Conscious And Unconscious Motives In Frankenstein

Conscious and Unconscious Motives of Character’s Love

Nowadays there are many meanings to the word ‘love’, and people use the word ‘love’ to express emotions. Love is different for each individual because it can be felt for a person, an object, or a way of life, which makes it difficult to encompass a true interpretation of it. In English there is only one word for love and that is the word love. The more frequently the word love is used then it is more likely for the true meaning of the word to become dim. In the Greek language, different words are used to describe different types of love such as Eros, Phileo, Storge, Agape, and Philautia. Eros describes sexual and passionate love. Phileo is used to talk about friendship. Storge is a family

love, such as children and parents. Agape is pure love that is selfless and unconditional. Philautia is a form of self love, which can either be healthy or unhealthy (Krznaric). Each type of love is present in the literary works being discussed. By analyzing the literary works of Frankenstein by Mary Shelly, Hamlet by William Shakespeare, and “To His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell through the psychoanalytic lens it is clear that relationships such as family love, selfless and selfish love, and the absence of love can influence the conscious or unconscious desires and decisions of key characters.
Analyzing the various forms of love present in the literary works through the psychoanalytic lens reveals to the reader the unconscious and conscious motives that drive the character’s actions. Love has been at the heart of Freud’s psychoanalytic theories since the beginning, so the two are fairly connected to each other. The psychoanalytic view on love is essentially “when a person falls in love, they fall in love with an image of the other person that reflects aspects about themselves or that remind them of someone they love or admire” (Brogaard). Another psychoanalytic perspective is that sometimes people are in love with what they never had, but they longed for. An example of this is being in love with someone who is an idealized version of themselves. The psychoanalytic perspective can also deal with the conscious and unconscious parts of people’s minds and how it influences behavior. Therefore, the psychoanalytic perspective can look at the conscious and unconscious influences of love on key character’s decisions in the literary works of Frankenstein, “To His Coy Mistress”, and Hamlet.
Analyzing Frankenstein through the psychoanalytic lens reveals that Victor Frankenstein’s narcissistic nature paired with his obsessive love for science causes him to fall further and further from society.

The monster is a creation of Victor’s narcissism and his enlarged ego, which leads to his downfall. His love for science becomes enslaving and Victor seems, “to have lost all soul or sensation but for this one pursuit” (Shelley 39). Victor becomes more isolated from society as he becomes deeply involved in his passionate pursuit of expanding the boundaries of science. Not only is the creation of Victor’s monster a result of his narcissistic nature, but the creature is also created out of Victor’s sexual

ignorance.
In Frankenstein, Victor is characterized as lacking any desire for loving relationships due to his child-like sexual ignorance and it is manifested in the creation of the monster. One example that shows this is, “instead of creating with Elizabeth a child born of natural causes, Frankenstein toils away at an unnatural creation” (Bangerter). This illustrates Victor as having child-like sexual ignorance because he doesn’t give any consideration into the natural way to create life through sexually reproducing. He instead just goes straight to manufacturing life from his scientific knowledge. Furthermore, Victor exhibits this quality when, “The monster finds himself in need - and in want - of a partner. It seems that Frankenstein had no plans to create both male and females - and the request for a female companion comes as a shock to his very psychological nature” (Bangerter). When viewed through the psychoanalytic perspective this represents that Victor Frankenstein lives within a realm of sexual ignorance because he denies the creature the rights of procreation as well as avoids this area in his own life. Not only does the psychoanalytic perspective in Frankenstein reveal to the reader the unconscious motives of Victor Frankenstein’s creation, it can also be used to analyze “To His Coy Mistress” to understand the speaker’s battle between wanting to fulfill his sexual desires but also wanting to uphold social and moral standards.
The main psychoanalytic ideology present in “To His Coy Mistress” is the battle between the speaker’s Id, Ego, and Super-ego about the morality and his strong sexual desires towards the woman he addresses.

The Id is wants to fulfill the instinctual needs and wants of a person and the Super-ego plays a role of upholding ideal standards of morality. The Ego is the everyday realistic part that mediates between the desires of the Id and Superego. In the poem, the male speaker is characterized as being at war with his uncontrollable lusting after the women in the poem. One example that shows this is, “The Id in the first and second stanza is under control of the Ego because the lover is only pleading, praising and threatening to entrap the beloved; this type of behavior is socially and morally acceptable” (Mushtaq). This illustrates that the lover progresses through the constraints of Ego and Superego because the speaker has not given in to the Id’s desires and still presents himself within moral and social restrictions. Furthermore, the depiction of how the speaker’s conscious is at war is exemplified in stanza three when, “The force of desire escalates to its highest point when the lover asserts `Now let us sport us while we may/and now, like amorous birds of prey/Rather at once our time devour’ (lines 37-39). The word `sport’ quite obviously suggests a desire for a sustained physical activity” (Mushtaq). This shows that in the end the speaker’s Id overcomes the Ego and

Superego because the speaker give in to the Id in order to fulfill his desire regardless of social and moral constraints. In addition to the psychoanalytic lens revealing the struggle of the speaker’s mind deciphering between what is moral and immoral in “To His Coy Mistress”, it also allows the reader to further analyze relationships between the characters of Hamlet.
Through the psychoanalytic lens there are speculations about the relationship between Hamlet and Gertrude exhibiting the Oedipus complex, which is a child’s unconscious and repressed desire to have sexual relations with the parent of the opposite sex. In Hamlet, Hamlet is characterized as having expressed fondness and affection for his mother at a young age that contain elements of disguised erotic traits. An example of this is, “the Queen's sensual nature and her passionate fondness of her son are two traits that show her relationship with Hamlet goes beyond the normal mother-son relationship” (“Literary Articles”). In other words, Gertrude’s reciprocated fondness of Hamlet exhibits the Oedipus complex and shows the unusual father-mother relationship between the two. Additionally, when Hamlet is unable to kill Claudius right away, “Freudian critics then go on to address what they consider the heart of the matter in Hamlet; the reasons for Hamlet's seeming delay in killing Claudius. For them, Claudius represents, in flesh and blood, the embodiment of Hamlet's oedipal urges” (“Literary Articles”). The statement of Claudius representing Hamlet’s oedipal urges means that Claudius is essentially an embodiment of Hamlet’s incestuous desires, so he is unable to kill Claudius because of his guilt about his repressed desires. Finally, Hamlet makes the decision to avenge his father’s death and the long-awaited event can take place once Gertrude has died. Hamlet is free to act because his mother, the cause of his repressed guilt, has been eliminated, so he kills Claudius immediately (“Literary Articles”). In addition to the psychoanalytic lens affecting character’s conscious and unconscious desires, the love amongst a family can also influence a character’s decisions.
The Greek word ‘Storge’ means family love. Storge plays a very important role in a person’s life and can heavily influence a character’s decisions and morals. Family helps shape a person’s beliefs and way of thinking which ultimately will affect a person’s behaviors and desires. Not all families fit a certain standard and a family’s love is not always a positive influence. The literary works of Frankenstein, “To His Coy Mistress”, and Hamlet express various forms of family love.
In Frankenstein, the creature observes what an ideal family should be like and from then on out his ultimate goal is to be accepted by this family or create a family similar to the DeLacy Family. Due to the creature facing rejection numerous times, it leads him to continually seek out the familial love he is not receiving. The monster’s initial view on family was distorted until he started observing the DeLacy family from afar and becomes fascinated that “they loved, and sympathized with one another, and their joys depending on each other, were not interrupted by the casualties that took place around them” (Shelly 146). The creature begins learning the basic nature of human interaction and soon his obsession with the family represents his main goal of finding love and acceptance. Furthermore, by observing the lives of the DeLacy family, “the monster begins to believe that he himself, despite his physical appearance and outrageous nature, is not unworthy of receiving sympathy and kindness, which is an attitude that is based in the constructs love” (Cooper). Essentially, the creature gains hope through observing the family and feels as if he too will someday experience the love of a family. This hope prompts the creature’s actions of devising a plan to attempt to get the DeLacy family to accept him. Therefore, the love of the DeLacy family that the creature imagined would happen, led him to make it his main goal to receive love and affection. Not only does the love observed within the DeLacy family affect the creature’s longing and ambitions for a family of his own, but the yearning for a lover is also present in “To His Coy Mistress”.
There isn’t an overwhelming amount of family love present in “To His Coy Mistress”, but the male speaker does express the desire to develop a long-standing and eternal love with the women despite using a lustful tone at the end. In the poem, the speaker displays the possible want for a long time relationship with the women. At the beginning of the poem an example of this is when the speaker says, “Had we but world enough, and time/ this coyness, Lady, were no crime/ we would sit down and think which way/ to walk and pass our love’s long day” (Marvel 1-4). This displays the speaker as wanting to spend time loving the women, however he feels as if there is not enough time for him to love her in this way. Another example this is when the speaker says, “My vegetable love should grow/ vaster than empires, and more slow/a hundred years should go to praise/ thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze” (Marvell 11-14). The speaker uses the image of a growing vegetable to suggest that slowly and steadily, his love might increase to greater proportions. He goes on to assure the women addressed in the poem that in an ideal world where time is unlimited then he would not value her at a lower rate than what she is truly worthy of. Although the speaker’s intentions are lustful because he is pressed for time, his unconscious desires of wanting to spend a lifetime with the women and develop a long-standing love similar to family peak through. Not only does the desire for long-standing love drive the speaker of “To His Coy Mistress” to express these desires to the mistress, but Hamlet’s love for his father drives him to avenge his death.