to consider the new creature’s free will and the misery she would undergo in realizing her fate as an outcast from humanity. In the monster’s request for a mate, it is evident that he perceives love to be self-serving instead of self-giving.
In Conclusion
In Shelley’s work, Frankenstein’s monster is brought into his miserable existence and experiences the unbearable suffering of utter solitude. His appearance fills him with horror and shame and repels and horrifies all men who behold him. Although the monster does not appear like man, his intense longing and desire for companionship and friendship are innate to his nature. The monster begins by extending a hand of friendship to mankind, but his olive branch is repudiated, and he therefore swears to become man’s foe. However, the monster ceases to act virtuously when he realizes that his goodwill is not reciprocated and claims he will only be virtuous once his demands are satisfied. Therefore, his demand for a companion to relieve some of his suffering is natural but selfish. Ultimately, the monster is friendless and alienated forever from true friendship and spousal love. His choice to turn his thoughts inward is his own, and his choice to love only for self-gain is what ultimately makes him a monster.
Resources
The Book Club: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley with Gina Bontempo | The Book Club - with Michael Knowles
Genesis 2:18 (RSV)
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (Delhi: Prakash Books India, 2019), 140,141. All citations of Frankenstein will be from this edition and henceforth will be cited parenthetically in the text by page number.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 2nd ed, (Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference, 2000), 1803.
Edward Sri, Men, Women and the Mystery of Love (Cincinnati, Ohio, 2007), 57.
