Isolation In Frankenstein Essay

Isolation is often a result of choosing to seek refuge in solitude, however, in many cases, it is a result of brutality from a surrounding environment. In Mary Shelley’s Gothic novel, Frankenstein, a gruesome and painful story is told as a cautionary tale to prevent another from a similar downfall. Although Victor Frankenstein is the narrator for the majority of the novel, the audience learns of the destruction that has followed his decisions as well as the forced estrangement upon those he has encountered. In Frankenstein, Shelley uses relatable characters that reflect the harsh superficial aspects of society.

Victor is initially isolated as a child which foreshadows the motif of isolation that occurs throughout the novel. As Victor Frankenstein

recounts his informative tale to a seafaring Robert Walton, he makes it known that he was a child of nobility; however it is sadly transparent that combined with insufficient parenting Victor’s rare perspective on life pushes him towards a lifestyle of conditional love. Children are considered symbolic for innocence but as a child Victor’s arrogance was fueled by his parents.

With his family being “one of the most distinguished of the republic,”(Shelley 17), Victor was seen as his parents “plaything and their idol, and something better-their child, the innocent and helpless Creature bestowed on them by Heaven, whom to bring up to good, and whose future lot was in their hands to direct to happiness or misery, according as they fulfilled their duties towards me,”( 19). A child’s purpose is to learn and grow as their parent teaches them. With parents that place a child in a heavenly perspective there is no balance within love. It is a one way source of affection. Instead it is appraisal with the direct ability to inflict pain and suffering with only the beginning stages of life. Due to his upbringing and societal standards, at an early age Victor associates human life with control. Victor had everything at his disposal as a child. Even his adopted sister is given as a “pretty present,”( 21). From society’s perspective during this era women were nothing but a present: a different representation of property. Beauty and wealth appear to be the two determinants in a woman’s fate. According to Sylvia Bowerbank, “The social order, in Frankenstein, repeatedly redeems pretty, tractable females from wretchedness” (Bowerbank). This

pattern of women in distress, the first seen to the reader through Elizabeth, was socially acceptable and nearly the only option for women to survive. Shelley conveys this through Victor and his choice of words in referring to Elizabeth. He declares, “... since till death she was to be mine only,” (Shelley 21). Unfortunately, not only do men control the women but apparently the children poses little girls as well. This brings attention to the reader that Victor cannot differentiate the genuinity within a relationship. Because of his inability to connect effectively, Victor seeks an obsessive stability in science. Science manages to becomes Victor’s source of life. “It was the secrets of heaven and earth that [he] desired to learn,”(Shelley 23) and with his quest to be great and glorified is where Victor’s misfortune deepens. He uncovers the possibility in creating life and in the midst of this discovery his isolation begins. He stops writing and views his research with more importance than his family. He claims that he “became [the philosopher's’] disciple,“(25). A disciple is a follower typically in relation to Christ and somehow Victor is so magnetized to his work that he must obey the direction in which he believes his science wishes him to pursue. By referring to himself as a disciple it shows the immoral side to what Victor has begun to create. He has fixated himself in an incredibly unhealthy environment focused on a project that breaks all laws of nature. In relation to Victor’s obsessive addiction to science, critic Thomas H. Schmid writes from Helen Keane’s perspective and the correlation between isolation in society:
The right kind of consumption in the right time and place can be both sociable and socially sanctioned--what Andrew Weil identifies as sanatively 'ritualistic'; addictive forms of consumption, however--too much at the wrong time in the wrong setting--violate those communally-based boundaries.

(16) As addiction develops, the social unacceptability of the behaviour begins to lie increasingly outside the realm of social rituals, and the addicted person acts increasingly in secret and in defiance of those rituals(qtd. In Schmid).

Victor Frankenstein's infatuation with science can be explained through Schmid and Helen Kane's reasoning. His passion for science would be considered practical if it had he had not driven himself towards isolation or if he had worked at a steady pace. Society considers locking oneself away in a laboratory to create life from inanimate matter detrimental to mental health. The way society perceives the situation does play a role in the severity of the addiction.

Works

Cited
Bowerbank, Sylvia. “The Social Order vs. the Wretch: Mary Shelley's Contradictory-Mindedness in Frankenstein Sylvia Bowerbank.” Bowerbank, "The Social Order vs. the Wretch", knarf.english.upenn.edu/Articles/bower.html.
Sayres, William G. “Compounding the Crime: Ingratitude and the Murder Conviction of Justine Moritz in Frankenstein.” Sayres, "Compounding the Crime", knarf.english.upenn.edu/Articles/sayres.html.
Schmid, Thomas H. "Addiction and isolation in Frankenstein: a Case of Terminal Uniqueness." Gothic Studies, vol. 11, no. 2, 2009, p. 19+. Literature Resource Center, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A381057963/GLS?u=avl_madi&sid=GLS&xid=0fc6b20f. Accessed 11 Dec. 2017
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft. Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus: with Connections. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1999.