Psychoanalytic Application of Shelley's Frankenstein

Psychoanalytical Application of Shelley’s Frankenstein

Mary Shelley lived a tragic life surrounded by death and despair. Not only did she lose her mother at a young age, but after fleeing from her father and step-mother, lost three of her four children at infancy and her beloved husband. It was a result of these tragic events that the motivation to write the novel, Frankenstein, originated. After studying the tragic life of Mary Shelley and analyzing her literature, one can discover a great amount of interpretation is necessary to understand the true meaning of the novel. Her novel is filled with events and characters that reflect her subconsciously. Psychoanalysts view her book as proof to their theories about the struggle between the unconscious and conscious thoughts of the dual human mind.

The most obvious connection between Shelley and her novel is the played out events of Victor Frankenstein’s life in comparison to her own. Shelley lost her entire family to various deaths where Victor’s entire family and loved ones were killed off. Both lost their mother at a young age which reflects Shelley’s desire for a mother figure in her life. Victor’s father never remarried unconsciously showing readers she did not approve of her fathers remarriage to her careless step mother. Throughout her novel, it is apparent that Victor blames the death of his loved ones on his selfish ambition to create life through science. With so much stress presented on this theme, a reader may assume that Shelley feels responsible for the deaths in her life as well. She obviously did not create a monster to murder her family, however, she may feel there was more she could have done as a mother, wife, and daughter to protect her family. No doubt Shelley was struggling internally as the battles of her conscious are reflected through Victor and his monster.

The monster and Victor play a massive role in the revelation of Mary Shelley’s conscious. The characters show her battle between her conscious and unconscious state of mind. Clearly the monster is the irrational side and Victor is the rational part of her mind. The monster trots around Earth fiery with the rage for being isolated on Earth whereas Victor travels through life with silent, bitterness for his mistakes and consequences. It is unlikely that Mary Shelley intentionally constructed her novel to show such connections, but like Freud believes, we act unconsciously most of the time. She unknowingly engaged herself in writing a catharsis of her life.

Interestingly, Frankenstein was one of the first science fiction novels written during that time period. The era in which Shelley lived was that of the Victorian, romantic, and enlightened genres. Her desire to create a science fiction novel and replace the God’s greatest gift of life with science shows her lack of faith in religion. She unconsciously reveals her lack of faith through the course of events in Victor’s life. As a result of losing everything and everyone she loved, no doubt she would question the existence of a higher being and turn toward the factual life of science. When countless tragic events affect one person, it is hard to maintain a spiritual life which one can see through her literature.

With Mary Shelley nearly family-less and temporarily faithless as well, what keeps her from committing the ultimate sin of suicide? She unconsciously answers this question in her novel as well. After the conviction of young Justine for the murder of William, Victor questions his actions and his life. In the midst of considering this escape, he thinks of his beloved family left on Earth and disregards his selfish thought. Putting ourselves in Mary Shelley’s shoes while she was writing Frankenstein, she had lost most of her family, but not all. One child remained alive. If Mary Shelley committed suicide to rid herself of her miseries, she would place her child in a worse position than she was as he will have no mother, father, or siblings. Through this, Shelley succeeded in being the mother she was not for her other three children.

Mary Shelley may not have intended for her novel to be a mirror of her emotions and thoughts, however, as Sigmund Freud has said, humans are motivated by their unconscious. We as a race relate our inner turmoil to everything around us. By creating a science fiction novel full of tragic events and conflicting emotions, readers can see straight into the heart and mind of the authors like Shelley. If she had not had such a tragic and upsetting life, her novel would most likely have been another typical romance or Victorian style piece of literature. Through researching psychoanalytical criticisms, Shelley’s novel undoubtedly helps prove Freud’s theory that the human mind acts primarily through the unconscious.