Professor Ruseski
WRT 118-01
21 October 2024
Wretched Interpretation: Finding Beauty by Interpreting Frankenstein
The story of Victor Frankenstein and his Creation is not nearly as terrifying as the reason it was written. Frankenstein is a groundbreaking work of science fiction and a revolutionary addition to gothic horror, exploring the deadly misadventures of a mad scientist and his sentient Creation through a series of letters from an adventurer to his sister. The story has much more to offer than just entertainment, however. When read critically, a message from Mary Shelley is found hidden within the characters, the setting, and the plot. She cautions readers against the reckless pursuit of passion at the cost of human connections. In her 1966 essay “Against Interpretation,” Susan Sontag asserts that “To interpret is to impoverish, to deplete the world – in order to set up a shadow world of ‘meanings’” (4). But refusing to interpret art dismisses the significance of art and how it came to be. While it’s true that art can be enjoyed without interpretation, investigating the meaning that spurred the creation of art inspires more appreciation for works. Like many other readers of Frankenstein, I was enthralled by the incredible plot and execution of the novel. But after taking time to learn about Shelley’s life and taking time to analyze the novel’s elements, the book was far more moving than it was without this additional context. Frankenstein demonstrates that in order to grasp the full value of art, it must be both experienced and interpreted.
The moral lesson Frankenstein offers stems directly from Shelley’s lived experiences and becomes even more potent when it is interpreted. When she was sixteen, she ran off to France withher future husband, Percy Shelley, despite her young age and his being married to another woman. Scandalized by the ordeal, her father disowned her and she was ostracized by society. Shelley grew isolated from the community she grew up in and rumors of her affair prevented her from easily making new friends. Her teenage decision to forgo convention in favor of desire led to her social seclusion which lingered for the rest of her life, a situation mimicked by Victor to his Creation in Frankenstein. Like Shelley, Victor Frankenstein’s passion forces him into solitude and leaves him yearning for companionship. He pines for the days of his youth, when he was surrounded by friends and family, and desperately mourns their separation throughout the novel. The Creation, once abandoned by Victor, understands isolation is the cruelest torture one can experience in life. Shelley warns the reader of the social isolation that follows the blind pursuit of passion through the depressed state of Victor and the barbaric actions. Uncovering her historical circumstances reveals the motivation Shelley felt when writing Frankenstein and explains why so many are touched by the novel. Frankenstein is a way of conveying the pain she experienced and to urge others from making the same mistakes she did.
Interpretation of the subtler details in Frankenstein reveals the immersive environment the novel had, an additional goal of reinforcing Shelley’s message of warning. Frankenstein opens in the deep arctic, far north of any civilization. Apart from an anti-social crew, adventurer Robert Watson, who narrates the story, is completely alone on his journey, far away from everyone he loves. The isolation and bleakness of the setting casts the characters in a depressed and regretful light which displays that they got to this point through a series of poor decisions. Throughout the novel, readers are presented with numerous depictions of lightning and electricity. Lightning is seen striking when Victor is at his most desperate and passionate: when he first goes off to school to learn natural science, when he brings the Creation to life, and when he decides to hunt the Creation down. An association is drawn between the displays for dangerous elemental power and aberate motivation, an ominous foreshadowing of the ruin that will come. Victor’s passion-driven desperation is shared with Watson and the Creation as the story progresses, subtly signifying that destruction awaits those who heedlessly give in to their obsessions. Each character’s obsessions bring about their demise, save for Watson who chooses to end his journey in favor of returning to his home. Frankenstein revolves around themes of unbridled enthusiasm ruining lives, both explicitly and implicitly expressing this through symbolism.
Equally important to interpretation of Frankenstein are the forms through which the story is presented. The mediums employed by an artist to express their messages and stories is no accident. Sontag explains that “The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means” (10), detailing the crucial role presentation and context has on art. She asks critics to consider the form artists employ and that is what truly makes art powerful. Shelley could have communicated her warning to the world in a hundred different ways, but few would have been as effective as her choice of a novel, specifically one published without accreditation. In early 17th century England, approximately half of the people were literate and able to read. That number was much higher among the community in which Shelley grew up – one of scholars and scientists – who most needed to recognize what isolation does to people. Frankenstein was originally published anonymously, bypassing potential biases Shelley’s audience may have had about reading a novel written by her – or by a woman in general. Through the fictional nature of the story, Shelley was able to abstract the specific experiences she went through just enough to make them applicable to a more general audience. No personal biases against her could impact the reader’s opinion of the work. Additionally Frankenstein is a classic epistolary novel, written entirely as letters from the adventurer Robert Watson to his sister as he travels farther and farther north in search of a new discovery. In his letters, he expresses that it is likely the letters he writes will never reach his sister, but he writes them anyway. Writing these letters shows the reader that Watson is desperate for any kind of companionship as chasing his passions has left him isolated and lonely. The letters indirectly tell the readers they too will end up sending hopeless messages to the loved ones they left behind if they allow obsession to control them. The form Frankenstein employs allows for the greatest number of people to be warned of what happens when passion is not complemented by caution.
Interpretation does not inherently hinder art. In fact, as evident from Frankenstein, interpretation can bolster the value of a piece. The true beauty of Frankenstein cannot be seen until the context under which Shelley made the novel is acknowledged. Sontag argues that “In place of a hermeneutics we need an erotics of art” (10), expressing that the beauty of art comes from experiencing it instead of interpreting it, and that interpretation inherently inhibits the power art possesses. But Frankenstein is a desperate plea for inclusion and a caution against obsession that can only be seen when the format and historical context of the novel is understood. Recognizing the haunting expression of pain reflected through the novel is more anxiety-inducing than a tale with no meaning. Interpretation and physical form in equal measure enhance the innate power of art.
Works Cited
Shelley, Mary Wolstoncraft. Frankenstein. Penguin Classics, 2012.
Sontag, Susan. “Against Interpretation.” Against Interpretation, Picador, 1966, pp.1-10.