newdivisions

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Hail Mary Shelley!
The second paragraph of the preface to Frankenstein
suggests that author has attempted to reproduce the
complexity of our world and the attendant sensations
and emotional and mental responses to that
complexity. The whole of the preface suggests that
the purpose of this replication is to enable us to better
understand ourselves. We should not be surprised to
find that situations, like those encountered by those
who question so-called religious doctrine, arise from
the working of the “machinery of a story” (1831
introduction). Schism with regard to the story itself is
to be expected, which possibility is enhanced by
changes that appear in the 1831 text and the author’s
remarks concerning those changes.

The value of reproducing divisions among readers of
Frankenstein in the way suggested here is that the
divisions, while arising in ways mirroring those that
occur in our world, will be new. That is, there will be
believers and doubters among those of Dr. Darwin’s
school. There will also be agreement among some of
Dr. Lawrence’s school and those who saw his
writings as attacking their faith.

The division that quietly began in the last decade
concerns the matter of the “event on which this
fiction is founded”(preface). That is, in which
category does belief that Victor created the Creature
put the reader, the enervated or the robust? Note that
doubting that Victor’s story is true does not require
that the doubter hold that no such event is possible.
The discrepancy of nine months, which Shelley insists
on including in the later version, is not something
that can be dismissed. The question of how this
discrepancy came about makes Victor’s revision of
Walton’s account a matter of unusual interest. Note
that, for those who would hold that belief in the event
of creation is essential to the story, Victor’s many
changes might be used as a kind of proof of the
inerrancy of the text we read. This provides us with a
situation not unlike that encountered with so-called
religious belief and discrepancy in the Hebrew and
Greek Bibles.

The effect of such parallels may be among the most
valuable contributions of any writer of the English
language. When it is appreciated that examining the
discrepancies of the Frankenstein texts produces
greater confidence in the mind of its author, a way is
opened to greater appreciation of ancient texts, such
as the Greek and Hebrew Bibles. Thomas Paine and
Thomas Jefferson, with their doubts concerning
Christian doctrine, had responded in ways which
were not always as constructive as they might have
been. Anyone, with the kind of reading Mary Shelley
had done, could make such an observation and
provide a means to correcting it. Jefferson, by leaving
the miracles out of his own version of the Greek
Bible, was leaving out “machinery of a story” that
was very likely included for future use in discovery of
some truth. The very thing that would have been
most useful to Jefferson in persuading others to his
point of view was something he cast aside. The story
of the miracles in the eighth chapter of Matthew’s
account strongly supports Jefferson’s view of Jesus as
a man, but Jefferson doesn’t see that. The twists
suggested by Mary Shelley are marvelous and often
quite humorous. What would the Jefferson version of
Frankenstein leave out? By the way, the
discrepancies with regard to the year Walton met
Frankenstein are like those that arise when trying to
establish the year of Jesus’ birth. This should not be
assumed to be unintentional.

Such is the remarkable value awaiting humanity,
when divisions devised by Mary Shelley come into
play. Faith need not be the word that is used to cover
a retreat from truth. Hail Mary Shelley! The
machinery of her story works wonderfully.

R. R.
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