Frankenstein speaks to what Alice Miller calls, “the drama
of the gifted child.” Like Mary Shelley, Victor was raised in a certain environment
by successful parents, who taught him to conceal his emotions. Speaking of his
father, Victor says, “He wished as much as possible to obliterate the memory of
the scenes that had taken place in Ireland and never alluded to them or
suffered me to speak of my misfortunes” (p. 164). In order to please his father,
Victor learned how to conceal his emotions, but he longs for someone to love
him as he is—flaws in all. “Once I
falsely hoped to meet with beings who, pardoning my outward form, would love me
for the excellent qualities which I was capable of unfolding.” Victor sounds
like a child crying for attention, and he appears depressed. He says, “But
busy, uninteresting, joyous faces brought back despair to my heart” (p. 137). According
to Bloom, “The profound dejection endemic in Mary Shelley’s novel is
fundamental to the Romantic mythology of the self, for all Romantic horrors are
diseases of excessive consciousness, of the self unable to bear the self.”
What do you see when you walk around Hamilton’s campus? An
elite and expensive liberal arts institution in upstate New York with students
coming from well to do families like Victor and Shelley’s… You see people hustling
to and from class, club meetings and sports practice. It looks like people are
happy, but within the natural scenery of Hamilton, like the mountains in Frankenstein, lies a different reality.
The pressure to succeed makes us conceal our true selves—the bad parts of
ourselves, so we no longer see humanistic traits in humans. Emotion and mental
illness is stigmatized in our society as roadblocks to success. At Hamilton,
you see students, like Victor, turning to art, science and literature to
illuminate their true selves and connect to their emotions. These forms of
knowledge have the permanence we seek in an ever-changing world.
We are all monstrous and incomplete, and we must accept this
instead of trying to make ourselves complete. When we deviate from our natural
form, bad things happen. Look at “frankenfood” and diet fads, for example.
These things make people feel inadequate and incomplete. They make people think
that feeling incomplete is a bad thing. Shelley writes, “…the men, unsupported
by ideas of glory and honour, can never willingly continue to endure their
present hardships” (p. 191). Isn’t there glory and honor in being ourselves? If
we come to accept this, we may endure our present hardships. We may see fewer
school shootings and celebrity drug trials.
I like how you not only connected this novel with our community, but to mental health issues that are prevalent in today's fast-paced lifestyle. Recently, many articles have come out about how our college education system fails the mental health of students. I recently read this article (http://mag.newsweek.com/2014/02/07/colleges-flunk-mental-health.html) and connected it with your post and the book. I agree; mental health is very stigmatized, and people often avoid getting treatment from societal pressures. It is very interesting how the issues in this novel can still be applied to modern day.
ReplyDeleteAside from the mis-attributed quote six lines down from the first paragraph (I believe it’s the creature who said this, not Victor), I also disagree with the argument that, if I understand you correctly, the extremely privileged socioeconomic backgrounds of the majority of Hamilton students force them to turn a blind eye to their own emotions and seek solace in the wonders of academia. This is the tragedy of the common, by which I mean that suffering from excessive desires – intellectual self-fulfillment or even a way out from “suffering” in the broadest sense possible –is evident in all men, not just elitist circles. It is not just people from well to do families who sometimes neglect to own up to their imperfections, and ultimately suffer as the chickens come home to roost.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, as you said, the only way to end this suffering is to acknowledge it and mindfully live with it, even when we can’t rid ourselves of it. All of these things Frankenstein fails to do – he does not acknowledge his true responsibilities the moment the creature comes to life nor does he forgives the creature for his crimes. This may very well be the simplest, most basic reading of this classic novel, but often times the simplest lesson is the hardest to learn. Enlightenment, unlike physical traits, cannot be coded into genetic sequence and passed down from one generation to the next. And at the same time, knowing the lesson doesn’t necessarily mean understanding it. So maybe our fallacy lies not in our stubbornness against imperfections, but in our pathetically genuine inability to fully comprehend them. That’s why we keep coming back to this novel like fireflies towards the candle light.