Latest Posts by frankingsteinery - Page 3
Imagine if you will, that you have an older brother.
He's an admirable kind of brother, the same as your parents. He has an interest in the natural sciences and is a bit of a nerd, but he's a great brother. Alongside your older brother, of course you have your parents, a younger brother (who is practically an angel to everyone who has ever known him), a cousin who is sort of your sister (and also your brother's one true love or whatever), your older brother's lifelong best friend, and a servant girl who is practically family.
Life is easy. You live everyday with great pleasure in your native home where the icy-capped mountains are beautiful and the lake serene.
Of course, like any other human being, you experience a great tragedy. One day, your cousin-sister gets sick. In her kindness, your mother takes care of her but gets sick herself and dies. It's tragic... but it happens.
Afterwards, your older brother leaves for university, and you spend your life full of enjoyment. The only thing you wish is that your father would allow you to take leave and become a soldier. Unlike your older brother, you had no fondness for the academia and would rather go out and find glory in battle.
In this time, your older brother's letters begin to slowly dwindle, that almost two years have gone by since his last writing. It bothers you, but as you are just a youth, it doesn't bother you as much as it does your father, your cousin-sister, and your older brother's best friend (who eventually does leave to go to the same university as your older brother).
From your brother's best friend, you're informed that your brother has gotten ill, but at least his best friend is there to care for him. Gradually, your brother begins to write to your family again and all seems well.
One day, you go out with your family to enjoy the nature. You and younger brother go out into the forest to play hide and seek. You seek, but do not find. You return to your family, hoping your brother went back but he didn't. You and your family try to find him for the entire night.
In the morning, you find him murdered.
A part of you blames yourself. After all, you were the last to see him. Maybe you even proposed that game of hide and seek. Maybe if you hadn't lost him he'd still be alive. Your older brother is told to come back home, and while waiting for him, you find out that your family's servant (who your family has loved like their own) was the murderer.
It's all so strange and horrible, but her trial is set, and your older brother has come home. He is visibly shaken when you first meet him after many years apart. He's changed, but he's still your brother. He raves a bit to you about how he knows who the murderer is, but instead of the servant, he mentions some other fiend.
This thought is quickly swept away by the ensuing trial and execution of someone you once held dearly. Your older brother is so distraught. He has decided to stay home, but his misery is palpable and you feel sorry for him, your father, your cousin-sister, and yourself. Although, you try your best to be happy.
Months past, your older brother has returned from a trip to some neighboring cities. Your father has been casually mentioning the possible marriage between your older brother and your cousin-sister. Instead of agreeing immediately, as you thought he would, your older brother instead decides to go to England with his best friend. Which is really strange to you, but hopefully he comes back better.
A year nearly passes... your older brother's best friend is dead and your brother has been accused of his murder. Your father has to travel all the way to Ireland to save him. Eventually they return, and your brother is a wreck - though that's to be expected after the murder of his best friend. Still, he decides to go on with the marriage - and there is happiness in your household once again.
Though somehow, your ever unlucky brother sails away with his new wife... and comes back stating that she has been murdered. The news literally kills your father, leaving you and your brother alone.
The next few months are torture as you watch your brother turn into a shell of himself, further falling into the miseries that you have both suffered. However, somehow a part of you can tell that there's something deeper in his despair, though you can't exactly know what.
Then you hear from a magistrate about your older brother's ravings about that fiend... the murderer he'd once mentioned a long time ago. The talks of a madman.
Your older brother leaves, promising to kill whoever enemy he had conjured up in his mind.
He's gone for months... maybe even years.
He comes back dead, though not alone. His body escorted by a ship captain.
He has a tale to tell you.
Oh, btw, your name is Ernest Frankenstein.
i’ve seen a lot of people in general agreement of the headcanon that victor is on the spectrum, but i’ve very rarely seen someone examine the why, and being the persnickety superfluous person that i am (and not being immune to projection myself) i thought i’d try my hand at it and break down his autistic traits!
disclaimer that this interpretation is speculative and is simply my unprofessional neurodivergent opinion + it’s based on contemporary understandings of psychology, which were not part of shelley's context, however autistic people have always existed even if there wasnt a word for it during that time period, etc etc. you know the drill
without further ado!
-- communication & social interaction
first and foremost, many autistics struggle with socialization. victor’s inclination to attach himself to a single friend (henry) and only talking to those inside of his close circle rather than forming many connections reflects this tendency, and he himself acknowledges his dislike and indifference of strangers. for example:
“It was my temper to avoid a crowd and to attach myself fervently to a few. I was indifferent, therefore, to my school-fellows in general; but I united myself in the bonds of the closest friendship to one among them”
“My life had hitherto been remarkably secluded and domestic, and this had given me invincible repugnance to new countenances… I believed myself totally unfitted for the company of strangers”
furthermore, he lacks relationship degradation (he does not require regular interaction or relationship maintenance to sustain a bond). during the creation process, he (presumably) goes months without writing to his family and friends, which clerval lectures him for:
“Very well, and very happy, only a little uneasy that they hear from you so seldom. By the by, I mean to lecture you a little upon their account myself."
yet upon his arrival at ingolstadt:
"...nothing could equal [his] delight on seeing Clerval."
victor also takes things literally several times and social nuances can fly over his head. he demonstrates this literalism when first meeting elizabeth:
"And when, on the morrow, she presented Elizabeth to me as her promised gift, I, with childish seriousness, interpreted her words literally and looked upon Elizabeth as mine"
and, of course, the infamous i will be with you on your wedding-night scene, when the creature obviously means he tends to harm elizabeth, not victor himself:
“It is well. I go; but remember, I shall be with you on your wedding-night.” I started forward and exclaimed, “Villain! Before you sign my death-warrant, be sure that you are yourself safe!"
he also goes nonverbal and groans/vocalizes instead of speaking when upset. there's several instances of this that i can recall (i believe another is with walton), but i could only find one, where elizabeth has to speak for him during their visit to justine:
"When she saw who it was, she approached me and said, “Dear sir, you are very kind to visit me; you, I hope, do not believe that I am guilty?” ... I could not answer. “No, Justine,” said Elizabeth"
and this is more of a sidenote but he gives walton every. minute. detail. of his story, including his childhood in-depth (which was not particularly relevant to the moral of victors tale, which was the whole reason he wound up sharing his story in the first place) which definitely feels like. Something. reminiscent of infodumping almost.
-- repetitive behaviors
victor shows both repetitive motions and repetitive language to such an extent that it'd be ridiculous to put them all here, particularly when he is distressed and agitated. some of these motions include clasping his hands, covering his face with his hands, and gnashing his teeth, which he does on walton's boat, after finding out about william's death, in his confrontation with the creature, during his time at the orkney islands, etc. the use of certain phrases/verbal repetition include his many "great god!"s and "begone!"s, which he usually says in reaction to the creature or while grieving a loved one. these behaviors are arguably self-stimulatory (stimming) and done to cope with overwhelming, stressful situations.
-- fixations/spinterests
ths one's perhaps his most blatant characteristic. victor has a highly focused, intense interest, initially in in the workings of the world itself:
"It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn... still my inquiries were directed to the metaphysical, or in its highest sense, the physical secrets of the world."
"The world was to me a secret, which I desired to discover;"
"I have described myself as always having been imbued with a fervent longing to penetrate the secrets of nature"
this is to the extent that his education is noticeably different from his peers, both in acceleration in the topic of his choice and neglect of other, more typical studies due to the intensity of this focus:
“I confess that neither the structure of languages, nor the code of governments, nor the politics of various states possessed attractions for me.”
“…but by some fatality the overthrow of these men disinclined me to pursue my accustomed studies.”
this early fixation eventually narrows into a special interest in ancient alchemy, after victor finds one of agrippa's works and a "new light seems to dawn upon [his] mind," upon which he proceeds to acquire all the works of agrippa and other authors:
"When I returned home my first care was to procure the whole works of this author, and afterwards of Paracelsus and Albertus Magnus. I read and studied the wild fancies of these writers with delight; they appeared to me treasures known to few besides myself"
this remains his special interest until he is a teenager, upon which, after finding out ancient alchemy has been disproven, he takes up mathematics until his arrival at ingolstadt. then, his interest shifts into a fixation on natural philosophy, particularly chemistry, which becomes his "sole occupation":
"He concluded with a panegyric upon modern chemistry, the terms of which I shall never forget... one by one the various keys were touched which formed the mechanism of my being; chord after chord was sounded, and soon my mind was filled with one thought, one conception, one purpose"
"I read with ardour those works, so full of genius and discrimination, which modern inquirers have written on these subjects... the stars often disappeared in the light of morning whilst I was yet engaged in my laboratory. As I applied so closely, it may be easily conceived that my progress was rapid. My ardour was indeed the astonishment of the students, and my proficiency that of the masters"
which, of course, develops into an interest in physiology and the structure of the human frame, which leads to his obsession over the secret of life, followed by being "thus engaged, heart and soul, in one pursuit" during the creation of the creature.
-- intense, volatile emotions; resistance to change
in general, victor is very emotionally demonstrative, and has difficulty managing these emotions. he also experiences quick fluctuations in emotion. this is something he has experienced since childhood, and is something he maintains as an adult, when he acknowledges that:
"My temper was sometimes violent…"
some examples of these shifts in emotion:
"My heart, which was before sorrowful, now swelled with something like joy..."
"Sometimes he commanded his countenance and tones and related the most horrible incidents with a tranquil voice, suppressing every mark of agitation; then, like a volcano bursting forth, his face would suddenly change to an expression of the wildest rage as he shrieked out imprecations on his persecutor"
hand in hand with his emotional dysregulation, he shows resistance to change and has strong reactions to this change. the most obvious example of this is during the animation of the creature:
"The different accidents of life are not so changeable as the feelings of human nature... but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart"
"Mingled with this horror, I felt the bitterness of disappointment; dreams that had been my food and pleasant rest for so long a space were now become a hell to me; and the change was so rapid, the overthrow so complete!"
but it also occurs when moving to ingolstadt, suggesting a discomfort with unfamilarity and a need for stability:
I threw myself into the chaise that was to convey me away and indulged in the most melancholy reflections. I, who had ever been surrounded by amiable companions, continually engaged in endeavouring to bestow mutual pleasure—I was now alone.
-- black-and-white thinking
this aspect is most clearly shown through the way victor thinks about, and drops and gains interests and relationships. he spends years studying ancient alchemy and it is his principle interest, and then drops it on a dime and suddenly looks upon this passion with contempt:
“By one of those caprices of the mind which we are perhaps most subject to in early youth, I at once gave up my former occupations, set down natural history and all its progeny as a deformed and abortive creation, and entertained the greatest disdain for a would-be science which could never even step within the threshold of real knowledge. In this mood of mind I betook myself to the mathematics and the branches of study appertaining to that science as being built upon secure foundations, and so worthy of my consideration”
later, he spends four years with his mind filled with "one thought, one conception, one purpose" studying the processes of life so intensely he forgoes adequate food, water and rest. this culminates in the creation and subsequent animation of the creature, which he again turns around and abandons this interest immediately, to the extent that he cannot bear to think of natural philosophy:
Ever since the fatal night, the end of my labours, and the beginning of my misfortunes, I had conceived a violent antipathy even to the name of natural philosophy.
it's a very polarized, all-or-nothing approach that is mirrored with his relationships, too, which he alternatedly neglects -- he cuts contact when he goes to ingolstadt but abruptly picks it up again when henry comes into his life; when the creature flees victor's apartment, victor treats it as if he never existed entirely; his family only comes to the center of the narrative again when he gets the letter from alphonse about william's murder, despite 2 years having been passed at ingolstadt, etc.
and finally;
-- low empathy
victor repeatedly focuses solely on his own internal emotional experience, and struggles to fully comprehend and understand the depth of feelings of others and respond with compassion in conventional ways. during justine's trial, for instance, he elevates his own suffering above justine's, even as she faces her literal execution:
I rushed out of the court in agony. The tortures of the accused did not equal mine; she was sustained by innocence, but the fangs of remorse tore my bosom and would not forgo their hold.
Despair! Who dared talk of that? The poor victim, who on the morrow was to pass the awful boundary between life and death, felt not, as I did, such deep and bitter agony.
similarly, victor dismisses ernest's grief after william's death, he frames it in terms of how it affects himself -- telling ernest to "be more calm" to avoid causing his own discomfort:
Ernest began to weep as he said these words. “Do not,” said I, “welcome me thus; try to be more calm, that I may not be absolutely miserable the moment I enter my father’s house after so long an absence.
this detachment suggests not deliberate cruelty (victor very clearly loves his family, and he's said to be kind several times) but a limited capacity to process and respond to other's emotions. this is a detachment that extends to his views of the dead. during the creation of the creature, he refers to the corpses he utilizes as only "materials" instead of once having been fully-fledged human beings, and he does not contemplate the lives or dignity of the deceased.
aaaaaand thats it! thank you for indulging my. headcanon projection land. let me know what you all think...
"As the memory of past misfortunes pressed upon me, I began to reflect upon their cause—the monster whom I had created, the miserable daemon whom I had sent abroad into the world...."
Flowers:
Honeysuckle: "devoted affection/bonds of love"
Black rose: Death, hatred, rebirth
Chestnut blossoms: "do me justice"
Pear blossoms: "lasting friendship"
Daisy: innocence and purity
gay people can never be normal they always gotta say some shit like "he was a being formed in the very poetry of nature. his wild and enthusiastic imagination was chastened by the sensibility of his heart. his soul overflowed with ardent affections, and his friendship was of that devoted and wondrous nature that the worldly-minded teach us to look for only in the imagination".
Strange question but I'm doing a paper for my biology class for extra credit and I wanted a second opinion and I've already sent you a lot of asks that you've responded kindly to so I felt comfortable bringing this to you: So, Im doing a paper on Frankensteins monster, and I was exploring his biology when it struck me; Would Adam be able to have kids? Assuming Victor made him with reproduction in mind would it even be possible considering hes made of.. dead people? Same with his nervous system, is it one nervous system he stole or did he meticulously wire a completely new one from various dead people?
Best of luck on your paper! I'll answer as best I can. Victor DID make the creature with reproduction in mind, he had initially wanted to start a whole race of creatures that might look upon him as a god. He was also very concerned about the creature and the bride procreating. The book doesn't go into any detail about how Adam's reproductive system functions or is made so that is up for speculation and how functional he actually is is anyone's guess. I have headcanons but they are just that, headcanons. I personally take the approach that Adam's reproductive system is functional. In 1779, which , if we're assuming Victor created Adam sometime in the 1790's, would have been before Adam was built, an Italian physiologist named Lazzaro Spallanzani proved that a sperm cell contained a nucleus and cytoplasm. It was through his experiments that it was proven for the first time that the embryo develops as a result of physical contact between the egg and the sperm. That knowledge of reproduction on a cellular level WAS available to Victor at the time. Spallanzani also discovered you could freeze sperm via cooling and reactivate it later. So giving Adam viable semen is actually not even the most implausible thing about his creation. Now, who's semen is it and where and how did Victor get it? That is entirely up to the headcanons of the reader but because I am hard leaning into the more messed up themes of Frankenstein and the "horror of motherhood/childbirth/parenthood," I like to head canon that Victor may have derived Adam's sperm cells from his own. Because he has a desire to procreate in some way, but not directly. Not by impregnating his fiance, Elizabeth, but by using this created being as his proxy to start a new race. A race Victor would literally be the father of. I tend to play with the idea that Victor's viceral disgust comes not just from Adam being what he is but from the intent of Adam being an idealized "perfect" version of VIctor himself. That is my take on it all, I hope it helps and I hope you do well on your paper!
experimenting with shape language lately, I think I'm getting better at it -not final-
Hello endernation I’m alive again sorry! Here is art I made last month or so? Idk
Brief tbhk ref bc i hfx on it for like two seconds and gave up
Also the peterachilles was moved to a new canvas and is being worked on as a separate project fyi and like guys so honest it all started as stupid recreation of the vocaloid butterfly headphone yuri like look
Ender’s hair made me mad just remembered I didn’t finish it but wtvr I’ll post his full design later plus updated ones of these bc this is so OLDDDDDD I’m sick really someone hit me repeatedly so I’ll draw them again
Wait I lied one more thing actually
Rotterdam design of Achilles, unpopular opinion I fear but I really liked his stupid shirt in the comics
okay the end bye for an unforeseeable amount of time
the similarities between peter, ender and even valentine though– they’re all so clearly products of the same dysfunctional household.
Keep reading
desperately need a dude i can nickname “sweet elf,” who hasn’t slept in 3 days, is vegetarian, translates plato for fun, got kicked out of oxford at the age of 18 for penning the first pro-atheism work in the english language and mailing it to every bishop in england, distributes political pamphlets in handmade hot air balloons, hallucinates from stress, plays with paper boats and rocks while declaring these to be serious forms of scientific experimentation, hangs out with lord byron, casually writes some of the greatest poetry in the english language but then threatens to quit constantly because he’s not famous yet, is convinced he is dying of consumption despite no proof, blows things up with gunpowder unprovoked, and is addicted to sailing as fast as possible while refusing to learn how to swim.
It’s weird that in all the essays I read on Frankenstein none of them have noted that Victor is heavily transmasculine-coded. Like he hits on a weirdly large number of transmasculine, particularly gay transmasculine experiences that are relevant today:
pregnancy and childbirth as traumatic and horrible yet unstoppable experiences that are totally foreign to nature
obsessive fantasies and ideation of an ideal masculine body
society finding your fantasized idealized male form monstrous and especially dangerous to children
being punished for recognizing that women are capable of independence and therefore can be as monstrous as their male counterparts
parents wishing for a real daughter when all they have is you
feigning attraction to a woman, any woman, for some scrap of masculinity, even though it’s obvious you’re not actually interested
weird esoteric historical interests that everyone around you denigrates as useless that you keep doing anyway
falling for your male best friend in a totally gay way
physically and mentally falling apart because of an unexplainable secret
trying to reveal the unexplainable secret getting shrugged off as impossible and you’re considered crazy — even your best friend seems to think it’s due to trauma you can’t articulate rather than what you’re actually literally saying
creating the man “responsible” for destroying your family and being a menace to society
I’m sure there’s more but that’s all I can think of off the top of my head. And yet cis people still keep pushing stories of girls dressing up as boys to experience the glory of war as transmasculine experiences. Why.
i am not immune to blasting my favourite characters with the neurodivergent beam — i think there is something very comforting about a character from a book written long before these things were understood (at least with the vocabulary we have today) articulating things about themselves that you can see something of yourself in
with that in mind, let me take you on a journey where i explain in far more detail than probably necessary
Why Captain Robert Walton from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus (1818) has ADHD (in my non-professional neurodivergent opinion)!
i’ll be going through some common ADHD symptoms and presenting evidence from the text to demonstrate how Walton, in his own representation of himself, can be interpreted as displaying these traits
this got Long so analysis under the cut!
— INATTENTIVENESS AND FOCUS
Walton has a strong and active imagination, and seems prone to excessive daydreaming and letting his mind wander, even becoming distracted by sensory input (the sublime beauty of nature, lol):
Inspirited by this wind of promise, my daydreams become more fervent and vivid.
He feels that he is set apart by his own manner of thinking, that his mind is in need of "regulation":
Now I am twenty-eight and am in reality more illiterate than many schoolboys of fifteen. It is true that I have thought more and that my daydreams are more extended and magnificent, but they want (as the painters call it) keeping; and I greatly need a friend who would have sense enough not to despise me as romantic, and affection enough for me to endeavour to regulate my mind.
The "keeping" that Shelley refers to is artistic terminology meaning
The maintenance of the proper relation between the representations of nearer and more distant objects in a picture; [...] the maintenance of harmony of composition. (X)
I would interpret Walton's meaning here to be that he understands his thoughts to be somewhat "all over the place" or lacking practicality; he is aware that he has an overzealous and ambitious personality, and requires a sense of harmony (ideally, in the form of an understanding friend) who will keep him focused.
Even Victor comments on Walton seeming to become impatient with him or lose focus during his own tangent:
Victor: But I forget that I am moralizing in the most interesting part of my tale, and your looks remind me to proceed.
(adhd bitches be like let me infodump my entire brain at you and tell you seven unrelated stories before getting to the point but the SECOND someone else goes off topic it's so over)
Walton's inattentiveness is best demonstrated by his lack of concentration on things like his education in favour of his interests when he was a boy:
My education was neglected, yet I was passionately fond of reading. These volumes were my study day and night[...]
and speaking of!
— HYPERFIXATIONS
I feel my heart glow with an enthusiasm which elevates me to heaven, for nothing contributes so much to tranquillise the mind as a steady purpose—a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.
^ me when i will go insane if i don't have my silly little Topics to obsess over. this guy gets it
Walton is clearly influenced heavily by his fixations; polar exploration and his "passionate enthusiasm for the dangerous mysteries of ocean" are lifelong special interests for him. He refers to his voyage as "the favourite dream of my early years", and also developed a love for poetry from a young age:
[...] for the first fourteen years of my life I ran wild on a common and read nothing but our Uncle Thomas’ books of voyages. At that age I became acquainted with the celebrated poets of our own country;
When he is forbidden for pursuing a seafaring life by his father, and in doing so prevented from indulging his main interests, Walton becomes fixated solely on literature, attempting to become a poet himself:
These visions faded when I perused, for the first time, those poets whose effusions entranced my soul and lifted it to heaven. I also became a poet and for one year lived in a paradise of my own creation; I imagined that I also might obtain a niche in the temple where the names of Homer and Shakespeare are consecrated.
Interestingly, when he fails to achieve his literary goal, his attention seemingly switches seamlessly back to his previous interests when he is finally given the opportunity to pursue them - jumping between hyperfixations in search of dopamine is often experienced by many with ADHD:
You are well acquainted with my failure and how heavily I bore the disappointment. But just at that time I inherited the fortune of my cousin, and my thoughts were turned into the channel of their earlier bent.
Walton claims that he is “practically industrious—painstaking, a workman to execute with perseverance and labour” but this mostly seems applicable when he can hyperfocus on tasks that are stimulating to him and related to his interests - for example, when he prepares for his voyage while working on whaling ships:
I often worked harder than the common sailors during the day and devoted my nights to the study of mathematics, the theory of medicine, and those branches of physical science from which a naval adventurer might derive the greatest practical advantage.
— HYPERACTIVITY, IMPULSIVITY AND RESTLESSNESS
i mean. i think most people would consider sailing off to explore as-yet unknown and extremely dangerous parts of the world completely of your own volition impulsive no matter how long you've been planning to do it
Even so, Walton seems to display a reduced sense of danger even upon "the commencement of an enterprise which you [Margaret] have regarded with such evil forebodings":
These are my enticements, and they are sufficient to conquer all fear of danger or death and to induce me to commence this laborious voyage with the joy a child feels when he embarks in a little boat, with his holiday mates, on an expedition of discovery up his native river.
Walton's hyperactivity can be seen in his innate restlessness and never wanting to feel “settled” or too comfortable:
My life might have been passed in ease and luxury, but I preferred glory to every enticement that wealth placed in my path.
His wanderlust drives him forward, literally physically sending him to places very few have ever been:
[...] there is a love for the marvellous, a belief in the marvellous, intertwined in all my projects, which hurries me out of the common pathways of men, even to the wild sea and unvisited regions I am about to explore.
To me, this line indicates that Walton has an awareness of his own overwhelming eagerness (and tbh this is also how I would describe what my own ADHD feels like sometimes):
I am too ardent in execution and too impatient of difficulties.
Walton also seems prone to excessive talking and infodumping, demonstrated even by the act of sending his sister such long and detailed letters in the first place. He is a grade A yapper and that is why we even have the story in the first place!
My favourite evidence of this is when Walton is so taken by the romantic story of his ship's master that he derails his entire letter to his sister to tell her about it, saying:
This, briefly, is his story.
Reader: the story was not brief.
My swelling heart involuntarily pours itself out thus.
you don't say!
— POOR PLANNING AND PRIORITISATION
Despite committing himself to his voyage for six years and having thought of it for much longer, Walton doesn't seem to have uh. much of an actual concrete plan:
I do not intend to sail until the month of June; and when shall I return? Ah, dear sister, how can I answer this question? If I succeed, many, many months, perhaps years, will pass before you and I may meet. If I fail, you will see me again soon, or never.
In relation to this, let me just leave this extract from Jessica Richard's article '“A paradise of my own creation”: Frankenstein and the improbable romance of polar exploration' here:
Shelley subtly indicates Walton’s incompetence as an expedition leader (despite his extensive reading and apprenticeships on Greenland whaling vessels) when she has him begin his journey on a rather late date, July 7th. Whether Walton is simply a poor planner, or, as Frankenstein himself fears, he “share[s] my madness,” a departure date so late in the season all but dooms his enterprise to failure from the outset. (p. 299)
ouch!
He seems to have little awareness of this aspect of his personality; he assures his sister that:
I shall do nothing rashly: you know me sufficiently to confide in my prudence and considerateness whenever the safety of others is committed to my care.
Yet to Victor, he describes:
how gladly I would sacrifice my fortune, my existence, my every hope, to the furtherance of my enterprise. One man’s life or death were but a small price to pay for the acquirement of the knowledge which I sought[...]
Not only does he neglect his duties as captain to care for Victor, even while his ship is imperilled by pack ice…
Thus has a week passed away, while I have listened to the strangest tale that ever imagination formed. My thoughts and every feeling of my soul have been drunk up by the interest for my guest which this tale and his own elevated and gentle manners have created.
… he is highly averse to abandoning his voyage even when his crew threatens mutiny:
We were immured in ice and should probably never escape, but they feared that if, as was possible, the ice should dissipate and a free passage be opened, I should be rash enough to continue my voyage and lead them into fresh dangers, after they might happily have surmounted this. They insisted, therefore, that I should engage with a solemn promise that if the vessel should be freed I would instantly direct my course southwards. This speech troubled me. I had not despaired, nor had I yet conceived the idea of returning if set free.
oh robert........
— EMOTIONAL DYSREGULATION AND SOCIAL DIFFICULTIES
This seems to be a persistent issue for Walton; he continually refers to the fluctuation of his own emotions and his inability to regulate them on his own:
My courage and my resolution is firm; but my hopes fluctuate, and my spirits are often depressed.
I have no friend, Margaret: when I am glowing with the enthusiasm of success, there will be none to participate my joy; if I am assailed by disappointment, no one will endeavour to sustain me in dejection.
He is deeply desirous of understanding and community with others, but is left feeling lonely and like an outsider, having difficulty connecting with most people including the men he sails with:
A youth passed in solitude, my best years spent under your gentle and feminine fosterage, has so refined the groundwork of my character that I cannot overcome an intense distaste to the usual brutality exercised on board ship:
Walton implies that he is insecure of aspects of his personality, and is in need of external validation and someone to “sympathise with and love” him:
How would such a friend repair the faults of your poor brother!
Lastly, this line appears in the 1831 version of the novel only but it is one that, for me, ties together a lot of the book's themes especially with regard to neurodiversity and is generally one of the most affecting for me personally for that reason:
There is something at work in my soul which I do not understand.
me too, buddy. me too
aaaaaaaand that's all(!) i have to say for now
most of this is really just based on my own experiences and traits (am i projecting? absolutely. but am i correct? also yes) and just my own interpretation and i’m sure i’ve left out SO much but i had fun putting my hyperfix spinterest hat on and hopefully it was interesting to read! let me know your thoughts!
My affection for my dearest Captain Robert Walton increases every day
more Frankenstein.
zoom + additional sketches under the cut
𝑺𝒆𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒊𝒏 𝒂 𝒅𝒂𝒓𝒌 𝒏𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕....
Happy Halloween!!!
Here, as a "Treat" ☺️🫶
Slice of life comedy where after Victor fucks off and leaves his science crime baby behind that instead of the monster also fucking off on a cross country self help trip he ends up in the dubious care of Victor’s college dorm mates and instead of killing his way through several families it just becomes a story of these increasingly harried college students trying to raise their absentee classmates walking talking osha violation while simultaneously keeping him hidden from their RA
i mentioned victor's delusions in brief previously (here), but because of the inherent complexity (and almost contradictory aspect) of their nature i decided it warranted its own post!
victor, alongside other psychotic symptoms, experiences delusions of guilt and persecution. a delusion is an involuntary belief that isn't rooted in logic or evidence; a person experiencing a delusion is fixed in their belief, and they can't stop believing it even if they know it isn't true and/or despite contrary evidence.
while victor's delusions–specifically regarding those that revolve around the creature–by in large turn out to actually be true, i.e. the creature actually harmed his family and victor by extension, during the point in the novel when he was experiencing them, he has no evidence to suggest that this was the case, and within the context of the rest of his symptoms, they'd still be considered delusional ideas.
for a variety of reasons, i'm still on the fence on whether i'd categorize victor's mania and grandiosity during the creation process as constituting delusions of grandeur. and to what extent is this sense of grandiosity justified, because he DID discover the secret of life itself… does that not almost warrant the feeling of being superiorly intelligent, this sense of infallibly, and the belief that they should be lauded for their achievements, in almost anyone who could have made the same discovery? it's tricky because i’m not sure if i just have an aversion to the "victor had grandiose delusions during the creation process" take simply because the vast, vast majority of those who make that argument also make the argument that delusion of grandeur = arrogance = evil = victor sucks (and that line of thinking is a whole separate can of worms in of itself…), or if i actually don’t wholly agree with it; for this reason i won’t touch on this here yet
with that out of the way–
like i’ve stated before, victor’s psychotic breaks are either triggered by the stress of the creation process or the death of one of his loved ones. this results in delusions of persecution, which is defined as when the affected person believes that harm is going to occur to oneself or those close to them by a persecutor, in this case the creature, despite a clear lack of evidence. initially, this starts with paranoia:
“Every night I was oppressed by a slow fever, and I became nervous to a most painful degree; the fall of a leaf startled me, and I shunned my fellow creatures as if I had been guilty of a crime. Sometimes I grew alarmed at the wreck I perceived that I had become…”
“With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet”
this paranoia develops into a delusion as victor’s belief that the creature means him harm, despite having nothing to support this idea, becomes fixed. this comes to a head after the creature’s animation:
“I beheld the wretch…He might have spoken, but I did not hear; one hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped and rushed downstairs…where I remained during the rest of the night, walking up and down in the greatest agitation, listening attentively, catching and fearing each sound as if it were to announce the approach of the demoniacal corpse to which I had so miserably given life”
“I issued into the streets, pacing them with quick steps, as if I sought to avoid the wretch whom I feared every turning of the street would present to my view. I did not dare return to the apartment which I inhabited, but felt impelled to hurry on”
delusions can often feel like a sudden truth (the false belief) has been revealed to you. victor himself notes this sudden, extreme shift in perspective within himself:
“...dreams that had been my food and pleasant rest for so long a space were now become a hell to me; and the change was so rapid, the overthrow so complete!”
as victor recovers physically, this delusion becomes less present as the acute phase ends, and victor’s fears regarding the creature fade into the background as he enters the recovery phase. he stays in this manner until psychosis is again triggered by the stressor of william’s murder–then, victor’s delusion of persecution returns. however, this time, he believes the creature is not only going to harm himself, but was the murderer of william. once more, this starts with paranoia:
“Fear overcame me; I dared no advance, dreading a thousand nameless evils that made me tremble, although I was unable to define them…The picture appeared a vast and dim scene of evil, and I foresaw obscurely that I was destined to become the most wretched of human beings.”
and then develops into a fixed belief:
“I perceived in the gloom a figure which stole from behind a clump of trees near me; I stood fixed, gazing intently: I could not be mistaken. A flash of lightning illuminated the object, and discovered its shape plainly to me; its gigantic stature, and the deformity of its aspect more hideous than belongs to humanity, instantly informed me that it was the wretch…Could he be (I shuddered at the conception) the murderer of my brother? No sooner did that idea cross my imagination, than I became convinced of its truth… He was the murderer! I could not doubt it. The mere presence of the idea was an irresistible proof of the fact.”
while it turned out that he was actually correct in this assumption, what’s important to emphasize here is that victor has absolutely ZERO proof that the creature was involved with the murder of william, apart from seeing a shady-looking outline outside of geneva after walking in the rain all night. victor is not thinking clearly here, which he himself acknowledges in a phenomenon known as double book-keeping. double book-keeping refers to a mental process where an individual maintains two conflicting beliefs or realities simultaneously--where a person might experience delusions or hallucinations while still having moments of awareness that these perceptions are not grounded in reality. here, victor holds two realities (believing in a delusion while being aware that this belief would not be shared by others):
” My first thought was to discover what I knew of the murderer, and cause instant pursuit to be made. But I paused when I reflected on the story that I had to tell. A being whom I myself had formed, and endued with life, had met me at midnight among the precipices of an inaccessible mountain. I remembered also the nervous fever with which I had been seized just at the time that I dated my creation, and which would give an air of delirium to a tale otherwise so utterly improbable. I well knew that if any other had communicated such a relation to me, I should have looked upon it as the ravings of insanity…”
and, in fact, the only evidence he has is (seemingly) proof to the contrary i.e. the locket found in justine’s pocket. yet victor holds this belief with the intense conviction characteristic of delusions, as well as the incorrigibility of a delusion, as he’s continually resistant to his family’s logical counterarguments, as ernest recounts the events to victor upon his return home:
“This was a strange tale, but it did not shake my faith; and I replied earnestly, “You are all mistaken; I know the murderer. Justine, poor, good Justine, is innocent.”
he goes on to make the same assertion to his father and elizabeth, without once questioning the validity of his previous belief.
victor develops delusions of guilt surrounding the trial of justine, the delusional belief of one's personal guilt for an event, real or imagined–it is an extreme and unwarranted feeling of remorse or guilt that someone has done something terrible. people with delusions of guilt may also believe they are "evil" or have committed an "unpardonable" sin and deserve to be punished forever. despite having no hand in the results of the trial, and again, no proof that the creature was even involved, victor is convinced of his guilt to the point of agony. for example:
”My own agitation and anguish was extreme during the whole trial. I believed in her innocence; I knew it. Could the dæmon who had (I did not for a minute doubt) murdered my brother also in his hellish sport have betrayed the innocent to death and ignominy? … The tortures of the accused did not equal mine; she was sustained by innocence, but the fangs of remorse tore my bosom and would not forgo their hold.”
”During this conversation I had retired to a corner of the prison room, where I could conceal the horrid anguish that possessed me. Despair! Who dared talk of that? The poor victim, who on the morrow was to pass the awful boundary between life and death, felt not, as I did, such deep and bitter agony…But I, the true murderer, felt the never-dying worm alive in my bosom, which allowed of no hope or consolation.”
The blood flowed freely in my veins, but a weight of despair and remorse pressed on my heart which nothing could remove. Sleep fled from my eyes; I wandered like an evil spirit, for I had committed deeds of mischief beyond description horrible, and more, much more (I persuaded myself) was yet behind… I was seized by remorse and the sense of guilt, which hurried me away to a hell of intense tortures such as no language can describe.
delusions of guilt are often accompanied by low self-esteem, depression, and sometimes suicide (attempts); victor experiences all of these following the trial. this delusion is maintained throughout the rest of the novel.
lastly, during the chase at the arctic and on walton’s ship, victor experiences delusions surrounding his family. in his final attempt to hold onto those he lost, victor becomse unable to distinguish between reality and the delusions that sustain him:
"During the day I was sustained and inspirited by the hope of night, for in sleep I saw my friends, my wife, and my beloved country… I persuaded myself that I was dreaming until night should come and that I should then enjoy reality in the arms of my dearest friends. What agonising fondness did I feel for them! How did I cling to their dear forms, as sometimes they haunted even my waking hours, and persuade myself that they still lived!...I pursued my path towards the destruction of the dæmon more as a task enjoined by heaven, as the mechanical impulse of some power of which I was unconscious, than as the ardent desire of my soul."
Yet he enjoys one comfort, the offspring of solitude and delirium; he believes that when in dreams he holds converse with his friends and derives from that communion consolation for his miseries or excitements to his vengeance, that they are not the creations of his fancy, but the beings themselves who visit him from the regions of a remote world."
ultimately victor's delusions evolve throughout the novel; what starts as paranoia becomes a fixed belief that the creature means to harm him and his family, which eventually develops into a certainty that he's responsible for the deaths of his loved ones. by the time he reaches the arctic, he clings to delusions of his family still being alive and that they're talking to him.
i'll probably make yet another post dissecting what this all means in context, i.e. like avo said; the implications of the treatment of victor as a character due to these symptoms of a "weird" "scary" illness... buuuut. again. another time!
Feeling some kind of way about these passages from one of the books I've been consulting for my project on melancholia, which was written by Johann Freitag, who lived from 1587-1654.
In it, Freitag (who was a doctor) talks about how difficult it is to cure melancholy, and how patients often grow depressed, suspicious, and angry over the fact that their symptoms persist for months, years, or even their whole lives. He also describes melancholy as an "insolent guest, who doesn't obey the guest-rules" -- a description I absolutely love, in part because it sounds an awful lot like the way my friends and I talk about our own mental illnesses today.
The whole section just feels so true to my own experiences with mental illness (particularly fairly treatment-resistant mental illness), hundreds of years later. It's exactly why I chose this topic for my research project, and really incredible to me.
unstoppable force (i want to see this tragic character survive and heal) vs immovable object (their death was the most thematic and narratively satisfying resolution possible for their character arc and anything less than death just feels cheap)
Idk I find it kind of endearing that fans of the book tend to call him The Creature rather than The Monster
In the clerb(al) we all fam(kenstein)
For all people who write fanfiction of frankenstien
This will help so much I’m not even joking. Specifically the medical terminology section
victor is one of the most psychotic characters i have ever read in literature and it all feels both surprisingly accurate and relatable given the time period; i have been meaning to make a proper analysis on victor's psychotic symptoms for awhile now, but have, ironically, been delayed due to my own psychotic symptoms, so here's more of an informal list--
i'll be breaking down victor's: 1. negative symptoms (loss of functioning)
2. positive symptoms (hallucinations)
3. disorganized thinking and speech/behavior
victor's psychotic symptoms, as well as his initial psychotic break during the creation of the OG creature, are brought upon by the stressors of creating the creature(s), both before, during and after the creation process. the first of these symptoms were negative symptoms.
negative symptoms of psychosis are a loss (thus--"negative") or reduction of normal functioning, and can include restricted emotional expression, lack of speech or monotone speech, difficulty thinking, reduced motivation and/or desire to initiate activities, reduced socialization and social withdrawal, and an inability or decreased ability to experience pleasure. they most commonly occur in the prodromal (initial) phase before the acute phase (characterized by hallucinations, delusions, and confused thinking) and in the recovery phase, which is true of victor's case.
andehonia (lack of pleasure):
"...but I did not watch the blossom or the expanding leaves—sights which before always yielded me supreme delight, so deeply was I engrossed in my occupation... But my enthusiasm was checked by my anxiety... I became nervous to a most painful degree" (paranoia, too) -- Vol I, Chapter III
"It was a most beautiful season; never did the fields bestow a more plentiful harvest, or the vines yield a more luxuriant vintage: but my eyes were insensible to the charms of nature" -- Vol I, Chapter III (1818)
"By very slow degrees, and with frequent relapses, that alarmed and grieved my friend, I recovered. I remember the first time I became capable of observing outward objects with any kind of pleasure..." -- Vol I, Chapter IV (1818)
asociality (social withdrawal) & alogia (impoverished speech):
"And the same feelings which made me neglect the scenes around me caused me also to forget those friends who were so many miles absent, and whom I had not seen for so long a time. I knew my silence disquieted them..." Vol I, Chapter III (1818)
"Study had before secluded me from the intercourse of my fellow-creatures, and rendered me unsocial..." -- Vol I, Chapter V (1818)
"This state of mind preyed upon my health, which had entirely recovered from the first shock it had sustained. I shunned the face of man; all sound of joy or complacency was torture to me; solitude was my only consolation—deep, dark, death-like solitude." -- Vol II, Chapter I (1818)
additionally, and in general, victor becomes incapable of initiating activities (avolition) while being cared for by henry at ingolstadt.
victor hallucinates several times throughout the novel. these hallucinations are almost exclusively visual, and primarily of the creature:
“'Do not ask me,” cried I, putting my hands before my eyes, for I thought I saw the dreaded spectre glide into the room; “he can tell.—Oh, save me! save me!” I imagined that the monster seized me; I struggled furiously, and fell down in a fit." -- Vol I, Chapter IV (1818)
"The form of the monster on whom I had bestowed existence was for ever before my eyes, and I raved incessantly concerning him..." -- Vol I, Chapter IV (1818)
"I saw around me nothing but a dense and frightful darkness, penetrated by no light but the glimmer of two eyes that glared upon me. Sometimes they were the expressive eyes of Henry, languishing in death, the dark orbs nearly covered by the lids, and the long black lashes that fringed them; sometimes it was the watery clouded eyes of the monster, as I first saw them in my chamber at Ingolstadt..." -- Vol II, Chapter IV (1818)
"All pleasures of earth and sky passed before me like a dream, and that thought only had to me the reality of life. Can you wonder, that sometimes a kind of insanity possessed me, or that I saw continually about me a multitude of filthy animals inflicting on me incessant torture, that often extorted screams and bitter groans?" -- Vol II, Chapter IX (1818)
"Sometimes I entreated my attendants to assist me in the destruction of the fiend by whom I was tormented; and, at others, I felt the fingers of the monster already grasping my neck, and screamed aloud with agony and terror." -- Vol III, Chapter IV (1818)
beyond that, victor's positive symptoms also include delusions of guilt, grandeur and persecution. however, this is complex enough that it warrants its own separate post. for another time... (edit: find it here)
victor also experiences disorganized behavior, behaviors that are inconsistent, contradictory, or don't fit the situation; for victor, the most obvious of which is catatonia, a symptom of psychosis characterized by abnormal movements, behaviors, and withdrawal. he demonstrates both akinetic (staying still, appearing unresponsive, staring blankly, lack of speech) and excited/hyperkinetic (moving in a pointless/repetitive way, appearing agitated or delirious, pacing, etc) catatonia.
"Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created, I rushed out of the room, and continued a long time traversing my bed-chamber, unable to compose my mind to sleep...I took refuge in the court-yard belonging to the house which I inhabited; where I remained during the rest of the night, walking up and down in the greatest agitation, listening attentively, catching and fearing each sound as if it were to announce the approach of the demoniacal corpse to which I had so miserably given life." -- Vol I, Chapter IV (1818)
"...my spirits became unequal; I grew restless and nervous. Every moment I feared to meet my persecutor. Sometimes I sat with my eyes fixed on the ground, fearing to raise them lest they should encounter the object which I so much dreaded to behold." -- Vol II, Chapter II (1818)
"Then the appearance of death was distant, although the wish was ever present to my thoughts; and I often sat for hours motionless and speechless, wishing for some mighty revolution that might bury me and my destroyer in its ruins." -- Chapter 21 (1831)
he also displays inappropriate/unusual reactions, another example of disorganized behavior:
"I was unable to contain myself. It was not joy only that possessed me; I felt my flesh tingle with excess of sensitiveness, and my pulse beat rapidly. I was unable to remain for a single instant in the same place; I jumped over the chairs, clapped my hands, and laughed aloud... my loud, unrestrained, heartless laughter, frightened and astonished [Clerval]" -- Vol I, Chapter IV (1818)
victor shows disorganized speech through his "ravings" several times and there's quite a few examples of this but i can't be bothered to pull more quotes. here's just one:
"A fever succeeded this. I lay for two months on the point of death: my ravings, as I afterwards heard, were frightful; I called myself the murderer of William, of Justine, and of Clerval." -- Vol III, Chapter IV (1818)
as a side-note, in the 1800s, the term "fever" was used loosely in comparison to its modern definition, and the health of the mind and body was often viewed as interconnected--thus victor's "fevers" after periods of high stress that triggered psychosis—while being nursed back to health by henry, during his time in prison, etc.—could easily be viewed as mental illness rather than an actual physical sickness, or some combination thereof.
lastly, victor experiences disorganized thinking, which includes racing thoughts, flight of ideas, confusion, trouble keeping track of thoughts, difficulty concentrating, time processing disturbances, etc.
in general, victor experiences dream-like perceptions that leads to difficulty being present, concentrating, and processing reality, what he himself refers to as “strange thoughts” (Vol II, Chapter IX, 1818). for example:
“All pleasures of earth and sky passed before me like a dream, and that thought only had to me the reality of life.” – Vol II, Chapter IX (1818)
additionally, victor is known to lose time and “awaken to understanding” weeks or months later several times:
“What then became of me? I know not; I lost sensation, and chains and darkness were the only objects that pressed upon me…by degrees I gained a clear conception of my miseries and situation, and was then released from my prison. For they had called me mad; and during many months, as I understood, a solitary cell had been my habitation.” – Vol II, Chapter VI (1818)
“But I was doomed to live; and, in two months, found myself as awaking from a dream, in a prison…It was morning, I remember, when I thus awoke to understanding: I had forgotten the particulars of what had happened, and only felt as if some great misfortune had suddenly overwhelmed me.” — Vol II, Chapter IV (1818)
“I seemed to have lost all soul or sensation but for this one pursuit. It was indeed but a passing trance, that only made me feel with renewed acuteness so soon as, the unnatural stimulus ceasing to operate, I had returned to my old habits.” — Vol I, Chapter III
he also demonstrates flight of ideas, a thought disorder that involves rapid shifting of thoughts that are expressed in language. people with flight of ideas may speak quickly and jump between ideas that are not connected in a way that is difficult to follow, illogical, or nonsensical. this occurs just before alphonse visits him in prison:
“I know not by what chain of thought the idea presented itself, but it instantly darted into my mind that the murderer had come to mock at my misery, and taunt me with the death of Clerval, as a new incitement for me to comply with his hellish desires… “Oh! take him away! I cannot see him; for God’s sake, do not let him enter!’” — Vol III, Chapter IV
to which mr. kirwin “regards [victor] with a troubled countenance” in response.
aaand that's a wrap.
there's no real point to all this i just wanted to outline most of his symptoms so i could have it all in one place. i'll probably expand on this sometime with more actual thoughts and ideas of substance as well as building on the implications of a reading of frankenstein where victor experiences psychosis (and how actually acknowledging victor's mental illness forces a much more sympathetic interpretation of victor... which is why people tend to talk around it). do with this what you will!
"some destiny of the most horrible kind hangs over me, or surely i should have died on the coffin of henry" son or "i wish that i were to die with you; i cannot live in this world of misery" daughter