Victor…Alienated: Frankenstein & Estranged Labor

Karl Marx and Mary Shelley’s works are both in conversation with the rise of the Industrial Revolution. Marx describes the alienation of the worker from his labor in Estranged Labor. At first, this may not seem to be directly related to Frankenstein, but when Victor Frankenstein is read as if he is the theoretical laborer Marx describes in his essay, the two become similar while remaining in tension with each other at times. Marx’s theoretical laborer is alienated from his product as well as from his production just as Victor’s creature becomes his product which causes his alienation and later he too becomes alienated from his production.

When Victor is working on his creature, he is completely engrossed in his production.

During my first experiment, a kind of enthusiastic frenzy had blinded me to the horror of my employment; my mind was intently focused on the sequel of my labor, and my eyes were shut to the horror of my proceedings. (118)

Victor’s work on the monster was something he was so fully invested in that he isolated himself in his home in Ingolstadt. Victor’s work is not separated from himself as he is so immersed in it, he and his act of production are deeply connected so that he becomes alienated from others rather than from himself. This alienation opposes Marx’s idea of alienation of the worker from his production. He takes so much pleasure in it that he does not realize the “horror of his proceedings.” Victor did not truly understand what he was doing until after it was done and he sees his product come to life. When he is confronted with his completed, living product he becomes estranged from the product and disgusted by what he has done. This is the first kind of estrangement Frankenstein encounters, where he...

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... my slavery for ever” (109). He loses his sense of self when the creature forces him to create another creature. His original creation, his “object," has enslaved him. This is more literal than what Marx means as an automobile cannot enslave an assembly line worker, however the monster is like a living manifestation of a commodity. He has driven Frankenstein to the point of wishing for his own death to “put an end to his slavery,” his loss of autonomy to the machinations of the creature.

Whereas Frankenstein and Estranged Labor may not seem to be connected works, they are in fact rather similar description of the alienation of a laborer from his labor. They are in conflict with each other at times and yet become very close in meaning. Perhaps Shelley’s work can be a testament to the extreme destitution experience by wage laborers and tangential to Marxist ideology.