A Monster in the Closet: Frankeinstein by Mary Shelley

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“Remember, I am not recording the vision of a madman”
– Victor Frankenstein to Robert Walton
Victor Frankenstein needs therapy and a Prozac prescription. On second thought, the whole Frankenstein family is in desperate need of an intervention. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein contains passages that push the limits of societal taboos. Overt suggestions of incest, Oedipal Fixation, and discord in his unconscious mind combine to sculpt Victor into an overachieving mad scientist. Shelley’s protagonist is a Pandora’s Box of unhealthy behaviors driven by the unconscious to sublimate his oedipal complex into scientific experiments resulting in self-destructive episodes and a monster.
Victor Frankenstein’s early life idyllic. His status as an only child secured constant attention from his parents, “I was their plaything and their idol, and something better – their child, the innocent and helpless creature bestowed on them by Heaven (35; Vol 1 Ch. 1)”. Victor was cared for and adored and the center of the family’s universe. Freud’s theory exerts the concept of a person’s id which uses the pleasure principle to obtain gratification. Ronald J. Comer’s Abnormal Psychology 5th Ed further explains the id is fueled by sexual urges even in very young children (57). The feelings Victor has for his mother turn into an Oedipal Fixation. The basic sexual urges of his id have, as Lois Tyson explains, caused a natural stage of development to become a dysfunctional bond with the opposite sex parent that impedes maturity and adult relationships with others (85). The affection of his first love remained his alone. His sexually based love for his mother does not die with the woman and instead transfers to another.
Upon seeing Elizabeth Lavenza Victor recall...

... middle of paper ...

...ysis forever. Mary Shelley presents Victor as a mood swinging genius who plays with dead things. Victor is many things; a mad scientist, scared of intimacy, and a terrible friend and husband. Under Victor Frankenstein’s scientific bravado and self-importance is still an insecure little boy who lost his mother twice, once to new siblings and again to death. An attempt to bring back that which death has taken only brings death and destruction for Victor Frankenstein.

Works Cited

Best, Debra E. “The Monster in the Family: a Reconsideration of Frankenstein's Domestic
Relationships.” Women's Writing 6:3 (1999)365-384
Comer, Ronald J. Abnormal Psychology, Fifth Edition. New York: Worth Publishers, 2004

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. New York: Penguin, 2007

Tyson, Lois. Using Critical Theory How to Read and Write About Literature 2nd Edition. New York: Routledge, 2011

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