Tuesday 28 October 2014

In what ways does Frankenstein's monster allude to his Oedipal repressions of rivalry toward his father?

The monster begins to allude to his Oedipal rivalry with his father (his creator, Victor Frankenstein) when he compares himself to Adam from John Milton's epic poem, Paradise Lost.  He says to Victor, 


[Adam] had come forth from the hands of God a perfect creature, happy and prosperous, guarded by the especial care of his Creator; he was allowed to converse with, and acquire knowledge from beings of a superior nature: but I was wretched, helpless, and alone. . . .  God in pity made man beautiful and alluring, after his own image; but my form is a filthy type of your's [sic], more horrid from its very resemblance.



The creature describes his earliest awareness of his origins, around the time that he found Victor's journal in a pocket of some clothes he had taken from Victor's apartment when he fled.  He reads Paradise Lost, comparing himself to Adam: he realizes that Adam was comparatively lucky, as the creature's father gave him none of the advantages that Adam enjoyed.  Further, the creature realizes that he is hideous, another fault of his creator and not his own.


Oedipus, too, was cast away by his own parents and raised by another family, just as the creature was abandoned by his creator and then raised and educated by the DeLaceys (no matter that they were unaware of his presence).  The only interaction Oedipus ever has with his birth father, Laius, is an altercation at an intersection of three roads not far from the oracle at Delphi.  Laius is abusive to him, and so Oedipus kills Laius, not knowing this man is his father.  


Unlike Oedipus, the creature is able to confront his father, Victor, knowing that Victor is, in fact, his creator.  Even before the creature met Victor, he says, "[he] cursed [Victor]" as his creator.  When they do meet, the creature says, "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."  Oedipus, too, was bound to his father; the prophecy he received from the oracle stated that he would kill his father and marry his mother. There was nothing he could do to avoid this fate.  The monster is bound to his creator, as well, as Victor offers him the only opportunity he might have to achieve some measure of happiness in this life in the form of a companion.  Ultimately, the struggle between creator and created becomes a mortal one, and it can only end with one or both of their deaths.  


The creature does not have a "mother" he can marry, but he does request a female companion, someone whom only his creator can supply.  When Victor ultimately refuses the request, ripping apart the female creature he had begun to make, the monster strangles Victor's own bride, Elizabeth.  This has a parallel in the way Oedipus plays a role in his mother's own death.  Jocasta hangs herself when she realizes that her husband, Oedipus, is also her son.  Both women die of strangulation: Elizabeth by the monster's hands and Jocasta by the noose.  

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