It's Crazy To Me How People Criticise Victor For Making The Creature Without Any Thought Of The Consequences,

classic literature’s gone WOKE…

- FREAKenstein, or; the modern PRONOUNS

- IARCHMYBACULA

- strange case of dr QUEERKYLL and mr PRYDE

- the picture of dorian GAY

- phantom of the DRAG SHOW

- PRIDE MONTH and prejudice

- WLW heights

- the stranger

- the CLOSETED man

- TESTOSTERONE island

- CUNT and PUSSY

i don’t think alphonse is necessarily passing down some sort of generational trauma onto his children (to me, the pattern of perpetuating their own abuse onto their children is much more present with caroline, through elizabeth and victor)—but rather he’s imparting the values of a upper-class swiss-christian georgian society that his gender, race, religion, career, social class, etc. dictate. 

what’s interesting, from this angle, is the significance of victor failing to conform and uphold these traditional masculine values: victor was very emotionally demonstrative, and frankenstein was written during a turning point in history where upper-class men who had “nervous” senses/feelings were beginning to be seen as effete instead of stylish (during the romantic era they used to be thought fashionable because they were seen as more in-touch with their senses and with nature then the lower-class). during the creation process, victor describes being “oppressed every night by a slow fever” and becoming “nervous to a most painful degree” (1831), among other hysteric symptoms, which was only attributed to females during the time period. victor himself acknowledges this, when in the same passage he describes himself as being “timid as a love-sick girl” (1823).

because of how the gender switch is able to function within science fiction, victor’s narrative is a traditionally female one synthesized through a male narrator, and shelley is able to disguise themes that would have otherwise been met with affront had they been more blatant. when considering this in the context of the creature's birth, victor is essentially a teenager pregnant out of wedlock alienated from his family in a foreign country–much like mary shelley herself–yet in the end, shelley demonstrates that even being male does not help him, because when it boils down to it he is still a single parent without support. victor also fails to uphold his family’s paternal legacy as syndics and judges, pursuing his passion of natural philosophy/alchemy instead to the disapproval of his father, which he is punished for, as it ultimately leads to the creation of the creature and victor’s subsequent downfall.

i’ve established the link between being outwardly emotional and equating this with femininity (which, if i haven’t made clear, i inherently disagree with btw), but i wanted to acknowledge its consequences for victor. when victor fails to suppress the emotion and grief that alphonse tries to encourage victor to suck up, after the death of clerval, this is mistaken for guilt and he faces months of imprisonment. he is also confined in a mental institution when he appears mad. generally, when being emotional he is disbelieved and not taken seriously, for example during his ramblings to henry when ill at ingolstadt, which were never acknowledged, or when telling the magistrate about the situation and trying to get them to pursue the creature. it very much feels like the way women’s emotions weren't (and aren’t) taken seriously and are undermined, were seen as melodramatic, exaggerated, inferior, etc. this forces victor to take matters into his own hands several times–agreeing to make the female creature after justine’s trial (which ultimately leads to what is essentially abortion), deciding to pursue the creature himself after the magistrate disbelieved him, etc. which always resulted in victor putting himself in situations that were dangerous and risked his life.

we’ve spoken pretty extensively in DMs on how love is conditional amongst the frankensteins, so i won’t reiterate all of that here, but generally, much of alphonse’s characterization feels like a reflection of godwin’s beliefs, particularly his ideas on how grief should be thought about and handled. godwin says this in a letter to mary after her son william (shelley)’s death:

this letter pretty directly parallels a conversation alphonse has with victor after william (frankenstein)’s death:

to me, this recontextualizes a lot of victor and alphonse’s interactions, particularly when viewing victor’s narrative as a feminine/maternal one and, in part, as influenced by shelley's own experiences as a woman, daughter and mother. it also feels significant, then, to point out that shelley chose to dedicate frankenstein to godwin.

It's interesting how the second sentence victor starts the story with is "My ancestors had been for many years counsellors and syndics" and while i always focused on the effect it has on, for example, victor; trying to see the life of alphonse is also interesting in the way we can observe his trauma leaking out into his parenting methods and attitude towards his kids and wife.

Like,

-It is said they have a long history with being important and engaged in country's business. And as we see Alphonsa followed it, (and i highly suspect even when he sent victor to college he still expected him to take over this position later on), probably not having much of a choice either. It was all passed down, and even the character of this job is being passed down too. For example, traits fitting this job - responsibilities/brain over feelings. A sense of duty that follows them everywhere. Love isn't unconditional, it's a duty, as well as everything else they do.

It seems like he's just passing down the generational trauma.

Another instances where his bad experiences are being reflected in his behavior towards victor and others is also seen here:

-His dearest friend suddenly disappeared. Turns out he hid because of hurt pride of losing his fortune, simultaneously almost destroying his daughter's life bc of that as well as his own. and Alphonse felt betrayed that this false pride was more important than their friendship = notice how Alphonse assumes the reason for victor's misery is a false pride. And desperatively wants to keep his family in close-circle, so they won't leave each other. And him.

-He looked for the friend for a long time without stopping, but in the end was disappointed. "But when he entered, misery and despair alone welcomed him. Beaufort had saved but a very small sum of money from the wreck of his fortunes; but it was sufficient to provide him with sustenance for some months, and in the mean time he hoped to procure some respectable imployment in a merchant’s house. The interval was consequently spent in inaction; his grief only became more deep and rankling, when he had leisure for reflection; and at length it took so fast hold of his mind, that at the end of three months he lay on a bed of sickness, incapable of any exertion." = notice how he always thinks despair is useless and leads to even worse consequences, so, feeling things is BAD.

-After making a big deal out of loving and finding the friend, the moment he actually sees him dead, instead of thinking about that or even mentioning alphonse was sad or smth, theres not a single sentence about alphonse's reaction or even of that friend anymore, instead all attention drifts to beautiful poor Caroline and suddenly it's a story about saving her. Everything got romantized. = Obviously, the romantization of grief and suffering was very ingrained in Victor's whole family. It probably came from Alphonse and his ancestors too.

- It's also said in 1818 ver that alphonse really loved his sister (the mother of elizabeth) and she abandoned him (cut him off).

"for some years my father had very little communication with her."

= Now remember alphonse's later words and lessons about how cutting your family off means you are neglecting yourself and your other duties etc.

So yeak, Idk I just love how Frankenstein is also about generational trauma and people who didn't process their feelings ruining their kids' lifes. (and don't get me started on Caroline.)

Fascinating trend I’ve noticed from lurking in Frankenstein-related tags:

If there’s a male construct, people frame him as the creator’s child. He has full agency and personhood and deserves to be raised in a family. The most obvious example of this is Frankenstein’s Creature, but you’ll see echoes of it with creators of robots, Pinocchio, etc.

If there’s a female construct, people frame it as expected that she’s created to be a romantic/sexual object. I saw a few posts that Pygmalion is morally superior to Victor Frankenstein because he fell in love with his creation, for instance. I don’t need to go into the dozens of “make a female robot and fall for her” tropes.

The most uncomfortable intersection of this dichotomy are the countless posts insisting that it was Victor’s duty as a father to create a female to gift to his son—and that the “wait but she’ll be an actual person of her own” reservations Victor had in the book were immoral. He owes his son (male construct = family, agency, personhood) the gift of a person (female construct = object, no agency, not family). She wouldn’t be a daughter, just “the Bride.” Nothing about Víctor owing her happiness, but the exact opposite: that she must be custom-designed to be miserable and rejected so she’d be trapped with the male-creature.

For a piece of literature where personhood is such a central theme, it’s a disturbing and disappointing trend.

I really enjoy neurodivergent readings of classic literature because the whole "i have an obsession with being pure/great/always seen as morally good" "sometimes I get obsessed with an idea and believe I'm on the right path and don't act rationally" "i feel uneasy and incapable of enjoying things since [traumatic event(s)]" "I feel alienated from society and don't understand it at all" bunch of thoughts that are very present in most classics are almost always big symptoms of some kind of mental illness (which, in fact, does add a lot to the story) and I love to see people talk about them from that perspective instead of just "lol this guy is whiny and dumb"

Very conscious that across the board Basil is emotionally disconnected and wrapped up in his own head and actively avoids reassessing his ingrained opinions and that this is key to his downfall etc… but I’m really realising the degree to which Basil does not process anything Dorian says?

Exhibit A:

Dorian Gray turned and looked at him. “I believe you would, Basil. You like your art better than your friends. I am no more to you than a green bronze figure. Hardly as much, I dare say.”

The painter stared in amazement. It was so unlike Dorian to speak like that. What had happened? He seemed quite angry. His face was flushed and his cheeks burning.

“Yes,” he continued, “I am less to you than your ivory Hermes or your silver Faun. You will like them always. How long will you like me? Till I have my first wrinkle, I suppose. […]”

Minutes later:

The painter bit his lip and walked over, cup in hand, to the picture. “I shall stay with the real Dorian,” he said, sadly.

“Is it the real Dorian?” cried the original of the portrait, strolling across to him. “Am I really like that?”

“Yes; you are just like that.”

“How wonderful, Basil!”

“At least you are like it in appearance. But it will never alter,” sighed Hallward. “That is something.”

Exhibit B:

“[…] I am changed, but you must always be my friend. Of course, I am very fond of Harry. But I know that you are better than he is. You are not stronger–you are too much afraid of life–but you are better. And how happy we used to be together! Don’t leave me, Basil, and don’t quarrel with me. I am what I am. There is nothing more to be said.“

Minutes later:

“[…] But you mustn’t talk about worship. It is foolish. You and I are friends, Basil, and we must always remain so.“ 

“You have got Harry,” said the painter sadly.

Addition: I have realised on pasting these back-to-back how much the problem for Dorian with Basil’s self-diminishing shows up here… Because Basil has already designated himself this role of passiveness, unimportance, and lack of value to Dorian’s life relative to his own feelings, he either refuses to or isn’t capable of processing anything contradictory. This then internally absolves him of any responsibility for affecting Dorian’s emotional state, as he doesn’t acknowledge he has the capacity to do so to any significant degree - not to have his words taken on as genuinely hurtful, and simultaneously not to have his presence be genuinely wanted.

fellas is it gay to nurse your friend back to health from his nervous fever which incapacitates him for several months despite making a promise to yourself to study languages and then later embark on a joyful and exciting journey through britain with said friend before parting ways and eventually getting killed by said friend's rogue creation because the monster recognised you as one of the things your friend holds most dear, leaving him in a state of near-death at the grief of your loss

alternatively: every time someone makes a victor hate post henry clerval sheds a tear

every time someone says victor hated the creature because of his scary yellow eyes an angel loses its wings

because frankenstein: a new musical content is elusive as all hell, i’ve created a comprehensive list of all the boots, clips, images, interviews, rehearsals, instrumentals, etc. that i could find that i thought were interesting (2007 original cast, with hunter foster as victor) including boots of four full songs!

none of these are mine/were taken by me, just a compilation of things i found and thought were interesting :+) feel free to comment or message me directly with any errors, suggestions, additions, or anything i missed! here’s the link:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VwWzjbVP4FhxfhLzOnYZx7V1T-s5WdXdzK479dadfn4/edit?usp=sharing

*jesse pinkman voice* not my house man not my house

happy international lesbian day to victor frankenstein henry clerval robert walton elizabeth lavenza justine moritz louis manoir and ernest frankenstein

thank you charlie