An artist’s painting is his beloved creation; he extracted its beginnings from the far recesses of his mind and gave it texture and tangibility. In his case, his painting might be sold, and as a result the painter will be affected. He might gain wealth in exchange for it, but he might also feel the absence of his creation. His painting is an extension of himself that can lead to consequences previously unfathomed. Just like the painter, many characters have experienced the involvement that stems from the nativity of an unconscious or conscious being, their lives irrevocably changed. Likewise, the existential development in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot illuminates how the ignorance and neglect of one's creations leads to the created metaphysically usurping the creator.
The emotions generated in one’s weakened mental state in response to a crisis ultimately consumes the personality of its creator. When Lucky’s hat is taken from him in Waiting For Godot, he slumps over and is unable to stand until “[Pozzo fetches bag and basket and
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brings them towards Lucky.] Hold him tight! [He puts the bag in Lucky’s hand. Lucy drops it immediately.] Don’t let him go! [Gradually, at the feel of the bag, Lucky recovers his senses and his fingers finally close round the handle]...Done it! He can walk” (Beckett 36). Lucky cannot stand without his baggage weighing him down, keeping him tied to verisimilitude; without whatever human sufferings he has endured, he cannot face reality and, in turn, endure reality. However, he did not have to pick up those bags in the first place, as one is responsible for the emotions that they generate. His neglect to acknowledge what he had created left him fumbling when it was removed, proving that he had become reliant upon that which inhibited him and consequently made him a pawn of his own creation. Just as Lucky is dependent upon his baggage, Dr. Frankenstein becomes reliant upon his revenge on the monster, noting himself that his “present situation was one in which all voluntary thought was swallowed up and lost. I was hurried away by fury; revenge alone endowed me with strength and composure; it moulded my feelings, and allowed me to be calculating and calm, at periods when otherwise delirium or death would have been my portion” (Shelley 205). With his entire family dead, Dr. Frankenstein is alone. He neglected the monster, ignoring that while it may not be human it feels that it is and that it should be treated as such. Now, Frankenstein feels he has nothing left but the call to revenge, and so he gives in to his need for vengeance, killing himself in the process. However, by dedicating his life to the eradication of the monster, he became a slave to the monster, as the monster had only ever wanted attention from his creator. Dr. Frankenstein fell into the monster’s play, ultimately giving the monster what it had so desperately wanted and making himself inferior to his creation the moment he allowed his creation to take control of Frankenstein’s poignant emotions. Projecting one's afflictions by engendering a living or metaphysical being allows for the degradation of the creator’s sanity. When the Boy arrives in Part Two and relays the message to Estragon and Vladimir that Godot will not be arriving, Vladimir quickly snaps in a flash of anger before immediately forgetting what happened, and, after a silence, calmly speaks with Estragon: “Vladimir: We have to come back tomorrow. Estragon: What for? Vladimir: To wait for Godot. Estragon: Ah! [Silence.] He didn’t come? Vladimir: No. Estragon: And now it’s too late. Vladimir: Yes, now it’s night. Estragon: And if we dropped him? [Pause.] If we dropped him? Vladimir: He’d punish us. [Silence. He looks at the tree.] Everything’s dead but the tree” (Beckett 83). Estragon and Vladimir speak of Godot the entire book, saying that they will wait for him, but as Godot represents Death, really they are asking when Death will claim them from their lives. They want to die because there is no meaning in their lives. Mindlessly, they keep repeating each day; even the two acts are mirrors of each other, repetitions of the same dialogue and same character introductions. They lose their sanity to this repetition, which is obvious in the broken and scattered-thoughts dialogue, and each character’s tone gives the impression that his mind is not functioning sanely. The only barrier the men can find to hold off the insanity is by projecting this sense of meaninglessness onto Godot, a seemingly metaphysical being, in order to provide significance to their lives. However, this act in itself is a mark of the degradation of sanity. By repeating the day of waiting for Godot for all of time, they actually lose meaning to their lives. Waiting for a character who will never come, each man drifts through the years, forgetting the people in his life, forgetting what it means to live, and ultimately giving in to his partial creation of Godot’s figure and renouncing his sanity in order to continue the idealization of Godot. Estragon and Vladimir project their sense of meaninglessness and existential ideals onto an ideal that they created, however Frankenstein, by the work of his own hands, created his own ideal--and in the end, a monster. He becomes obsessed with the monster, first with creating it, and then, later, with destroying it, saying to Walter that “once his words had power over my heart: but trust him not. His soul is as hellish as his form, full of treachery and fiendlike malice. Hear him not; call on the manes of William, Justine, Clerval, Elizabeth, my father, and of the wretched Victor, and thrust your sword into his heart” (Shelley 212). Victor, cold and nearly dead from exhaustion, asks Walton to carry out the last of his revenge on the monster. He is dying because of the monster, his creation, because he projected the pain of his mother’s death by engendering a “human” being and making new life. Once he neglected his creation, the monster felt a human pain and one by one murdered each member of Victor’s family; little by little, Victor became more obsessed with destroying that which he had made. He bypassed every precaution, ignoring the logic of people and instead giving in to his deep subconscious, primal instincts in order to exact his vengeance. His sanity slipped away with every death that he endured, as he knows that each death was his fault. This guilt is what plunges him into insanity, why he lays half conscious and half alive in a cot on a ship in the far, Arctic reaches of the world. In the neglect of his creation, he sparks a series of events that lead to the deaths of his family and the slight but significant slips into insanity, and in the end, he forfeits his life. In fashioning the idea of “time,” the creator inherently feels the need to acknowledge the future and subsequently succumbs to the knowledge it provides him, conclusively relinquishing the meaning of life in the process. In a frenzy of words and comebacks, Estragon and Vladimir finish their bout and talk about passing the time: “Vladimir: How time flies when one has fun! [Silence.] Estragon: What do we do now? Vladimir: While waiting. Estragon: While waiting. Vladimir: We could do our exercises. Estragon: Our movements. Vladimir: Our elevations… Vladimir: [stopping] We’re not in form. What about a little deep breathing? Estragon: I'm tired breathing” (Beckett 66-67). Time is an entity that man creates. Its passing has no relation to the fact that it is measured by man, and it truly only gives Estragon and Vladimir the notion that there is a future and that they must somehow fill the future with actions. They finish talking and immediately think that they must be doing something else. It is the fault of humanity to understand that there is a future, and here they each believe that there will be a future and that it is empty and that they must somehow fill it. This is what voids all meaning in their lives and conclusively usurps them as people: instead of having a blank slate and the ignorance of what is to come, they have the knowledge of time and of the fact that they will forever be waiting for Godot. In their development and understanding of time, they invalidate the very subject itself, neglecting the fact that “time” is not something meant to be filled, but rather experienced. Likewise, this misperception of time occurs in Frankenstein, but rather with the monster himself. After Frankenstein dies, the monster visits his coffin, standing over his creator as he speaks with Walton, delivering a magnificent utterance: “I shall die. I shall no longer feel the agonies which now consume me, or be the prey of feelings unsatisfied, yet unquenched. He is dead who called me into being; and when I shall be no more, the very remembrance of us both will speedily vanish. I shall no longer see the sun or stars...and in this condition must I find my happiness” (Shelley 225). The monster suffers from the knowledge of time; he knows that there is a future and that in this future he will endure the agonies that plague him presently. In believing that the future holds only pain, the monster chooses to abandon it, rather than sustain his life. He abandons his life because he believes that life is meaningless without happiness, and he cannot gather meaning from his life without relinquishing his belief that the future might be more than what he measured it to be, more than this quantitative alias of “time,” and rather to be possibilities. The monster uses time to convey that a small excerpt taken from it will be characterized by pain, and he is looking at the future as this thing that must be filled, and that it will be filled with that pain, despite the fact that what time is measuring is not a static event but rather a dynamic entity. His misinterpretation bereaves him of his hope and, in this way of thinking, ultimately leaves him believing that life is without meaning. Through the evolution of existentialist ideas in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot, the disregardment and lack of understanding for one's creations allows for the creation to displace and mentally dismantle its respective creator.
This coup occurs due to the fact that the emotions generated by a person can consume its creator and his personality; the projection of a metaphysical or physical being allows for the deterioration of sanity; and the creation of time and its misinterpretations result in the loss of meaning in life. Each character is affected and changed by his creation, just like the painter, as a creation comes with a responsibility that many do not care to take notice of; the acknowledgement of this responsibility is necessary for the continuation of life, perhaps not the same as before, but with an open mind for the change that it will inevitably
bring.
Tiffany Solorzano Professor Garrow LIT232-Sect.03 March 2, 2014 Essay #1: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Mary Shelley states towards the end of Volume 2, Chapter 5, “Was man, indeed, at once so powerful, so virtuous, and magnificent, yet so vicious and base? 83)”. The. In the context of Volumes 1-2, the narrator is asking this question because the question revolved around Victor Frankenstein and his creation of the monster due to his admiration of the relationship between nature and knowledge.
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein explores the downfall of certain human characteristics, set to the backdrop of creation, destruction, and preservation. The subtitle denoted by Shelly herself supports this idea, by relating the fact that the title can be viewed as either Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus. One scholar, Marilyn Butler, also maintains this by noting, "It can be a late version of the Faust Myth"(302). Shelly uses the story of the main character, Victor Frankenstein, to produce the concept of a dooming human characteristic of which Frankenstein states, "I have . . . been blasted in these hopes"(Shelley, 152). The reader finds, as a result of his thirst for knowledge and infatuation with science, Victor creates a living being by whom he has "suffered great and unparalleled misfortunes"(Shelley, 17). Eventually, Victor realizes this self-destructive trait, but he is not able to save himself stating, "I have lost everything, and cannot begin life anew"(Shelley, 16). Although everything in his life that is dear has been lost, Victor is able to convince one in his same position--Robert Walton--to not "lead [his crew] unwillingly to danger"(Shelley, 151). While addressing the concept of characteristic and self-discovery, it is possible to realize that the monster also possesses the characteristics held by both Victor and Walton; except in his learning, the monster is driven to continue to cause destruction. Most important about the thirst for knowledge is that, as a form of human characteristic or downfall, it leads to large, critical pieces of self-discovery. In obtaining these critical pieces, Frankenstein finds satisfaction in j...
The idea of duality permeates the literary world. Certain contradictory commonplace themes exist throughout great works, creation versus destruction, light versus dark, love versus lust, to name a few, and this trend continues in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. The pivotal pair in this text however, is monotony versus individuality. The opposing entities of this pairing greatly contrast against each other in Frankenstein, but individuality proves more dominant of the two in this book.
Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, has captured people’s attention since it was first written. People often wonder how much of Mary Shelley’s life is documented in her novel. From the theme of parental abandonment, to the theme of life and death in the novel, literary scholars have been able to find similarities between Frankenstein and Shelley’s life. The Journal of Religion and Health, the Journal of Analytical Psychology, and the Modern Psychoanalysis discuss the different connections between Shelley’s life and Frankenstein. Badalamenti, the author of “ Why did Mary Shelley Write Frankenstein?” in the Journal of Religion and Health, primarily discusses the connection between Victor
Essay 2 Psychoanalysis is the method of psychological therapy originated by Sigmund Freud in which free association, dream interpretation, and analysis of resistance and transference are used to explore repressed or unconscious impulses, anxieties, and internal conflicts (“Psychoanalysis”). This transfers to analyzing writing in order to obtain a meaning behind the text. There are two types of people who read stories and articles. The first type attempts to understand the plot or topic while the second type reads to understand the meaning behind the text. Baldick is the second type who analyzes everything.
“Frankenstein” by Mary Shelly explores the concept of the body, life, ‘the self’ and most of importantly humanity, which is repeatedly questioned throughout the novel. The definition of humanity is the quality of being humane or in other words someone that can feel or possess compassion. Despite all the facts against the “monster” in “Frankenstein” he is indeed what one would consider being human. Humanity isn’t just about ones physical appearance but also includes intellect and emotion. Some people argue that the “monster” is not a human for he was not a creature that was born from “God” or from a human body. That being said, the “monster” is not only able to speak different languages, he can also show empathy - one of many distinct traits that set humans apart from the animals. Both the “monster” and his creator, Victor, hold anger and feel a sense of suffering throughout the novel. Victor is a good person with good intentions just like most individuals, but makes the mistake of getting swept up into his passion of science and without thinking of the consequences he creates a “monster”. After completing his science project, he attempts to move forward with his life, however his past – i.e., the “monster” continues to follow and someone haunt him. While one shouldn’t fault or place blame on Frankenstein for his mistakes, you also can’t help but feel somewhat sympathetic for the creature. Frankenstein just wants to feel accepted and loved, he can’t help the way he treats people for he’s only mimicking how people have treated him, which in most cases solely based on his appearance. Unlike most of the monsters we are exposed to in films past and present, the character of the “monster” ...
creature is not to blame - it is the creator. For this reason, we feel
Victor Frankenstein, the monster’s creator, is the victim of his own pride. An ego unchecked is a dangerous thing. But in truth, it really just shows Victor’s humanity. He is privileged, educated, talented, loved, adored, but he is not perfect. His flaw is his own ego and pride. Without doubt, this is the result of a childhood where he was overindulged. Overindulged to the extent he was given a little girl “Elizabeth” as a “present”, whom he considered from childhood “mine only” (Shelley 21). Little wonder the twenty year old Victor would think he could create, control and command life. But Victor as with any indulged child did not take the time to learn much from his parents about parenting and fath...
In gothic novels tragic figures are symbols of pain to the characters. Victor Frankenstein brings misfortune to his loved ones, which concludes to his overall tragedy. Ironically the monster in this novel is Frankenstein the creator not the creature. He has seven victims including himself and his fall is due to his ambition to be superior.
Throughout the year Professor Prudden has been teaching us the idea of the individual and when and how it came about. We have studied The French Revolution, Scientific Revolution, Colonialism, and Reformation, all stressing what made this time period important to the individual. We finished the class reading the novel Frankenstein with does a great job of demonstrating a man or “monster” creaking his own being. We have already determined that an individual is; the habit or principle of being independent and self-reliant. Mary Shelley demonstrates individuality through Frankenstein and leads to his internal isolation and loneliness. She shows that uniqueness is the most important aspect of individualism not only through Frankenstein but Victor
In the novel Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, one of the key themes is loneliness. For many, most of their time is spent with people, whether it is friends, family, coworkers, or strangers. Many of the characters in this book break that norm and spend countless hours alone. Having time to reflect and think about everything. Sometimes, the characters are still lonely, even with people, and sometimes friends around them.
As a response to the Enlightenment movement in 18th century Europe, Romanticism gradually began to undermine the way people thought about human consciousness and nature itself. Appreciation of the natural beauty of the world and pure, human emotion bloomed in Europe as Romanticism’s influence grew ("Topic Page: Romanticism”). Romantics valued Individualism and thought that being close to nature would make them closer to God (Morner and Rausch). People also searched for solace in nature to overcome the adversities and cynicisms that followed the French Revolution ("French Revolution."). Romanticism and Romantic ideals influenced Mary Shelley, and that influence can be seen throughout her novel Frankenstein. The two main characters, Victor Frankenstein
Monsters embody brutality, twisted morality, and irrationality—the banes of human existence, yet the children of man’s inner demons. Monsters are, in short, projections of man’s wicked id. The term creature may suggest monstrosity, and Frankenstein’s creation in Mary Shelley’s novel may be perceived as a personification of the Freudian id. In this case, however, the creature also mediates between its neurotic creator and societal values, just as the Freudian ego, conditioned by the reality principle, mediates between external reality and inner turmoil through practicality. The ego is the psyche’s driving force and, arguably, the real protagonist of Frankenstein. But in the fierce tug-of-war within the ego between the id and its law-abiding opposite—the superego—lies the true battlefield of Shelley’s novel. For ironically the man of science embodies an ego-ridden id, a man-monster, but creates a monster-man that embodies his counterpart: an id-ridden ego. In the wake of his mother’s death, Frankenstein’s tinkering with reanimation unconsciously shapes a symbiosis between himself and his creation—between two tortured halves of one neurotic mind. In fact, Shelley’s novel sinks deep into the crevices of Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, oozing into pits of neurosis, repression, parapraxes, dream symbolism, and the Oedipus complex.
Taking responsibility for one's actions is a hallmark of maturity, leadership, and capability. When one can admit their faults or wrongdoings when they happen, life usually moves along much smoother. Consequences for those who attempt to shift blame off themselves for their own misdeeds tend to be much more severe than those who acknowledge them as their own. In literature, agency is the ability of a character to act on their environment, those who act positively and take responsibility for their actions would be said to have good agency. The absence of this quality can result in large consequences for not only the person lacking in agency, but those around them as well. Victor Frankenstein and Rodion Raskolnikov’s delusions of grandeur, unwillingness
Mary Shelley in her book Frankenstein addresses numerous themes relevant to the current trends in society during that period. However, the novel has received criticism from numerous authors. This paper discusses Walter Scott’s critical analysis of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in his Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine Review of Frankenstein (1818).