Psychoanalytic Study of Frankenstein

Introduction to Psychoanalytic Study of Frankenstein

A short study of psychoanalytic study of Frankenstein shows its true meanings. Though appearing itself a dream of Mary Shelly materialized into a Gothic fiction and the dream of Victor Frankenstein narrated by another dreamy character, Robert Walton, Frankenstein, the novel, appears to be fulfilling all the characteristics of Freud’s dream theory, psychoanalysis and Lacan’s improvements on that theory. Frankenstein himself is such a dreamy character that he always dreams of enjoying his life. However, he comes back to the reality, as he argues in the end when chasing the monster, “The story is too connected to be mistaken for a dream,” but he also actually enjoys the pleasures of dreams which he could not enjoy in this material world (Shelley 246). In his paper “Dream Interpretation in Theory: Drawing on the Contributions of Freud, Jung, and the Kleinians”, quoting Greeson, Joan Schon (2016) says that dreams are the best sources to look into the internal world of a person to see the thinking going on since his early childhood and memories (3). Close reading of the text of the novel makes it amply clear that not only Frankenstein has very disturbed and dreamy childhood but also he has deep attachment to his mother who was much younger than his father, as Frankenstein tells, “There was a considerable difference between the ages of my parents” (26). However, he quickly adds that there was a deep affection between them despite this difference of age, yet this could not have stopped him from developing oedipal feelings to his extremely beautiful mother loved passionately by his father (26).  The creation of the monster may be this repressed love of his mother but there are several other signs, which demonstrate Freud’s concepts of Id, ego and superego, and Oedipus complex of his theory, throughout the text including the Lacanian concept of desire, sex and alienation, with reference to the Imaginary order and the symbolic order.

Dreams and Psychoanalytic Study of Frankenstein

As far as dreams are concerned, psychoanalytic study of Frankenstein shows that both Robert Walton and Victor Frankenstein are having dreams and daydreams, but it is Frankenstein’s dream which is of importance. The difference is that Walton’s dreams are limited to his expeditions, while Frankenstein’s dreams are centered on his study of the chemistry and creation of a new form that could become his best creation, as he says when he created that monster, “the beauty of the dream vanished” that he harbored since he started studying in Ingolstadt (Shelley 59). This could be Mary Shelley’s dream according to Freud’s interpretation, as Barbara D’Amato has stated in her article “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: An Orphaned Author’s Dream and Journey Toward Integration,” that “Authors’ dreams frequently inspire their creative stories, unconsciously imposing the author’s personal conflicts upon the characters” (118). She has further mentioned Mary Shelley’s own daydreams, saying that it could be that she has created this story and the characters to mother something due to her own lineage from two creative personalities. However, she adds, this is purely unconscious, but is valid according to the concepts Freud has propagated regarding his theory (126). One thing is clear that not only this novel is a dream of unconsciousness of the writer herself, but also a dream of the narrator, Robert Walton, and his hero Frankenstein as asserted by Jerrold E. Hogle in his paper, “Frankenstein’s Dream: An Introduction” that this is a double dream though he has missed the point that it is also the dream of the writer as that D’ Amato has argued. He argues that Victor’s dreams, specifically, narrated by him to Walton by the end of the story are psychoanalytic in nature, but they also pose a big question before the readers that the whole story could be dream (Hogle). However, it is clear that he returns from his dreams and daydreams to start his narration again.

Characters and Psychoanalytic Study of Frankenstein

In fact, it is this reversion to reality from dreams, which raises the question of Freud’s psychoanalytical interpretation of the dreams and as well as character’s different actions, feelings and desires. In this connection, the most important is the explanation of Id, by which Freud means a biological part of a person’s response to something that is instinctive and natural and a person cannot hide it, while libido is its primary source that stays unresponsive to the real world. In his lectures, New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, Freud explains ego and superego as mirrors to realities that ego mediates between superego and Id, while superego comprises of social rules and laws that govern human beings’ behavior (Freud 105). In terms of Frankenstein, his Id is clear when he talks about his mother in very sensual and loving terms saying her as of “uncommon mould,” whom his father gave full attention and in turn both of them loved their son. This was to create in him feelings for his mother, whose intense desire for a daughter was not fulfilled until Victor was of considerable age and stayed with her (Shelley 26). It is also that in the initial stages, Victor states that he loves investigation of things rather than the superficial structure on account of his curiosity. However, for him it was, curiosity as he argues, “Curiosity, earnest research to learn the hidden laws of nature, gladness akin to rapture, as they were unfolded to me, are among the earliest sensations I can remember” (Shelly 30). It is another thing that he remembers several things of his childhood. These luxurious feelings, of course, are the oedipal impacts toward his mother to whom his father used to dot up, and he remembers this too (26). Perhaps these realities make the most of the dreams of Victor.

Family Behavior and Psychoanalytic Study of Frankenstein

The influence of the father’s behavior toward his mother stayed in his psyche when it psychoanalytic study of Frankenstein is done. He tell is clearly that “He strove to shelter her, as a fair exotic is sheltered by the gardener,” where the phrase “a fair exotic,” is enough to explain his fondness for his mother (26). However, his ego does not let him speak it in clear terms, for superego acts against it. In this connection, the conjunction of three characters, Frankenstein, his father, his friend Clerval and his creation, the monster, is very interesting as his superego. In fact, the monster is his alter ego, for Victor has created what he wished (Crisman). William Crisman further says that the monster is like a doppelganger for Frankenstein or in better words, his “objectified Id” (Crisman). This started a conflict between his ego and superego regarding the moral of his creation. His father, Alphonse Frankenstein and his friend Clerval act as persons driving his supergo. It is because according to Freud, the origin of a person’s supergo or his critical faculty is his father, or the social society around the person. Here Clerval and his father both act as representatives in this connection. They both act as moral agents to teach him about the social morality and rules of the society (Lall 37). Lall further argues that Victor takes to sciences merely to make his father resent his choice, the reason that he goes on to create the monster to satisfy his ego. That is why he does not tell them later what he has done but merely repents on his creation (37). However, this creation becomes his entire story, for he always stays engaged with this story in reality or in dreams. This represents his ego. It could be that it is his failed sexual fantasy that he remembers everything, the reason that he is fleeing from marriage with Elizabeth. However, he does not want to expose this to the real world. On the other hand, acting as representatives of his superego, his father and friend both are very much near him, all the time feeding him with a sense of somebody supervising him. However, it is more his father than Clerval who act as his superego, for he has everything in him. Victor says that “my father had filled several public situations with honor and reputation and indefatigable attention to public business” (Shelley 24). How could he break his ring of social restrictions woven around him by the society. Even Clerval was not an ordinary person with him, for “he was the son of a merchant of Geneva”, “of singular talent and fancy” (32). That is why Victor could not expose what was in his ego — love of his mother and his feelings for her – the gist of psychoanalytic study of Frankenstein.

Love and Psychoanalytic Study of Frankenstein

It could be stated that Victor exposed this love for his mother in the shape of his creation going against the norm set by his father of learning philosophy. David Collings in his article, “The Monster and the Imaginary Mother: A Lacanian Reading of Frankenstein,” calls this minor rebellion as “intellectual pursuit”, adding that in magical “nature Victor hopes to recover the mother that has been denied or forgotten in much the same way as the alchemy of Agrippa, Paracelsus, and Albertus Magnus has been dismissed by contemporary sciences” (Collings). Although it is not clear whether it is a reality or a fiction, Collings even include his mentors M. Krempe and Waldman in this list on account of his sexual terminology regarding the study of chemistry, for Victor uses words which are very much sensual in connotations, as he says “I have described myself as always having been imbued with fervent longing to penetrate the secrets of nature” (Shelley 35). He uses the same terms for the men of science, “who could penetrate deeper and knew more” (36).  However, this seems a far-fetched theory regarding Frankenstein and his feelings, for nowhere Victor shows any sort of symbol that he used to love his mother in his childhood more than a child does. His love for Elizabeth could be termed as a substitute to Oedipus Complex, or that it could be the rivalry in the mind of his father, yet this also has no trace except that he used to shower love on Elizabeth. For example, at once place he kisses Elizabeth in a dream, as he narrates this to Walton, saying, “I thought I saw Elizabeth, in the bloom of health, walking in the streets of Ingolstadt. Delighted and surprised, I embraced her; but as I imprinted the first kiss on her lips, they became livid with the hue of death; her features appeared to change, and I thought that I held the corpse of my dead mother in my arms” (59). However, when he wakes up, he saw the monster staring at him in reality with his jaws wide open. The study done by William Veeder in this connection argues that this complex in Frankenstein is negative Oedipus complex. He has summed up the relations of Mary and Percy Shelley in pointing out this passion in Victor Frankenstein. He is of the opinion that it is Victor’s creation of his monster that shows his antipathy toward his father. Yet, it also shows his desire to revive his mother back to life which he calls negative Oedipus complex, for it does not rightly fit into the theory of Freud (Veeder). However, another point of view expressed by William Rodriguez is quite contradictory. He argues in his essay “Good and Ugly,” that there was a good relation between the son and the mother in the earlier years which led the son, Victor, to have been influenced by the death of his mother. His creation of the monster is based on his vows that he made on the grave of his mother to defeat death. Although he could not defeat death, he has fulfilled his vow that he made to his mother. He further argues that “This series of flashback offer interesting insights into dynamic of the Frankenstein Family. One can only conclude that this attractive and virtuous family harbors deep, ugly and depraved secrets” (Rodriguez 285). However, the problem is that it is based on the movie rather than the novel, though there are similarities in these flashbacks with the daydreams and dreams of Frankenstein, making it almost the same issue of Freud’s Oedipus complex.

Monster and Psychoanalytic Study of Frankenstein

Another interpretation of the creation of monster falls very close to the oedipal interpretations of Frankenstein. This is the concept of fire. Although Frankenstein has been aware of electricity, he learned it when he read Agrippa. However, he did not apply it to infuse life into the structure of the monster he created. Rather he used candle as he says “my candle was nearly burnt out” (Shelley 58). Obviously, he is using candle to infuse life into the structure. However, this fire, argues Nicholas Marsh, has “the power to create life,” and he creates this life after the death of his mother (155). This fire then burns into his heart becoming a fire of revenge, while he feels the heart of this fire until the end. If the monster is taken as the image of Victor Frankenstein, he constantly watches his fire that he wants not to extinguish, for it is akin to life for the demon. However, this fire in Victor is akin to a sexual desire that he cannot fulfill in the absence of his mother. This interpretation cannot be taken too far, for the life he has created is male that is not even similar to Adam in Paradise Lost that Victor happens to read during his free times. He should have created rather Eve like figure, instead of a male figure to fulfill his desire for love. This is perhaps that same fire that makes a person hot in his emotions and temper and is akin to violence. This Victor confesses when stating his childhood saying, “My temper was sometimes violent, and my passions vehement; but by some law in my temperature, they were turned towards childish pursuits to be an eager desire to learn, and not to learn all things indiscriminately,” by which he means that in his environment and situation, laws and social customs require him to learn something which otherwise would have been left (Shelly 32). Here this clearly points to something sinister in his childhood bestowed by the circumstances of “filial love” that he enjoyed until the end (32). That is why he has been suffering from the complex of loving his mother and creating the monster to defeat death which has enveloped it. It could be that he wanted to preserve death from taking the life of his next love, Elizabeth Lavenza. Despite these similarities and differences, this interpretation cannot be stretched further than this. In fact, it has its own limits, for he has never expressed any antagonism against his father explicitly, yet his language, desire, sexual orientation and alienation makes him a fit subject for these interpretations in the psychoanalytic study of Frankenstein.

Lacan and Psychoanalytic Study of Frankenstein

In this connection, it is suitable to mention Lacan who brought improvements in the psychoanalysis theory and mentioned language as the most significant element of it. He has called it the Symbolic order by which he means the cultural system as Peter Brooks has been quoted by Laura Hamblin saying that individuals are inserted to act accordingly (8). Contrary to this is the Imaginary order, which means what has been imagined since childhood. In this connection, both Victor as well as his creation deserves deep attention with reference to Oedipus Complex as propounded in the light of the theory of Freud. It is worth mentioning here that this lack of language learning or the ability to speak language means the person has not entered the cultural system, as Victor has pointed it out at a place that “I confess that neither the structures of languages, not the code of governments, nor the politics of various states possessed attractions for me” (Shelley 32). This means that he has not wished to enter the Symbolic order or the cultural system propounded by Lacan through which a person makes his desires known to the world and the people around him. In this connection, it is pertinent to mention Haidee Kotze’s article “Desire, Gender, Power, Language: A Psychoanalytic Reading of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein,” in which she has argued that it is the order of language that forces a person to redefine his personality or what she calls “self” through which the subject reconciles his two orders; the Imaginary order and the Symbolic order. As Lacan, she argues, has theorized that language structures the unconscious; rather it creates it, it is through language that a subject expresses his sexual desires, aggression and guilt or alienation and expresses if there is repression in him (55).  She means that Alphonse has already set the rules and customs for his son to follow which he escapes on the pretext of studying at Ingolstadt. That is quite evident when he says that “my father thought it necessary for the completion of my education that I should be made acquainted with other customs than those of my nature country,” for which he needs to study and learn this in order to become a docile person fit to be under the subservience of his father (Shelley 39). It is, therefore, understood, as Haidee Kotze says that feminine reflection and adoration comes into play to counter this grid setup by the patriarchal social setup as in the case of Frankenstein that he idolizes his mother more than his father, an “identification with the mother,” which is the Imaginary order (Kotze 55). In this connection, a little analysis of monster’s state is also significant.

Symbolic Order in Psychoanalytic Study of Frankenstein

It is because the monster without language is living in the Imaginary order, Haidee Kotze argues, which is the state as “still non-subject, is in a formless state,” where he cannot express his desires or gives shape to his emotions (Kotze 56). However, when he becomes capable of expressing himself, not only does he win the heart of Victor Frankenstein, his immediate creator, but also of Walton and others he comes into contact with through the language. That is why he is after his creator to create somebody to give him pleasure and life. However, this is the same that is going on with Victor, for he is after the death to defeat it to win his mother back to defeat his father’s Symbolic order. This is why he eulogizes his mother saying “On her deathbed the fortitude and benignity of this best of women did not desert her,” (Shelley 38). This benignity and fortitude that he thinks his father has only for his mother, and has not for him. That is why he turns to the feminine side of the Symbolic order, as he says about his mother that “her countenance expressed affection even in death,” an affiliation and association which leads him to the creation of the monster by studying natural science (40). It is, however, very significant to see that he has fulfilled his desire but has not expressed it openly in this Symbolic order. For this, perhaps he should have created a female demon instead of the male monster which could have proved rather akin to this Imaginary order.  

Conflict in Psychoanalytic Study of Frankenstein

Whereas the desire is concerned, here both the Imaginary and Symbolic order are in conflict with each other. This conflict is present in Victor’s personality and situation as well as in the situation and figure of the monster, his mirror image or creation. As far as the monster is concerned, this conflict in him leads him to step his feet in the Symbolic order through learning the language of the De Lacey family. However, his description of the earlier emotions as Haidee Kotze states, “suggests the possibility that it functions as substitute mother-figure for monster,” for he is a motherless figure and has only his creator (57). However, in the case of Victor, it is his mother which is always with him at the times when he dreams, or even if he dreams about Elizabeth. He has entered the Symbolic order long before his creation. This entry creates a conflict “between the law of the Father and the desire for the mother,” who is now dead (57). This conflict according to Lacan, between the Imaginary and Symbolic makes a person aware of the gender difference and leads to the birth of difference desires (58) when looked through psychoanalytic study of Frankenstein. That is the very reason that the monster desires a female, as he asks Victor, “You must create a female for me with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being” (174). This is the same conflict that has made the monster to feel alienation, for in the Imaginary order he does not know the language which has made him a pariah in his own mind. He compares himself with Satan but is more bitter over his solitude due to his being living in the Imaginary order where he is devoid of any linguistic capability as he says about his loneliness, “Satan had his companions, fellow devils, to admire and encourage him, but I am solitary and abhorred,” (155). The stress on ‘solitary’ and ‘abhorred’ is very significant in that a person always desires the company of his fellows or mates, and he wants to be loved. Although Victor has lost his mother and possible love that he has found in Elizabeth, his mirror image has nothing to console him, the reason of his entreaties to Victor to create someone for him. There is possibility that Victor’s desire has not fulfilled, and in revenge, he does not want his mirror-image to have his desire fulfilled. That is why he does not create the female figure despite his sincere promise to the monster.

Desire in the Psychoanalytic Study of Frankenstein

However, there is another point that this desire goes back to the pre-Imaginary order and stays repressed. It could stay repressed in the Symbolic order in case there is reproach as is the case of Victor, for he does not express this desire openly but only creates the monster. However, in the case of the monster, it is quite open and explored when he enters the Symbolic order by learning the language of the De Lacey family. He clearly appeals to Victor to create another female figure for him, or else he will wreak havoc with his near and dear ones (Shelley 157). Haidee Kotze has argued that the demand of the monster for a female brings Lacan in the fore that it is the monster’s desire that is dependent on his father, creator, who is Frankenstein here, who in turn carries on making him wait and then defer it (59). By the end of the story, he entirely leaves the project on the pretext that he cannot breed more monsters. However, in the case of Victor, this desire is not fulfilled, for his father stays alive quite late and wishes him to marry Elizabeth who is also very dear to both of them. However, somewhere the linguistic connotations suggest that this delay on the part of Alphonse has made Frankenstein either impotent or castrated him. This is inhibition of his desire that has perhaps frustrated him but he cannot express this frustration in the face of his father. He is not a monster, for he has lived in the Symbolic order for long to have developed a sense to keep his mouth shut. It is clear from his thinking about his marriage when he says “To me the idea of an immediate union with Elizabeth was one of horror and dismay,” showing his jealousy with the monster to make him stay away from his mate as he says “let the monster depart with his mate” (Shelley 184). If the desire of the subject is not fulfilled, the desire of the subject of the subject must not be fulfilled. However, his castration that seems a possibility further adds to his woes. Had he been so much committed to his family as he states occasionally in his narrative, he should have left his family entirely to avenge upon the monster and stated it to his father in his face that a monster he has created has killed his brother and Justine and that he is going to avenge that. Not only that he does not do it, but he constantly keeps hiding it from his father. As far as castration is concerned, it comes to him again. By the end, he consents to marry Elizabeth but again the point of impotence or non-fulfillment of his desire is there staring in his face. For example, he says, “what is excellent and sublime in the production of man could always interest my heart,” which is an entirely a feminine characteristic that he desires to have (195). However, the very next sentence is very pointed in which he says, “But I am a blasted tree,” which could be interpreted in both ways that he cannot produce leaves like a female, or that his is unable to procreate something like male. This is clearly a reference to his impotence. The point that author has her own desires which she hands over to Robert Walton is clear from his letters that he writes to his sister about his expedition. It could be interpreted that he has the same feelings towards his sister as Victor has towards his mother. Both have created something to satisfy their desires; Mary has Walton, and Victor has the monster and the monster in his turns wants another female. Here the mirror-image or double again shows the same possibility of castration as has been discussed earlier. Mladen Dolar argues that this creation of the mirror image or double against the impending extinction of the subject has “its counterpart in the language of dreams,” as Victor enjoys this in his dreams (3). This counterpart is impotence or castration. This castration is, therefore, very much present in his language too.

Creation and Impotence in Psychoanalytic Study of Frankenstein

Now this castration or impotence has led to the final resolution that like his mirror-image of monster, who is not able to procreate, Victor is also not able to produce a child. That is why he has created the monster through his science. It is perhaps to hide is gender identity as he has not created the female monster as he needs a different set of chemicals and formulas that he did not have. In both the cases, the monster as well as his creation have lost the ability to copulate or create a new form of their own. That is why they are alienated and secluded from the rest of the people.  Although both alienation and seclusion are the results of avoiding joining the Symbolic order in totality, it is yet not all that. For example, the monster joins the the Symbolic order by learning the language and by becoming eloquent as Victor appreciates him, but he does not join the cultural system. He stays aloof from others, as he is a deformed shape (Dolar 13). However, Victor has created this niche of a secluded person for himself due to the non-fulfilment of his desire that he cannot express and cannot fulfill in this existing Symbolic order. That is why he is always on one or the other journey and leaves Elizabeth alone to fight the monster though he knows that the monster will never hurt him as the monster has already stated it to him that he will kill Victor, his creator /father / mother figure. If here it is supposed that the monster is merely Victor’s fig of mind, then the warning of the monster “I will be with you on your wedding-night,” not only supports the point that Victor feels alienated from the rest of the human beings due to his castration or impotence is the same alienation that the monster is going through (Shelley 206). It also supports the point that this monster is his own castration that is threatening him. That is why he leaves his beloved wife in the bed to die.

Conclusion

Concluding the debate, it could be said that Frankenstein like its creator, Mary Shelley, is a very complicated text having multiplicity of meanings when psychoanalytic study of Frankenstein is conducted. It could be interpreted on several levels, as is proved through different conceptual points discussed with reference to Freud and Lacan’s psychoanalytical approach. However, it is still open to debate whether it really comes up to the level of a definitive text to be exemplified as a psychoanalytical model, for the text involves various twists and turns which sometimes show it has the qualities that a psychoanalytical model text should have, while at some points it just shows itself as a Gothic novel. However, it is the connotative use of language that has given rise to such controversies, and it lies in the artistic rendering of the story. However, as the critics have pointed that every piece of literature is a mirror image of the conscious and unconscious thoughts of its writer, it needs far greater and deeper studies to point out that Mary Shelley has really been suffering from some Electra complex, the reason that she has put so many psychoanalytic characteristics in this fictional work. Some studies in this connection have pointed out resemblance but the task of this essay is limited to only explaining the framework of Freud and Lacan’s Oedipus Complex, the Imaginary and Symbolic order and the interpretation of the text in the light of these theoretical studies. It seems that almost all the characters from Walton to Victor and from the monster to Elizabeth, show some signs of their entry from the Imaginary order to the Symbolic order and their repressed desires coming out through their language as in the case of Victor and his creation, the monster. However, in some cases there are some debatable points such as the dreams of Victor Frankenstein and of his creation, the monster. These dreams border on sanity and insanity at the same time showing some characteristics of their gender identity, desires and alienation. In the same way, Robert Walton has also some desires which he keeps repressed but just states in connotative terms to his sister through letters. Despite these interpretations through the psychoanalytic study of Frankenstein, it still needs a lot of arduous reading to point out further interpretations of their language.

Works Cited

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Relevant Questions of Psychoanalytic Study of Frankenstein

1. In a psychoanalytic study of “Frankenstein,” how do Victor Frankenstein’s unconscious desires and fears come to the forefront through his creation of the monster?
2. From a psychoanalytic perspective within the context of a study of “Frankenstein,” how can we analyze the theme of parenting and abandonment, and what psychological insights does it offer about the characters and their relationships?
3. Within the framework of a psychoanalytic study of “Frankenstein,” how does the creature’s relentless pursuit of revenge serve as a window into his unresolved psychological trauma, and what does it reveal about the human psyche?