Monstrosity and Humanity in Literature, Essay Example

In “Laugh of the Medusa” Helene Cixous writes, “Who, surprised and horrified by the fantastic tumult of her drives (for she was made to believe that a well-adjusted normal woman has a…divine composure), hasn’t accused herself of being a monster?”

In many great works of literature, the line that distinguishes monstrous behavior from decency is frequently blurred. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, a diffuse boundary often separates the characters that are supposedly decent and compassionate from the characters that are physically and emotionally considered to be monstrous. What defines monstrosity in great works of fiction? This paper will explore the manifestations of decency and cruelty that are demonstrated by Victor Frankenstein and his creation, the monster, as well as Catherine and General Tilney, in an effort to differentiate the qualities that actually determine what constitutes monstrous behavior.

In Northanger Abbey, the heroine, Catherine is portrayed with a great deal of irony; she lacks the experience and insight that are frequently the qualities of characters in Gothic novels, instead showing a complete lack of realization about the clearly developing relationship between her brother James and her friend Isabella. She also doesn’t understand the actual character of Isabella until a significant amount of time has passed since Isabella hurt her brother. In addition, she inadvertently causes John Thorpe to believe that she is in love with him and perhaps the most egregious character trait is revealed when she humiliates herself in front of Henry Tilney, when he learns that she thinks his father is a murderer. She is a loyal reader and defender of novels, but she doesn’t have the faintest idea about how to truly understand people. As a result, her naïveté and ignorance causes many difficulties, some of which might be considered to be rather monstrous such as believing a man is a murderer when he may have undesirable or even negative traits, but he is far from a criminal. Catherine is portrayed as delusional and paranoid, becoming somewhat unglued because of her imagination. Some readers of the book might believe that Catherine has become a prisoner in Henry Tilney’s stories, but an alternate perspective is that she is purely a captive of her own imagination.

Regarding the character of General Tilney, a significant part of Northanger Abbey focuses on his monstrous qualities as well as, at times, the lack of such traits. He is described as spending his nights combing through political pamphlets in order to find political dissent; in the book, he is portrayed as enjoying his delicious pineapples while people are rioting in the streets because of lack of food. His obliviousness to the plight of the less fortunate is monstrous, an English version of Marie Antoinette’s complete disregard and lack of understanding of the hunger of the people in her kingdom. Instead of being the murderer that Catherine Morland imagines him to be, his most egregious quality is his preoccupation with wealth and stylish attire, as well as depriving Catherine of her fantasy about what a true Gothic abbey actually looks like. Rather than being an actual villain, he is guilty not of murder but of being a materialistic real estate mogul who interferes with the happiness of his offspring. When he is not intruding inappropriately into his children’s business, he typically brags about himself and demonstrates a narcissism that can be experienced as monstrous. His most villainous action is when he suddenly expels Catherine from Northanger Abbey, solely motivated by his materialism.

In Northanger Abbey, however, the real monstrosity presented is the suppression of women throughout that novel as well as other Gothic novels. Although Catherine believes that the true victim in this plot was the “murdered” Mrs. Tilney, she identifies with her (imagined) subserviance to men, the victimization of women in a patriarchal society. The comic ending of the novel, Catherine’s marriage to Henry Tilney, can occur only after Henry’s father learns that rather than being destitute, Catherine is in fact moderately positioned in society, another indication of the patriarchal nature of Jane Austen’s Gothic themes.

In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, there is monstrosity in both the creator of the monster, Victor, and in the monster himself. The monster is physically grotesque, eight feet tall and hideously ugly, and is made up of stolen body parts of corpses and chemicals. Although he starts out as a scientific exploration, ultimately, he becomes a product of supernatural and dark invention. He is however only one of the monstrous characters in the story; the science used by Victor to create this entity is also monstrous. In addition, Victor himself is a monster of sorts because his alienation from the rest of society is the result of selfishness and obsessiveness, as well as ambition. Although he may appear to be an average man on the outside, on the inside he is consumed with hatred for that which he has created. He regards science as a mystery that must be fiercely protected and kept secret; initially, he is obsessed with creating a life, but eventually he is consumed with destroying it. He views himself as a godlike figure, charged with the obligation to create life and for which he will be rewarded ultimately in some kind of divine fantasy. After the monster is created, he exclaims, “Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of arteries and muscles beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes… his shriveled complexion, and straight, black lips” (Shelley.)

Victor changes from an innocent young man awestruck by scientific possibilities into a disenchanted man who is resolute in his drive to destroy the product of his egotistical efforts to create life. He becomes the character that completely lacks humanity, essentially a monster in his own right. He embarks on chasing the monster in order to destroy him, and in so doing he destroys himself, evolving from a dedicated scientist to a mad one determined to pursue his own creation regardless of its consequences, and never taking responsibility for all the damage that he has caused. His lack of humanity is demonstrated by the complete reversal in his attitude towards his creation: initially, he is filled with pride and grandiosity about his achievement but he eventually turns against the monster in a cruel and rejecting manner, even after the monster reveals his strong need for personal connections either in the form of people or another monster. He feels that Victor has created him and then thrown him aside, regarding him with hatred and horror after building him with the capacity to feel emotion and longing. The monster is the character that ultimately expresses human feelings and passion while Victor becomes the monster who is filled with grotesque hatred and determination to kill his creation. What was once Victor’s obsession with creating life in the monster becomes his determination to destroy him. Who is actually the monster in this story? Victor’s obsessive desire for knowledge as well as his isolation from human contact indicates that he is not a normal human being.

Shelley’s novel, however, also gives insight into what motivated Victor to evolve the way he did. The sudden death of his mother as well as being sent away to college to study science created a desire to recapture those who had abandoned him by “infusing life into an inanimate body.” There is humanity in his desire to find the secret of life. However, this mission quickly deteriorates into a sordid search for body parts from corpses he has dug up from graveyards, a monstrous undertaking in the name of science.

There are clear signs of humanity in the monster as well. He rescues a girl from drowning, clearly demonstrating the capacity for compassion and understanding the innocence of children. In addition, his grief and then anger at Victor for rejecting him are very human emotions; even when he is first created, he shows signs of humanness when he reaches out to Victor and smiles the way an infant might behave towards a parent. One of the more pathetic aspects of the monster’s human reactions is the way in which he expresses the knowledge that he is hideous to others, and at a certain point weeps about this; in addition, the monster feels joy and pain as well, distinctly human emotions. His meeting with the DeLacey family forces him to contrast his own grotesque appearance with that of the good-looking family members that he observes, and although he wishes that he could reach out to them, he is realistic that they will react to him with horror. At another point, however, when he realizes that they are lacking in material goods, he brings them supplies anonymously, depositing them at their doorstep. Another sign of the monster’s humanity is his love of nature and its beauty, using nature to develop skills and appreciation for both animals and human beings.

The monster is not entirely innocent, murdering a little boy who had showered him with insults. This act of monstrosity, the only one in the book until this point, can still be directly tied to Victor’s arrogance in creating the monster without any thought about the possible consequences. It is only after Victor listens to the monster’s eloquence in expressing the desire to have a companion who is as deformed as he is that he is moved to try to create another monster to meet that need. Still, the real monster in Frankenstein is the mad scientist who acted in a god-like manner which surely resulted in the chaos presented in the novel. Ultimately, he did pay a heavy price for his deeds, losing nearly every member of his family due to his arrogance, selfishness, and insensitivity regarding other people. He was forced to recognize the devastating consequences of his actions and live with the guilt so that he did experience punishment from a psychological perspective.

One of the most unfortunate aspects of Victor’s character is that he failed to recognize the monster’s humanity because he could not see beyond its grotesque appearance. He is unable to understand that his creation’s capacity to feel, understand, and communicate goes far beyond his own; he has no insight that his rejection of the monster resembles his own abandonment by his mother, and that both creatures have the same sadness and feelings of longing when they are deprived of their parent figure. As the story progresses, both Victor and the monster experience parallel courses of estrangement from society; the two characters are unavoidably tied to each other and appear to be aware of the other’s presence constantly.

Mary Shelley’s novel is a very specific example of the concept of monstrosity being attached to one’s behavior rather than one’s appearance. Although the monster in the story certainly eventually demonstrates monstrous actions, they only follow his mistreatment and abuse by people that led to feelings of abandonment, self-hatred, and rejection. The discussion of these two novels underscores the fact that monstrosity is in the eye of the beholder. It takes many forms: vanity, silliness, duplicity, and many other traits and behaviors that can be viewed as villainess or arrogant. It is a common theme in literature because it presents only one of many fascinating windows into human nature.

References

Austen, Jane. Northanger Abbey, (The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Jane Austen). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. New York: Bantam Classics, 1984.