Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus

The fourth in the tour of eight screens   [Print version]
     When we read  Frankenstein, we make assumptions about the
relative importance of things. We take Robert Walton to be no
more important than a literary device, the person through whom
Victor Frankenstein's story about a monster is conveyed to us. Yet,
there are clues in the preface and the novel itself that suggest that,
although Shelley expected readers to make such assumptions, she
intended that her readers learn something about how disordered our
thinking becomes when we do that.The assumptions we made about
Robert Walton's importance lead us to ignore a great deal of information
Shelley provides. We use our imaginations to sympathize with Victor's
Creature's suffering and the horror that results from his isolation.
We do not use our imaginations to experience the effect that
Robert Walton's account would have on his sister or her husband
or their children, all of whom may be aware and alarmed by the
danger to him and others that his breaking his vow could involve.
Sympathy for Walton and the Creature are not mutually exclusive.
The two actually have some important things in common. Both
suffer from loneliness and, although in different ways, are
abandoned by Victor. When observed from the point of view
that Shelley recommends, Walton is considerably more like the
Creature, particularly with regard to his destructiveness.
     To those that read as though a member of Walton's family, the
novel reads entirely differently. This is why Frankenstein is a
book that can be read twice for the first time. The point of view
makes that much difference. And curiously, when the reader
adopts the point of view of the relative who reads the account,
helpless to assist Walton, the reader has a far  greater understanding
of opportunities for a better outcome for Victor's Creature and even
Victor himself. Advertisement samples, available through the
To a Candid World link on the Main Page, show that assumptions,
not unlike those we make as readers of Frankenstein cause us to
fail to see opportunities for better outcomes in our real world as well.
     Although this is a commercial web site (we do have an interest
in selling books), increasing awareness of the problem of failing to
make principled use of knowledge already in hand is more important.
Frankenstein is loaded with discrepancies that suggest investigation,
yet, when it comes to those that suggest the value of adopting the
point of view, such inquiry is avoided. This is important to note, in
order that discussions of Frankenstein include the insights that
Shelley's design indicates are vital to her purpose. Many of the
advertisements in To a Candid World refer to the thoughts expressed
by participants in an on air discussion of Frankenstein in which
Leonard Wolf acted as a special guest. The next stop on this tour
takes us to an advertisement that involves more careless assumption,
in this case made by an expert. It is included on the tour in part
because it is a good area in which to start a discussion of Mary
Shelley's Frankenstein and because the discrepancy involved is
one of the best examples of her design, the machinery for exercising
untried resources of mind.   [Next]