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The Grotesquely cynical and arduously heroic workings of “Frankenstein”
The year is 1818, where gothic and romantic books were at the peak of popularity. Finally it was the time where two opposing genres came together to create one work of phenomenal reading horror and poignantly distressing heroism had finally been released. This book, Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, incorporated the two popular styles which in turn spiked many a reader’s interest. Her nightmare, where a horrid daemon is created, and a hero’s heart is blackened by remorse and guilt…. This is the tale of Victor Frankenstein, in his laborious journey to quench his thirst, creates a daemon so horrid and misunderstood that in the process becomes twisted to its soul and destroys his closest loved ones.
Mary Shelley was very able in her ability to describe in such detail bleak, old, or horrid incidents such as weather or profiles. In murky occurrences revolving around weather, one such example she would make evident and inclusive to the reader: “It was already one in the morning; the rain splattered dismally against the pains, and my candle was nearly burnt out…” (35) By her ability to make one feel as if they themselves were the spectator of these exact events, she made realistic impressions on her readers. She enabled them to feel the hollowness in the air, the dimness in the surroundings, the almost bleary feeling and thoughts of being the only ones awake, and the damp, depressingly lonely sound of the rain patter. This is what she brought to life, the true personality of the Gothically dark natures of the world. She incorporates such detail into her mythological creature, her waking nightmare of one man’s creation, that you could almost bear witness that she herself was the spectator of these vile experiments on human flesh. How she expresses the scene of this blasphemous creation is exquisitely Gothic to the point where you start thinking as far along the lines as to how it would feel to touch the grotesque figure created from Shelley’s words:
His limbs were in proportional, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful!- Great god! And his yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast to his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same color as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shriveled complexion and straight black lips. (35)
After the creation of this beast, the beginnings of a twisted hero succeeds as the glass cocoon of this inborn prince which deteriorated from within through malnutrition and a warped curiosity to become this disdainful shell of a man. Through his last endeavor to create the monster he so laboriously put together and, being on the brink of shattering the already cracked glass cocoon with his bare hands, leaking his lifeblood from cut appendages into an eternal inkwell below. His sacrifices began to pullulate into horrid fruition by the one drop of blood that hit the tiles, becoming an entity by one’s self, a creation of utmost horror and killing ability. ”I have murdered the lovely and helpless; I have strangled the innocent as they slept, and grasped to death his throat who never injured me or any other living thing.” (165) This waking nightmare, this tale of a woven terror spins the wheels of those desiccated minds that care to congest the capacious hole which one and all have in part, a curiosity for the dark to which dwelling suspense resides to heat the cheeks and compress the surroundings into endlessly monotonous palpitation which elevate one’s own heart thumping in sync as the second hand ticks away at eternity. That is what it is to be gothically inclined in this suspenseful story. Though Goth-like settings hold a tactful position in this book, another rival equally bestowed is also incorporated in this tale; a rival who is opposite in nature which creates a tantalizing sweet and sour relationship to keep the reader ever interested.
If one were to pose an answer to the question earlier assimilated as to the genre of the equally inclined rival, having not read the book, few would believe that such a tale could be romantic, at least until they themselves delve into the tale as specters omnipresent to the scenes which take place. A uniquely enthralling course to which utmost love is unveiled through doleful cataclysms which plague the innocents and empower the evils to show just how much a human life is cared about no matter the time spent together. In an irrevocable act to which no matter the repentance and lamentation; the first sin of taking a life creates an eternal conjecture of the ability to once again commit. Love for those lost and revenge from that love which prevails, a responsibility is created to bring to justice such injustice and a hero is born. Depicted so well in her book, each sad event which came to pass only showed all the more love for the creature thus destroyed: “ Dear lovely child, he now sleeps with his angel mother! Who that had seen him bright and joyous in his young beauty, but must weep over his untimely loss!” (4 cool This bore in the minds of the readers to which such care is taken to place these words, to create that environment to which careful speculation is not required, for it is something that just warms you from a cold night.
Victor is the golden prince now garbed in the black knight’s suit. The dragon which is sworn to guard this icy palace of people’s hatred and words of wretchedness, turns to the one who, in a moment of utmost curiosity stole the egg from the mother’s nest like a grave robber only to chain and regret even the thought he had of doing so to leave it for dead. What he did not expect from this mistake was to find it grown, and what more, learned in a manner of speaking for when the jaws did open, words of legibility did flow out though cracked and dusty from disuse. Seeing how the knight had love and family, yet the dragon none made the decision to equal them in loneliness and despair all the more important for if he couldn’t have it, of course his father should be denied as well. “ I will be with you on your wedding night.” (139) Mary Shelley created to inadvertently follow the knight, though the knight pursued. In one such aspect, it is found almost as a statement: “ You traveled to seek happiness, but a fatality seems to pursue you.” (133) This one statement explains just how the tried works, victor following the ghost of his creation, for his creation had already doubled back to follow the steps of that of his master’s. Those deep boring feelings are what creates such romanticism for love in life ad death is love all the same.
 bluevibes · Sat Dec 16, 2006 @ 11:46pm · 0 Comments |
