Frankenstein and the monster: Two independent characters or two souls in one body? The attempt of a psychoanalytical interpretation

Table of contents

1. Introduction
1.1 Psychoanalytical basic knowledge
1.1.1. Freud´s model of personality – the mental apparatus
1.1.2. Ego Defence Mechanism
1.1.3. Human drives
1.1.4. The psychosexual development
1.1.5. The topographical Model

2. Analysis of the text
2.1. Victor´s earliest childhood
2.2. Victor´s youth and puberty
2.3. Victor´s departure to Ingolstadt
2.4. Victor´s studies and his plan to create a human body
2.5. The birth of the monster
2.5. Victor´s first collapse
2.6. The positive development of the monster
2.7. Victor´s apparent recovery
2.8. The Creature´s development to a real monster
2.9. The letter of the father
2.10. Justine´s execution
2.11. Victor´s longing for revenge
2.12. Victor´s departure to the Alpine valleys
2.13. A companion for the monster
2.14. The revenge of the monster
2.15. Victor´s homecoming
2.16. The wedding- night
2.17. The final hunting

3. Conclusion

4. Bibliography

1. Introduction

This essay deals with Mary Shelley´s “Frankenstein”. People who do not know the book but only its title often associate the name Frankenstein with the monster. Why do many people think that Frankenstein is the monster?

The question to be discussed in this essay is if Victor and the monster are both single and independent characters or if the monster can be described as Victor Frankenstein´s double.

This essay is the attempt to interpret the book from a psychoanalytical point of view. The analysis refers to the major works of Sigmund Freud.

At first I describe and explain some basic knowledge of Sigmund Freud, such as his model of personality or rather the mental apparatus with its three organisational units ID, EGO and SUPEREGO. After that I name some tools the EGO can use, called Ego Defence Mechanisms, but this is only done very generally. The human drives have to be mentioned and explained because they are very important for the question to be discussed. Because Victor Frankenstein´s life is analysed chronologically the psychosexual development has to be referred to, too. Last but not least Freud´s conception of the human psyche is mentioned and explained. It is important to say that I always refer to Freud when speaking about psychoanalytical expressions in this essay, even when they are not always named as those.

After the explanation of the psychoanalytical basic knowledge which is important for this essay I start the analysis of Victor Frankenstein´s life. As mentioned before, this is done chronologically: from the time of his birth to his death. The different stations in his life are shortly summarized and afterwards analysed and psychoanalytically interpreted in a very detailed way. There are many quotes from the text because it is not possible to prove some claims without referring to the text.

At the end of the analysis I summarize the most important results. After that I shortly discuss these results critically and give possible alternatives.

1.1 Psychoanalytical basic knowledge

1.1.1. Freud´s model of personality – the mental apparatus

Sigmund Freud claims that every personality is composed of three organisational units.

According to Freud the first unit is the ID. Freud calls the ID a conception which is unknown and unconscious, which falls into instincts and contains the passions. The ID can be called the dark part of a human personality whose behaviour is hard to accept. As the drives are inherited the ID represents the past and is based on the principle of pleasure.

The SUPEREGO represents our parental structure and thus, our conscious and our moral part. It is “the representative in the mind of the real external world”.^[1] The SUPEREGO represents the past. To summarize the SUPEREGO one can say that it follows the principle of reason.

The EGO is the linking part between ID and SUPEREGO. It can be described as a person´s conscious or memory. The EGO acts correctly when it fulfils the longings of the ID, the SUPEREGO and the reality. The function of the EGO is to meet the different needs of the other two units, so it “has the task of bringing the influence of the external world to bear upon the id and its tendencies, and endeavours to substitute the reality- principle for the pleasure- principle which reigns supreme in the id” (Ego and ID, 702). The EGO represents “what we call reason and sanity” (ebd.,702). To summarize the EGO one can say that it follows the principle of reality.

1.1.2. Ego Defence Mechanism

The ID in our psyche is like the devil on your shoulder and the SUPEREGO is like the angel on the other shoulder. Neither the ID nor the SUPEREGO may be too strong. The function of the EGO is to look for a healthy balance between both units. Both ID and SUPEREGO should be satisfied. There are some tools that help the EGO to manage this job. These tools are called Ego Defence Mechanisms.

1.1.3. Human drives

The ID wants all longings of a person to be satisfied. Satisfaction of the drives is the major aim of the ID.

Drives can be defined as “Kräfte, die wir hinter den Bedürfnisspannungen des Es annehmen (…). Sie repräsentieren die körperlichen Anforderungen an das Seelenleben.”^[2] Within a person´s personality two major drives can be distinguished: the Life force (Eros) and the Death force (Thanatos). The Eros “comprises (…) the uninhibited sexual instinct (…), the impulses of a sublimated or aim- inhibited nature (…) and the self- preservative instinct, which must be assigned to the ego” (Ego and Id, 708). The Thanatos always longs for destroying connections. This death instinct signals a desire to give up the struggle of life and return to quiescence and the grave. Both drives work against each other and simultaneously complete each other. The energy of the Eros is called ´libido`. The libido derives from the ID. Libido can be described as fundamentally sexual energy. It is also associated with the life energy in general by Freud. The Destrudo is the energy of the self-destructive impulse. While libido is the urge to create, destrudo is the urge to destroy. Destrudo and Libido have to be balanced. At the beginning the libido is completely stored in the EGO. This state is called ´narcissism`. It is a state of exxagerated self- love. The libido is withdrawn from objects or persons. Later the EGO starts reserving objects or persons with libido. Usually the reservation of objects and persons with libido is flexible but sometimes the libido is concentrated on one special object or person. This state is called ´fixation`.

1.1.4. The psychosexual development

According to Freud sexuality does not start during the time of puberty but a short time after birth. Freud subdivided the development of psychosexuality into five stages.

The first stage is the oral stage (birth to 18 months). During that stage the child is focused on oral pleasures, like sucking. Sucking on the mother´s breast means both self- preservation and sexual satisfaction.

The second stage is the anal stage (18 months to three years). At this time the child is focused on eliminating and retaining faeces. During this time the child has to learn to control anal stimulation.

The third stage is the phallic stage (three years to six years). The pleasure zone switches from mouth and faeces to the genitals. This stage means the climax of the development of sexuality in early childhood. Boys often develop unconscious sexual desires for their mother and become simultaneously a rival of their fathers. The boy develops a special kind of fear that his father will punish him for loving his mother and competing with his father. He is afraid of being castrated by his father. This feeling is called Oedipus complex. The Oedipus complex is a collection of “unconscious wishes, feelings and ideas focusing on the desire to `possess´ the opposite- sexed parent”.^[3] This stage is also called Oedipal stage. Boys have to repress their sexual feelings towards their mothers.

The following stage is marked by a nearly standstill of sexuality for most of the boys and girls. This stage is called latency stage (age six to puberty).

The last stage of the psychosexual development starts with the puberty. It is called genital stage. At this stage the focus of pleasure is on genitals.

1.1.5. The topographical Model

Freud distinguishes between three parts of mental life.

The first one is the unconscious. Most of our emotions, feelings, beliefs and impulses are not available to us at a conscious level. These things are “repressed and not capable of becoming conscious” (Ego and Id, 698). The Oedipus complex is pushed down into the unconscious. It is out of our awareness because it caused an extreme anxiety. Although not being aware of it the aspects in the unconscious impact us dramatically.

Everything a person is aware of is stored in the conscious. It is “an idea that is conscious now” (Ego and Id, 697) .

The last kind of memory is the preconscious or subconscious. A person can access this part if prompted. However, it is not the conscious. This part of mental life “is latent but capable of becoming conscious” (Ego and Id, 698).

2. Analysis of the text

2.1. Victor´s earliest childhood

Victor was born at Naples, as the eldest son of Caroline Frankenstein and her husband. The parents travelled a lot with Victor who remained their only child for several years. It was an enormous love between them. Victor´s first recollections were his “mother´s tender careness”^[4] and his “father´s smile of benevolent pleasure while regarding” (MS, 35) him. Victor was their only care for a long time. At the age of five the family travelled to the Lake of Como where they found the cottages of very poor people. Caroline, accompanied by her little son, found a little girl, daughter of a Milanese nobleman. Her mother died on giving her birth. She lived with these poor people. Caroline and her husband convinced her foster parents to bring little Elizabeth Lavenza to the Frankenstein house. Victor loved her so much that “no word, no expression could body forth the kind of relation in which she stood to “ (ebd., 37) him. She should be more than a sister till death would part them.

Frankenstein is completely embedded in a traditional family structure. His childhood is nearly ideal. According to Freud “the little boy develops an object- cathexis of his mother which originally related to the mother´s breast” (Ego and Id, 705). Furthermore Victor identifies himself with his beloved father. Both relationships exist side by side for some years.

His mother is a person he can always rely on. She influences the life of her son a lot. She gave birth to him and suckled him. First Victor is in a state of exaggerating self- love, called narcissism. His libido is completely stored in the EGO. However, later his mother is reserved with libido by him. Mother and son are linked in the loveliest way. She is also responsible for Victor´s SUPEREGO. As mentioned before the SUPEREGO presents the parental structure of a person. By his mother Victor acquires a lot of moral, social and humanistic principles. It can be said that his mother strengthens Victor´s EGO. According to Freud the “sexual wishes in regard to the mother become more and more intense and the father is perceived as an obstacle to them” (ebd., 705). This it what Freud calls the Oedipus complex. As a young child his parents travel a lot with Victor. He even travels alone with his mother. For Victor this could be a feeling of substituting his father. Being in the phallic stage Victor may have developed unconscious desires for his mother. According to Freud he may have unconscious wishes, feelings and ideas focusing on the desire to possess the mother which may be intensified by travelling alone with his mother. However, this sexual desire for his mother is not accepted by society and as a consequence of this the object- cathexis of the mother must be given up. The SUPEREGO has “the task of effecting the repression of the Oedipus complex” (Ego and Id, 706). Repression is one of the Ego Defence Mechanisms. Something that is not accepted by the SUPEREGO is repressed, for example “under the influence of discipline, religious teaching, schooling and reading” (ebd., 706). By the SUPEREGO the “ego masters its Oedipus complex and at the same time places itself in subjection to the id” (ebd., 707). Victor seems to be successful in giving up the complex by being interested in natural phenomena like thunders and lightning.

[...]

^[1] Freud, Sigmund. 1923. The Ego and the ID. In: Hutchins, Robert Maynard, ed. 1952. Great Books of the Western World, Freud. Chicago, London, Toronto, Geneva: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., p.703 (abbreviated: Ego and Id)

^[2] Freud, Sigmund. 1998. Abriss der Psychoanalyse: Einführende Darstellungen. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer., p.44 (abbreviated: Abriss)

^[3] Reber, Arthur. 2001. The Penguin Dictionary of Psychology.3rd edition. New York. P.481

(abbreviated: Reber)

^[4] Shelley, Mary. 1992. Frankenstein. London: Penguin Books., p.35 (abbreviated: MS)