From the first few chapters we read, it appears that Victor
Frankenstein develops an overly sexual relationship with nature and science,
perhaps suggesting that he conceives and thus reproduces with nature/science to
create his monster. In chapter I, Frankenstein says “I have described myself as
always having been embued with a fervent longing to penetrate the secrets of
nature”(47). The use of words like “fervent” and “penetrate” demonstrate
Frankenstein’s rather uniquely sexual relationship with nature. In chapter III,
he continues on this trajectory, quoting his professor’s lecture. His professor
claimed that scientists “penetrate into the recesses of nature, and show how
she works in her hiding places”(53). Frankenstein discusses nature and science
as if they were a woman he could intimately interact with by exploring “her
hiding places.” Again, in chapter IV, Frankenstein continues with the motif,
saying, “After so much time spent in painful labour, to arrive at once at the
summit of my desires, was the most gratifying consummation of my toils”(57).
This description of his creative process alludes to birth and sex. In these
passages, Frankenstein appears to be the dominant male figure inseminating science
with his knowledge and will to create. I thought these chapters portrayed
Frankenstein as troubled, unsettled, and rather unsure of what he was
objectively seeking in the world. His sexual relationship with science and
nature speak to his lack of a relationship with anyone else in his environment.
After leaving his home, he completely secludes himself in his obsession to
create his monster. Nature/science was the only “person” he had a relationship
with, and his sexual attraction to that “person” demonstrate the gravity of his
loneliness and obsession. Frankenstein definitely comes off as a weird guy, and
I’d be interested to discuss more how he transitioned so drastically from a
relatively regular person to an obsessive and troubled monster-creator.
I think you make an interesting point that acknowledges the numerous very odd interactions that Victor has with nature throughout the first part of the novel, most notably, the actions he takes against the ways of nature by creating his monster. The monster’s creation, when taken in the context of Victor’s sexual relationship with nature, is interesting because Victor created life without a sexual union, which may show that Victor actually has a weird relationship not with nature, but with sex itself.
ReplyDeleteInteresting thought. This may be far-stretched, but interpreting Frankenstein's craze with science and nature as sexual and a thirst to achieve further than his predecessors ties nicely with the notion that he was everyone's center of the universe. We know that as a child, he was so used to an easy life where his every desire was met. Whatever he yearned for, he proceeded to attain without much opposition. This overwhelming sense of domination over everybody and everything else may have found itself, possibly against Frankenstein's own intentions, into his complex relationship with things that are far bigger than himself and led him to believe he could fully comprehend the forces of nature to the point of manipulating them, to the point of regarding them as another trophy to his name, much like how he regarded Elizabeth as a “possession of [his] own” [21].
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