AN ESSAY ON THE OTHER:
Frankenstein: The Inability to Place the Other
by Amanda Gould
English 418 for Western Washington University
9 December 2010
“In our culture, the decisive political conflict, which governs every other conflict, is that between the animality and the humanity of man.” –Giorgio Agamben[1]
“So very hideous an idea.”[2] This is what Mary Shelley says of her own novel, Frankenstein. In her own time, the literary and political periodical Quarterly Review called her story “horrible” and “disgusting.” But what makes Frankenstein a horror? Not only is it just a horror, shelved and forgotten like many others; Frankenstein is a well known and often retold horror. But what makes it horrifying and chilling across all time periods, including our own? It is not because there is a monster, or a mad scientist, or even because there is murder and death. I believe what makes the story of Frankenstein so horrifying is that we are ultimately terrified when we cannot label the other as other and when we see the characteristics of human and animal meshing and co-existing in one body. The monster disturbs readers because he is portrayed as an animal. Not only that, he also exhibits characteristics of what we would call human. Nor can we call the monster’s creator, Viktor Frankenstein, fully human. Both characters are other, yet other in a way that does not fit into our already existing categories of human and animal.
The Monster as Non-Human and Other
There was no doubt in my mind as I watched the Frankenstein movies as a child that the creature in the film was not human. I remember being terrified of it, the way it looked and the way it spoke. I would hide my face behind my outstretched fingers, partially hiding him from my view, but with enough space to watch in fascination. But why did I know even as a child that the creation was not human? Why can’t Frankenstein’s creation be considered human? It was made with human limbs, human organs, and a human brain.
What it comes down to is not what a creation is made of, but who created it. The monster is not created by a higher unknown being, but created by man. As Plato, Christians, Jews, and several others claim, man does not have perfect characteristics, even though man was made by what many say is a perfect god. If the creator (in this case, man) is imperfect, how much more will its creation be imperfect? Plato believes the world and its inhabitants were created in a hierarchal system. He believed there was a main god that created gods and the gods made people.[3] He believed that the soul/logos of the world becomes more diluted as it travels farther and farther from the main god. Hence, man has a less pure soul than the gods that created him. The monster would have even a more diluted and impure soul/logos since it was made by man, an already faulty creation. The monster would be the “bastard son” of the main god, more likely to get in trouble than his already troublesome man. Shelley herself understands this platonic view and says of her story, “Frightful must it be; for SUPREMELY frightful would be the effect of any human endeavor to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world.”[4]
We have already established that Frankenstein’s monster is not human. So what is it? It is other. But what is other? Other is anything that is separate from us, such as an animal, a plant, or even another human. Another human can be claimed as somewhat other because they are separate from our mind and our body, though as individuals we understand somewhat how other humans think and respond. The animal is a more frightening other because we do not know how animals think (or if they do think at all as many philosophers argue) and we know very little about how animals respond. The other is always considered at least somewhat, if not fully, frightening to us. This is because the other is mysterious. We are not the other, so we cannot know what the other thinks or how the other will respond.
However, I cannot just say Frankenstein’s creation is other like the animal is other. Normally we know at least a little about the other, like when we claim the other as a cat or a horse. We know that cats are small mammals, covered in fur, with large pointy ears. This is because we have named these creatures that have these specific characteristics as cats. We make the other seem less frightening by giving it a name and characteristics. We give the name cat to these creatures with those characteristics established. Frankenstein’s creation is different since we cannot call it anything. It has no name. It fits in no already pre-existing category. Frankenstein calls it a “monster,” a “demon,” a “fiend,” but the creation cannot fit into these categories because there has never been anything ever like Frankenstein’s creature. It has no pre-established characteristics that we can expect from it. It is wholly other.
So how can one define this other? What characteristics does it have? Next I will argue that what is even more frightening about the monster as wholly other is that it has both animal and human characteristics, so even though it cannot be placed in the human category, as described above, it cannot be put into the category of animal. Not only does Mary Shelley do this with the monster, but she also undermines Viktor Frankenstein as a human, by making him similar to his own creation in animalistic characteristics.
The Animal and Human Characteristics of Frankenstein and His Creation
There are several considerations that one needs to take into account when defining the man and the animal and the differentiation between the two. Philosophers have argued with each other on the topic, and there are many ideas about what defines the human and what defines the man, all of which would take far too long to describe in my own paper. For the sake of being concise, I will stick to three main ideas from a variety of philosophers that differentiate the animal from the human: captivation, reason, and responding.
One of the largest differences of the animal and the human, in Heideggerian thought, comes with the term captivation. One way Heidegger defines this term is, “Captivation designates the fundamental character of the animal’s being absorbed in itself. Seeing, seizing, catching, and so on always take place from out of the drivenness of an instinctual and subservient capacity for the same.”[5] In other words, captivation is complete concentration on one idea. Heidegger also states that captivation is driven by our instinct, as in we are born with certain captivations. This is why he believes that animals are captivated, and are captivated continuously in a never ending cycle.
However, Heidegger also says “we do not understand the term captivation to mean simply an enduring state present within the animal but rather an essential moment of animality.”[6] With the statement, “an enduring state” Heidegger means that animals are not captivated by one state, by one thought, continuously, but rather by individual moments. However, animals live in this cycle of moments, being captured from one moment of animality and instinct to another without end. Also, with this definition, humans can become captivated, but yet it is only momentary. Humans are unlike animals because they can break out of the cycle of captivation while animals go from one captivation to the next.
Both the monster and Frankenstein seem to be beings that are held in captivity longer than the average human being, yet I would say that neither is continuously captivated. The monster is animalistic in that it is a captivated being. He describes his coming into being just as an animal would, or a baby, by saying that he was focused on heat and food and all of the other basic necessities to live. Also later in life he is captivated on getting vengeance on his creator. Why would his creator leave him, or even create him so that he would be hated by all? So the monster is captivated on his purpose to bring Frankenstein to his level; to get rid of all of Frankenstein’s loved ones so that he will no long have love, just as his monster has no love. The monster specifically says that he will “become the scourge of your fellow-creatures, and the author of your own speedy ruin.”[7] This captivation to kill Frankenstein’s loved ones takes hold of the monster and is his life. The monster only stops in his pursuit and purpose to rest.
However, cannot I say the same about Frankenstein? Frankenstein is also a being more captivated than other humans, which means he is more animalistic than the average human. In his own life, he first becomes captive to creating this being. He stops communicating with others, stops taking care of himself, in complete and utter captivation in his task. He says he “was thus engaged, heart and soul, in one pursuit… [his] mind was filled with one thought, one concept, one purpose.”[8] He also lacks recognition that his creation does not have beauty. Plato said beauty is the key to truth and that true truth, from the celestial realm, is beautiful. Truth is “shining in clearness through the clearest aperture of sense.”[9] Animals have truth/essence/being concealed from them. Humans should have the capability of revealing truth/essence/being. Frankenstein would have known this as he himself studied metaphysics: “It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn… or the inner spirit of nature and the mysterious soul of man that occupied me, still my inquires were directed to the metaphysical.”[10] He would have known that Plato said, “There is no radiance in our earthly copies.”[11] So how then could one who studied truth, essence, and being call his monster beautiful? How could the sallow creature with yellow skin that “scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath” be beautiful?[12] It is because in Frankenstein’s animalistic captivation, truth was concealed from him. Frankenstein was concealed from the fact that his creation lacks a soul/logos from god, has no beauty in form, and hence has no true being. Only after he regained reason did he realize “the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled [his] heart.”[13]
This leads into the question of reason. As I state above, Frankenstein is concealed from truth/beauty/essence/being when he is captivated. I could replace all of these terms with reason. Frankenstein is concealed from reason due to his captivation. Only when captivation subsides, when our instincts fall away, are we given the time and ability to use reason. However, what is reason? Reason, as Plato and other Greek philosophers believe, comes from logos. Logos is the soul, it is being, it is the writing on the fleshly tablet of our hearts. And from this writing, this logos, man is “the living being that essentially possesses the possibility of discourse…this definition of man then passed over into the traditional conception of man, in keeping with which λόγος [logos] was later translated by the Latin ratio. It was then said that man is animal rationale, a living being with reason.”[14] Heidegger, Descartes, and Plato argue that humans are the “rational animal.” All three suggest that what makes us different from animals is that we have the capacity to reason and to understand truth. In other words, we have the capacity to do metaphysics. Having the capacity to do metaphysics means one has the capacity to reveal truth. Reason is truth/beauty/logos revealed.
What about his creation? Likewise, it is capable of reasoning. One passage that directly correlates to this subject is when the monster is telling Frankenstein his story. He states: “the old man walked before the cottage in the sun for a few minutes, leaning on the arm of the youth. Nothing could exceed in beauty the contrast between these two excellent creatures.”[15] This is a simple passage, but nonetheless important. The key word is beauty. The monster, in retelling his story, says that nothing could exceed in beauty, showing to the reader that the monster understands and can define beauty. Since beauty is in other words truth, that means he is capable of understanding truth. Of course, there are other hints as to the monster’s capacity to reason, such as his capability to learn on his own different languages, his ability to realize and piece together who his creator is (something man himself contemplates and disagrees with constantly), and his capacity to learn to respond (a point I will later discuss).
Though it is easy to see that both Frankenstein and his creation have the capacity to reason, it is important to realize that neither of them are continuously reasonable. When both are overtaken with captivation, they switch from their human standpoint of being able to reason, to becoming animalistic and unable to reveal truth. The monster is unwilling to see the point of view of Frankenstein when he is determined to kill all of his loved ones and wreck havoc on humanity. Likewise, Frankenstein forgets his studies and his knowledge in his captivation of creating his monster.
The last point in my discussion on the differences between the human and the animal is the capacity to respond. And by respond, I mean the capacity to speak and to discourse in a manner that is able to accurately reply to another. To steal Derrida’s own example from Alice in Wonderland, cats cannot respond in an accurate way. Alice can ask her kitten several questions, all of which the cat can “respond” with a meow. A meow is neither a yes or no or any other statement. Hence the cat is incapable of responding. As Rene Descartes says, “[animals] could never use words or other signs arranged in such a manner as is competent to us in order to declare out thoughts to others.”[16] Descartes also goes on to say that animals are like robots: they can be trained to say certain things, but they lack the capacity to respond to something they have never heard before. He says that only animals and robots of supreme intelligence can say one word but they cannot do what “men of the lowest grade of intellect can.”[17] Animals cannot string together even two words they have learned to respond in a way they have never been taught to do.
There is no doubt that either Frankenstein or his monster has the capacity to respond. The entire novel is written from both the perspectives of Frankenstein and the monster telling their own stories. Both would, without a doubt, be placed in the category of human in terms of their capacity to respond.
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Like the monster’s physical appearance, Frankenstein and the monster are patchwork quilts of the animal and human. Both are susceptible to becoming animalistic in their captivation and in losing their ability to reason. But they are also human, responding eloquently and rationally. This combination of the animal and man is why Frankenstein is a horror. How frightening would it be to witness an animal that could reason? How frightening would it be to see an animal capable of talking and responding? And how frightening would it be to see a human who lacked reason and was led by instinct and captivation?
We do not want to see humanity and animality combined in one form, combined in the same flesh. We want the animal and the human to be completely separate entities, because if they are not, we would have to consider what a being would look and be like that was both human and animal. Not only that, but we would have to consider whether we ourselves have animal characteristics. By combining the animal and human in the monster and in Frankenstein, Shelley is causing us to think of the possibility of the two coexisting in one body. This deconstructs our concepts of man and animal and causes us deconstructs who we think we are as humans. For if the human has animal characteristics, they would become more unpredictable and hence more frightening, like Victor, with “wildness in [his] eyes for which he could not account; and [his] loud, unrestrained, heartless laughter.”[18]
[1] Agamben, Giorgio. The Open. (p 80)
[2] Shelley, Mary. 1831 Introduction to Frankenstein (Or, the Modern Prometheus). New York, N.Y.: Dell Publishing Co. Inc., 1965. Print. (9)
[3] Plato. "Timaeus." Internet Classics Archive. N.p., 2004. Web. 8 Dec 2010. <http://classics.mit.edu//Plato/timaeus.html>.
[4] Shelley, Mary. Introduction to Frankenstein. 1831.
[5] Heidegger, Martin. The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World, Finitude, Solitude. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1995. Print. (240)
[6] Ibid. (239)
[7] Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein (Or, the Modern Prometheus). New York, N.Y.: Dell Publishing Co. Inc., 1965. Print. (101)
[8] Ibid. (46, 54)
[9] Plato. Phaedrus. Essential Thinkers. New York, NY: CRW, 2004. Print. (392)
[10] Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein (Or, the Modern Prometheus). New York, N.Y.: Dell Publishing Co. Inc., 1965. Print. (36)
[11] Plato. Phaedrus. Essential Thinkers. New York, NY: CRW, 2004. Print. (391)
[12] Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein (Or, the Modern Prometheus). New York, N.Y.: Dell Publishing Co. Inc., 1965. Print. (56)
[13] Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein (Or, the Modern Prometheus). New York, N.Y.: Dell Publishing Co. Inc., 1965. Print. (56)
[14] Heidegger, Martin. The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World, Finitude, Solitude. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1995. Print. (305)
[15] Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein (Or, the Modern Prometheus). New York, N.Y.: Dell Publishing Co. Inc., 1965. Print. (109)
[16] Descartes, Rene. "Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason, and Seeking Truth in the Sciences." Literature.org. The Online Literature Library, 20 12 1996. Web. 8 Dec 2010. <http://www.literature.org/authors/descartes-rene/reason-discourse/>. (10)
[17] Ibid.
[18] Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein (Or, the Modern Prometheus). New York, N.Y.: Dell Publishing Co. Inc., 1965. Print. (60)
