Frankenstein Mental Illness Essay

Frankenstein, a frame story by Mary Shelley and published in 1818, documents the struggles between Victor Frankenstein and the Creature that he created told through the letters of Robert Walton to his sister, Margaret. Beginning with the creation of the Creature, Victor’s life and mental state degrade as he battles with guilt and responsibility while slipping in and out of sickness. While some think of Victor’s recurring illness as a thematic device showing the similarities between physical and mental separation, an actual disease contacted by his extensive time around rotting flesh likely carries the blame.

Humans normally react to guilt and failure by shying away the source of the feelings and in Victor’s case he feels that by creating

the Creature he has failed society. Victor’s guilt may manifest itself in physical symptoms, showing his mental separation from society. People expect someone with an illness to seclude themselves for the safety of others; This expectation works in Victor’s favor and for a long time allows him to hide from the guilt he feels about creating the Creature. Victor’s emotional pain, loneliness, and guilt, consume him at times leading to illness. If the disease is mental then so too is the cure. After leavings his apartment in Ingolstadt and meeting Clerval, Victor immediately falls ill, allowing him to seclude himself from other people and be cared for by a friend. If Frankenstein’s illness is purely mental, it shows his almost pathological need for separation which nowadays could be diagnosed as depression.
While there is a possibility that Victor’s illness is a physical manifestation of his guilt he still experienced symptoms and in the time leading up to the creation of the Creature, Victor remains indoors surrounded by decomposing body parts. During this time, Victor’s health steadily declines and he becomes pale and feverish. Also, after confrontations with the monster and after the death of his friend, Henry Clerval, he experiences convulsions. These symptoms are physical and can be diagnosed as Trichinosis, a disease that stems from exposure to rotting meat or flesh. The disease reproduces in muscle tissue and works its way quickly through the body. Victor likely picked up the parasite at some point late in his quest to create the Creature. The first symptoms of Trichinosis include nausea, gastrointestinal problems, vomiting, fever, and heartburn. Victor experienced many of these symptoms while in his lab and his condition continued to worsen. He experienced relief while walking in the village, but worsened exponentially after returning to his apartment. This likely meant that the parasite had entered its parenteral stage. Trichinella, the parasite that cause Trichinosis, encyst in muscle tissue and, after fully gestated, move into the small intestine. During this time Victor experienced the full force of Trichinosis. The parenteral stage includes symptoms such as fever, muscle pain, periorbital edema (swelling of the face/eyes), and hemorrhaging on the outer extremities, especially under the nails. This array of symptoms likely could incapacitate someone for long periods of time.
Further evidence of Victor’s diagnosis comes during his second bout of illness.

After being threatened with imprisonment and seeing his friend’s dead body on the beach, Victor begins convulsing violently. It is evident that Victor suffered a stroke. Cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, rare form of stroke that is attributed to parasitic diseases and caused when Trichinella encyst in the central nervous system, fits the bill . He likely came into contact with this particularly nasty case of Trichinella from his project to create a companion for the Creature in the cool, damp Scottish climate. Victor’s long period of illness likely involved a non-lethal case of respiratory paralysis in which the body loses its ability to control muscles in the diaphragm and cannot regulate levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the bloodstream. This is caused by loss central nervous system control, due to the encysted Trichinella and the presence of parenteral Trichinella in the bloodstream. During this time Victor would have been bedridden and likely unconscious. Due to the lack of oxygen for extended periods of time, Victor’s memory of this period would be foggy at best. In the time of Frankenstein there was little sanitation and parasitic infections were quite common. The official discovery of Trichinosis was in 1835 and the uneducated villagers around Victor would not have possessed any way to treat him. In the modern era, the development of anthelmintics greatly decrease the rate at which parasites encyst and have nearly eradicated the disease in the developed world. Victor, however, was lucky to survive. The time he spent in prison was during the time at which the Trichinosis was in full swing, causing severe damage to his nervous and muscular systems. His survival teaches the most important message about literature, the main character cannot die before the

end.
A large portion of the plot of Frankenstein centers around Victor falling ill. It allows the Creature to freely educate itself and lash out on people in anger before Victor can hunt it down. Also, there is no interpretation of the novel in which the Creature does not directly or indirectly cause Victor’s illness, either by causing Victor guilt that eventually consumes him, or, and far more likely, by carrying the parasites that nearly destroyed an otherwise healthy man. Looking at the novel logically, the only lesson that can be learned from Victor’s battle with disease is if you are going to play God, at least wash your hands.