Frankenstein, wow where do I start from.
I will start with a confession, I did judge this novel thinking I wouldn’t like it just because of monsters, Science is not my kind of thing. And of course, the stereotype and the image I had in my head of Frankenstein ‘being’ the monster, or he created a monster that had green skin and static kind of hair (picturing the one from Hotel Transylvania). And taken from the soundtrack from Hotel Transylvania I will start by saying (or singing) ‘I’m in love with a Monster’. Specifically, Frankenstein’s monster.
Let me start by gushing and fangirling over Shelley’s writing and also can we acknowledge and appreciate she wrote this when she was just 18 years old! That is incredibly amazing because Frankenstein is the most beautifully written novel and her words just immersed me completely into this heartfelt tragic story. They stirred up emotions in me and I am proud to say this book gave me the ‘feels’ (aka made me cry and rage my heart full of love and cry again etc). This novel includes themes such as love, rejection, science and artificial intelligence, morality and ethic debate and the desire for companionship and it’s such a complex multi-layered novel. I had to keep reminding myself that this was an 18th-century novel because of these themes she writes about. It makes the novel that much more powerful and of course shows Shelley’s intelligence but also the questions she wanted to raise when readers will be reading this and how she reflects (criticises to an extent) of 18th-century society.
I was so happy to have started my year reading this book because the writing is so beautifully atmospheric, the novel is so deep, and every paragraph makes you think and question and consider the points she raises. One is the nature of good and evil, questioning if humans ‘are’ good than evil. I have such love and empathy for ‘the Monster’ and Shelley giving us his point of view and allowing us to witness the recollection and all ‘the Monster’ goes through confirms that ‘the Monster’ has to be up there with my favourite literary characters. My heart was breaking (and probably still is breaking) when the Monster recalls the events because all I read is he wanted to be loved, to be seen for who ‘he’ is, not what he looked like, he wanted to have that companionship, the intimacy of a family. And everybody rejected him time and time again. And this is what drove him and drew out his ‘ugly’ side. But may we stop there a minute because I didn’t hate the Monster for what he did because of how people reacted to him, the amount of times he got rejected of course does not justify his actions, but it sure does give you an explanation as to why. You can definitely sympathise with him and with him. It really hit hard when a character who was ‘blind’ all though weary for a time accepted who the Monster was and then my heart shattered into tiny pieces and hasn’t been fixed because the characters who ‘could’ see the Monster, did the one thing that led to the destruction they judged. And this is the fundamental issue and question that is underlying in the novel and what Shelley made a point of. The Monster only wanted to be loved, he craved it and all the malice and prejudice that he receives drove him to murder all because simply he wanted companionship. Why couldn’t that family just take him in and instead accept him rather than judging him, took the time to get to know who he was. The loneliness this character goes through… the abandonment, the need to be loved and not receiving it. It just all broke my heart… I am still questioning how am I alive? And this is something that is very prevalent in today’s society. We are all so quick to judge, to make opinions and to write people of that if we took the time to get to know them, a little effort towards understanding who they are, could we not avoid this hate this prejudice this ‘us’ and ‘them’ mentality. I think these questions Shelley raises are so powerful. I was really surprised to read that Frankenstein is considered to be the first science fiction novel combined with supernatural terror, I think Shelley must have thought if I am going to write something might as well create a masterpiece and a new genre.
I recommend this to anyone and everyone, if you haven’t picked it up, please do, this is a must-read truly one of the most heart-wrenching stories and raises so many questions, like humanity versus science, people playing God, effects of AI, prejudice. I am still trying to get my head around that this was written in the 1800s because all of the themes and questions Shelley raises are all so timely and prevalent, and I get why it fits in the horror genre (I am guessing because Shelley wrote it as a Ghost story) because I wasn’t scared of the Monster I was scared of society’s reactions and the fact that Frankenstein created it in the first place. But really more than anything this is a love story, a coming of age, a story of trial and error, a story of belonging and acceptance, a story of prejudice, a story of unbearable loss and rejection. In this novel, the Monster, the boat and finding the body the poetic writing will stay with me forever. My love for the Monster is in the same category as Heathcliff.
And now let's talk ‘Representation’ because I realised, in Frankenstein, there were all these Orientalist tropes. Safie a young woman of Middle Eastern parentage whose education is taken over by the De Laceys when I read it, to me it came across as ‘white saviour complex’ a Middle Eastern character needing to be saved by the white family, like it just doesn’t sit right with me and just because of this it kind of made me disappointed because Shelley was an intelligent person clearly and not having the correct representation is damaging so I was let down by that.
Overall, it’s definitely up there with my ‘favourite classics’ and I will be re-reading this book without a doubt.
Quotes-
‘Yet you, my creator detest and spurn me thy creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us. You purpose to kill me. How dare you sport thus with life? Do your duty towards me, and I will do mine towards you and the rest of mankind.’
‘Have I not suffered enough, that you seek to increase my misery? Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it. Remember thou hast made me more powerful than thyself.’
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