THEORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
³Psychoanalytic Criticism: Analyzing Frankenstein¶s Novel´
1.
Introduction
This paper is an exploration of a horribly incident as depicting a myth tale of a novel by Marry Shelley, Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus. By reading Mary Shelley¶s Frankenstein novel, we may essentially agree by considering this novel as a strange novel. If we view the background of Shelley, actually we know that in her preface to Frankenstein Mary Shelley admits that her main goal was simply to write a ghost story. While she inspired by Fantasmagoriana, a French translation of German Gothic tales, they held some kind of ghost story competition where Mary Shelley invented her story of Frankenstein. Mysterious, horrifying, exciting, haunting, and uncanny: These qualities compose co mpose the essence of Gothic novels. Frankenstein is depicting about this mystery and allows this mystery toward us. Based on this novel, biographical and psychological approaches have been to a degree combined by critics who emphasize Mary Shelley¶s troubled in early life; her experience of the death of her mother (who died giving birth to her), her several miscarriages and babies who died in infancy, her elopement with Shelley and his own early death. Indeed Shelley¶s life, which enters into the narrative of her second novel
Mathilda, ³was dominated by a sense of irreparable loss and despair; her depression was the culmination of just 22 years that from the outset had delivered a dislocated domestic life, and with Percy Shelley had continued to foster a nomadic, Bohemian, hand-to-mouth existence´ (Williams 8). The point of this background history in early life of Shelly, thus may we explore that where by this affecting the main actor in the novel, Frankenstein, who has also a sense of irreparable loss of his mother and friends and despair. About the psychoanalytic criticism to critique this novel, I may relate to the objective of this paper is to examine in which way we can find undiscovered characters and compare to differentiate between Victor Frankenstein and the monster he created. And make it visible to show about what does the intention of this novel. Thus, I will use psychoanalytic aspects to analyze about the topic.
2.
Analysis
THE CONCEPT OF PSYCHOANALYTIC CRITICISM
Psychoanalytic criticism concept leads to the
unconscio u s
comes into being
when we are very young through the repression, unhappy condition, lack of freedom due to the possessiveness, separating out from consciousness, of these unhappy psychological events. One of the keystones in psychoanalytic theory is the concept of the unconscious. As Freud writes in his essay ³Psycho analysis´ (1963):
It was a triumph for the interpretative art of psychoanalysis when it succeeded in demonstrating that certain common mental acts of normal people, for which no one had hitherto attempted to put forward a psychological explanation, were to be regarded in the same light as the symptoms of neurotics: that is to say they had a meaning, which was unknown to the subject but which could easily be discovered by analytic means. . . . A class of material was brought to light which is calculated better than any other to stimulate a belief in the existence of unconscious mental acts even in people to whom the hypothesis of something at once mental and unconscious seems strange and even absurd. (pp. 235±236)
THE MAKING OF DAEMONS
Actually, Victor Frankenstein calls him of his creature with ³demon´. Demon or daemon is defined in the dictionary (Encarta Dictionary) as a personal fear or anxiety: a fear or anxiety that torments somebody. Example; we all have our own personal demons. In the symbolic form, some daemons are our disowned characteristics returning in projected. Such daemons can torment us in dreams, fantasies, illusions, and hallucinations, but we cannot feel it as our conscious behavior toward our real life. Thus we really know by realizing and emphasizing that this will affect to a person in a personal conflict that make a challenge inherent in human being. For the example; the crisis of love, crisis of being human kind, emotions and simultaneous actions. By reading the novel, after Victor has created his creature and abandons the creature. Here, obviously the demon feels in ignorance. Furthermore, in psychological side, the demon disparately feels of the disowned
forces in Victor¶s life (such as anger, sadness, guilt, creativity, death, emotion toward his action). He is like an alien, non-human being with no friend, isolated life.
THE MEANING OF FRANKENSTEIN
Based on the novel; Frankenstein
or The Modern Promethe u s,
I may put on
my opinion about Frankenstein that he is a man whose ambition cause of a disaster or as a monster which bestially and horribly to disregard humanitarian. The word ³Frankenstein´ is defined in the dictionary (Encarta Dictionary) as ³a creator of something that causes ruin or destruction, or brings about a personal downfall. I think that Shelly actually chooses the name well. Victor certainly created something that caused destruction, not only in his own life but in others lives as well. He refuses to create another monster for accompanying the monster. Actually, the monster does not need to have companion to accompany him, but he just want to acceptance. Victor has brought to his own destruction in his life. SOCIALIZING PROBLEMS
The monster also needs to be accepted for what he was. I think everyone needs friends to accompany in his or her life. While his creator, Victor Frankenstein, covered himself in secrecy to avoid his campus-students, family and friends, the demon has drifted toward civilization to find comfort and fellow feeling. However much he wanted to have and to be a friend, community was unimaginable. Friendship is like something that difficult to be expected despite the possessiveness of his
creator. Frankenstein¶s monster wants a friend, not judgment. He also needs to be socialized with others. In the end, Frankenstein does not care whether he still survives or die. Victor wants the war to end. He has lost every battle he and the monster have fought. I just think that he wishes death, so do the monster. And the war is end. Even in the end of the novel, Victor was selfish. He has his friend; Walton to finish his quest before his health going to bad and die. At least Walton has learned that maybe people should take responsibility for their actions. Walton had let the crew turn the boat around and cannot be expected, death. Frankenstein made his bed, and now he¶s lying in it. At last, Frankenstein has died while the monster still survives.
3.
Conclusion
For the conclusion, we can look at the way Victor underwent his live, his friendship (in secrecy to avoid his campus-students, family and friends) and suppress of his deeds. There were no responsibilities at all. In psychological side, the demon disparately feels of the disowned forces in Victor¶s life (such as anger, sadness, guilt, creativity, death, emotion toward his action). After the death of Frankenstein, the monster now wants to end his own life despite his quest was over. He has won the revenge that he wants. He only waits for his creator to die. He chooses to end his miserable existence, rather than face life alone and lonely because of victor¶s possessiveness and lack of giving a freedom of
his creature. It provides that it right to blame Frankenstein for his failures, his appearance, the way society accepted him, his need for companionship. Actually the monster was the reflection of the creator. For me, in this novel, the creator and the demon both are same. He is so self-centered that his lack of interaction and love for others after his experiment has been completed, would barely qualify him as a person, if the difference between being human and being a person lies in the ability to have relationships with others. We can see above from the analysis, Frankenstein has lost everything. Frankenstein has led himself down the path of destruction. He has lost his friend, wife, and brother. He has loved by no one. All things that he has cared about separated of his life. His experiment had turned him into a case of hatred and despair. Frankenstein¶s ambition leads to disaster, but he creates also the monster with no regard for human life. Although in the first time, the desire to help mankind conquer death and diseases. But when he finally reaches the goal of his efforts and sees his creature and its ugliness, he turns away from it and escapes the horror he has created. From that moment, he tries to emphasize the consequences of his experiments and wants to escape them by working in other sciences. Rather Frankenstein¶s lack of willingness to accept the responsibility for his acts. His creation only becomes a monster at the moment his creator deserts it. Thus, it may shows us that Frankenstein warns of the careless use of science. He succeeded scientifically (at least in part) but ³failed interpersonally and morally´ (my emphasis).
Work
Cited
Adam, Will. Making Daemons of Death And Love: Frankenstein. Existentialism, Psychoanalysis. Journal of Humanistic Psychology. Greening, Thomas. 41.4 (2001): 57-88.
Berger. Psychoanalytic Criticism. United States: Sage Publication, 2004. 75-103
Lawrence and David Herbert. Fantasia of the Unconscious. United States: FeedBooks, 1992
³Frankenstein´. Encarta Dictionary. Microsoft Encarta Dictionary. 16th ed. 2007.
Lin, Ying-chiao. ³The Dialectic of Law and Desire in Mary Shelley¶s Frankenstein: A Lacanian Reading´. NTU Studies in Language and Literature 14. (Sept. 2005): 21-54.
Rohrmoser, Andreas Rohrmoser. The Origin of a Myth: Mary Shelley's Novel Frankenstein, 2001. 5 Nov. 2010. .
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus, 2008. 28 Oct. 2010. .
Tyson, Lois. Psychoanalytic criticism : Critical Theory Today. 2nd ed.New York:Routledge, 2006. 11-18.
