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“Ich bin’s nit! Ich bin’s nit!”
A d v e r t i s e m e n tWhile some book club members have offered opinions that
Victor Frankenstein is based on Percy Shelley or Lord Byron, it
would be unfair to leave out the candidate Wieland would probably
have nominated, Martin Luther. Walton’s praise of Victor’s use of
language echoes praise of Luther, whose English equivalent was
said to be Shakespeare. When it is considered that, in describing
Clerval, Victor may be describing his former self, much more
similarity with Luther is revealed. Even without the combination
with Clerval, Frankenstein is evocative of Luther. Indeed several of
the similarities involve matters that are of some interest to Leonard
Wolf, particularly Victor’s putting off marriage and his collapse at
critical moments. In addition to these similarities, we find both
Luther and Frankenstein unwittingly create monsters and then raise
an alarm, calling upon someone else to rid the world of the menace.
Both warn against listening to what their created adversaries have
to say. Both indirectly cause the community to destroy its own
innocent members, remaining silent themselves at critical moments.
If we look closely at the problems that arise in Frankenstein,
we find that they arise when moral tendencies proceed without the
guidance of the principled use of knowledge. It is a pattern often
found in life. According to Crabb Robinson, at the time Napoleon
was invading Germany, Wieland (pages 92, 93), himself a
Protestant, saw Luther as having caused the “series of horrid wars”
with his furious speech exciting unthinking hostility rather than
rational effort directed toward reform. But, whatever might seem
to indicate that Luther, or Luther in combination with his father,
might have inspired the character of Victor Frankenstein, the most
valuable observations identify common patterns of error, rather
than individuals somehow different from ourselves. A great benefit
of the understanding that develops from Godwin’s view of moral
fulfillment is that irrational fear of others and prejudice constantly
decrease. That is, we tend to look for and find the moral tendency
that has not been guided by the principled use of knowledge, which
then assures us that an underlying foundation for concord exists.
We see clearly that fear and confusion are our adversaries, rather
than any persons affected by them. Even when progress is slower
than we would like, we appreciate that the principles upon which it
relies are eternal. We fear others less, because we are able to
envision steps that will lead them out of fear and confusion and
toward moral fulfillment. We see others as we see ourselves.
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To a Candid World, Copyright 1998, Thomas Wolfsehr