How Does Mary Shelley's Impact On Domestic Life

The negative impact of inventions on Domestic Life

The impact of inventions throughout history has been always subject of disagreement between authors. Mary Poovey has argued that in Frankenstein, the invention disrupts and even murders domestic tranquility. But does an invention always trouble and afflict the domestic circle? After studying Frankenstein and In The Cage, it turns out that the domestic circle is always a victim of inventions and technology. In Frankenstein the invention literally killed the domestic circle and its inventor; in In The Cage it ruins the marriage of Lady Bradeen by permitting her to have an affair with Everard and delayed the telegraphist’s union with Mr. Mudge because of her interest in knowing the evolution of

Everard’s affair. In all these cases, the inventions have altered the purity of domestic relations and impeded the relation between characters that are related to the invention. Moreover, the impact is more severe on the inventor’s domestic circle than the user of the invention, as if the inventive work is correlated with the deterioration of domestic life.
Mary Shelley emphasizes the impact of Frankenstein’s invention on his family by allowing him first to live the ideal childhood and enjoy the pleasures of growing up in a happy family.

Indeed, he is always in good terms with his father, plays every day with his sister Elizabeth and his best friend Henry, and is never forced into studying or any responsibility in general. At the end he concludes: “Such was our domestic circle, from which care and pain seemed for ever banished” (Shelley 24). We note how Frankenstein depicts the ideal domestic circle by completely excluding “pain and care”, using “ for ever” which is synonymous to always in this case, and “banished” which is an exaggeration of the exclusion. After spending his complete childhood surrounded by the affection of his family, Frankenstein goes to Ingolstadt to study Natural sciences and, from that moment, his domestic relations start to weaken: “Two years passed in this manner, during which I paid no visit to Geneva” (Shelley 30). We notice that Frankenstein is so “engaged in the pursuit of some discoveries” (Shelley 30) that he spends two years without seeing his family and doesn’t seem as much affected. What is even more interesting is the effect that his future invention has on him before even being created. These “discoveries” are the only reasons for the radical change in Frankenstein’s relation with his family; they have taken his attention and his time of the people with whom he has spent most of his

life.
Unfortunately, Frankenstein fails to realize the negative impact of his invention on his family until he animates the monster and has a sinister and foreboding nightmare about the annihilation of his family:
“I thought I saw Elizabeth, in the bloom of health, walking in the streets of Ingolstadt. Delighted and surprised, I embraced her; but as I imprinted the first kiss on her lips, they became livid with the hue of death; her features appeared to change, and I thought that I held the corpse of my dead mother in my arms; a shroud enveloped her form, and I saw the grave-worms crawling in the folds of the flannel.” (Shelley 42)
In this dream, Elizabeth represents the domestic circle and Frankenstein delights in finally seeing her.

Asking for a second chance, Frankenstein tries to “embrace” the indulged domestic circle and strengthen the ties between them again. However, as it is shown with the use of the simultaneity “as”, his attempt to save the domestic circle is vain and it is too late to save this relation for it is long gone: “livid” with the “hue of death”. At this moment, Frankenstein realizes that he has been blinded by his ambition and his invention and is ashamed of having failed his family. Moreover, Frankenstein’s dream depicts how he has murdered not only his loving domestic circle “Elizabeth”, but also the domestic circle who gave birth to him “His mother”. “The grave-worms” serve as a reminder of his sinister toils that led him to fulfill his desire and complete his invention. Finally, we notice the opposition in register between the beginning of the dream “bloom of health”, “delighted”, “embraced”, “kiss” which reflects the affection and happiness of Frankenstein childhood, and the end of the dream “hue of death”, “livid”, “corpse”, “grave-worms” which reflects Frankenstein’s present life, after pursuing discoveries and ignoring his family. It also anticipates the coming future where the monster slowly kills every person beloved to him and becomes what he will later call “the destroyer of my family” (Shelley 143). Critic Mary Poovey also argues that Frankenstein fails to realize

the negative impact of his invention on his family until he animates the monster and “dream the true meaning of his accomplishment: having denied domestic relationships by indulging his selfish passions, he has in effect, murdered domestic tranquility” (Poovey 348). Poovey analyzes Frankenstein’s dream about Elizabeth which is ominous of the destruction of the domestic circle. After murdering Frankenstein’s little brother William, Henry, Elizabeth and Frankenstein, the demon leaves no trace of the family who used to live prosperously. Therefore, the invention has affected the domestic relations of the inventor with his family and destroyed the domestic circle, including the inventor afterwards.
As we see in In The Cage, the invention does not only affect the inventor’s domestic circle adversely, but also affect any user of the invention. In this novel, the telegraph allows Lady Bradeen and Everard to maintain an immoral love affair that threatens Lady Bradeen’s marriage and her family from a major scandal. Since the domestic circle includes familial and parental relations as well as marital relations, we can say that the telegraph impacted Lady Bradeen’s marriage by distracting her from her husband and helping her to get involved in an unethical affair with Everard. In that context, Critic Mark Goble argues that the telegraph helps the lovers “maintaining the public appearance of decorum” (Goble 404). The lovers get to know each other, communicate and even meet secretly by using codes in their telegrams, but rarely show themselves at the same time in public. The telegraphist notice how careful Lady Bradeen is not to be seen with Everard since she only saw them once at the same place: “Cissy, Mary, never re-appeared with him” (James 127). When we first see Lady Bradeen, she sends three telegrams, each about different topics and to different recipients. The third telegram is the more interesting since it suggests that she is concealing a secret affair : “Everard, Hotel Brighton, Paris. Only understand and believe. 22nd to 26th, and certainly 8th and 9th. Perhaps others. Come. Mary” (James 122). We notice that Lady Bradeen is determined and confident about what she is doing “understand and believe”, “Come”, certainly the use of the verbal imperative form shows her determination. Finally she signs for the first time using her true name “Mary”, which is important to reassure Everard about the identity of his correspondent as well as a bold move to keep alive this bold relation. Afterwards, the couple kept in touch through telegrams and codes, communicating their “expensive feelings” (James 126) so profusely that the telegraphist “wondered what was left for real meetings” (James 127). Thus, from the third telegram it is clear that the telegraph helps Lady Bradeen hide her affair with Everard from her husband with the use of codes, but is it possible these codes are so subtle that the two first telegrams are also related to her affair ?
We may first think from the three telegrams that Lady Bradeen sends that the ones for her tailor and her friend are only a motive to send a telegram to Everard. However, the fact that the telegraph is often used to send secret messages and that Henry James puts the three telegrams together in this specific order suggests that they may all be connected to each other. As we read the first telegram “Marguerite, Regent Street. Try on at six. All Spanish lace. Pearls. The full length” (James 122), we notice that she orders a new dress secretly, instead of sending a servant directly to the tailor or even summoning Marguerite to her house. The only reason that would prevent her from doing that is having her husband know about the dress, a dress he will never see her wearing. So she orders the robe in total discretion, without signing at the end of the telegram. All of this suggests that she will be wearing this dress in her meetings with Everard. Through this first telegram, we can see to what extent goes Mary’s love to Everard by noticing the excess put on this dress “all”, ‘full” and the luxury “Spanish lace”, “Pearls”. The second telegram, which is the most cryptic was sent to her friend. The nature of the meeting with “Lady Agnes Orme” (James 122) is unsaid, but the fact that Lady Bradeen does not sign with her real name means that she does not want the telegram to be retraced to her. But what bad can come of that if someone knew that she was meeting with a friend? The only possible answer is that this meeting revolves around a delicate and secret subject, like her relation with Everard. Hence, the telegraph corrupted Lady’s Bradeen relation with her husband by permitting her to get to know Everard, communicate with him, and schedule questionable meetings. The telegraph along with her use of codes that require a certain level of creativity enabled her to escape her domestic life and deteriorate her relation with her husband.