Humanising the Monster Within: Analysis of the Insanity and Fraternal Homosociality in Victor Frankenstein

Death has always been a scary concept for mankind; the abrupt end to a journey of years that leave words left unspoken and dreams unfulfilled.  The brain that comprehends the mysteries of this universe still fails to understand how brain itself actually works. Human inventions were always driven by passion: to conquer sky, land and water, to protect the loved ones or to destroy one's enemy. The spark that gets ignited in the brain thus invents machines to fly, to destroy and to create but it could never create a new life or stop an impending death.  Frankenstein shows us how the passion to create a new life and the desire to play god turn into something grotesque and unnatural. Victor Frankenstein of the novel is a mad genius who is obsessed about his passion and who ignores the dire consequences of his 'invention' upon this world. We feel sympathy towards him as well as the monster he created because the line that distinguishes man and the monster is very thin.  The movie Victor Frankenstein takes a more mellow approach while portraying his character. His obsession is backed by a reason and when his 'creation' doesn't satisfy him we feel sympathy only towards him, not the monster. This paper intends to analyse how differently Victor Frankenstein is portrayed in both the works.

Victor Frankenstein of Mary Shelly's novel is driven by the motive to create a life. His life begins at Geneva where he is a student of university of Ingolstadt. After the 'creation' he realises that he has created a monster and this thought sickens him. He runs away from the monster and seeks comfort in the presence of Henry. He falls ill due to the guilt of creating an abominable creature. Victor always maintained a good relationship with his family members. So when his father informs him about the murder of his brother William, it further weakens Victor. The death of accused Justine makes him all the more shattered knowing that it was his monster who took the life of his loved ones. When the monster barges into his vacation in the mountains, after much persuasion he surprisingly agrees to create a female monster. At this point one must think about the reason why victor obliged to monster's demand. What was Victor aiming for? Why did he create the monster in the first place? 

Victor stops in between and destroys his work. The enraged monster takes away everything Victor cared about, Henry and Elizabeth. The chase, the death of Victor and the grief of the monster ends the novel with certain points to remember. Monster had a consciousness. He wanted to mingle with others and even saved a life. Victor was acting like a father who was ashamed and repelled by his 'illegitimate child'. His creation that encountered the world, with no prior experience managed well without Victor's guidance. Rather than taking responsibility for his action we feel Victor acts like a coward at certain junctures. His passion to create a life was so inconsistent that he ran away from his first creation and yet he almost created another one. We feel as if the monster he created took away Victor's sensitive and humane nature with him leaving a mad scientist driven to the verge of paranoia by the guilt of his actions. It's this very conundrum that divides the reader's sympathy among Victor and the monster. Moreover the novel portrays Alphonse Frankenstein as a loving man with great sympathy for his child. Victor's love and grief for William and brother-like Henry shows the fraternal homosocial relationship Victor enjoyed more than his relationship with Elizabeth.  Victor connected more with men. He couldn't see his mother, couldn't save Elizabeth and Justine or couldn't accept the female monster. The absent female shows us the flaw of Victor more clearly. Victor's true nature gets muddled up in the mixed narration of the novel which leaves readers with an impression that one could never understand what Victor thought or felt.

The movie all together takes a different approach to portray Victor. It introduces another character called Igor into the life of Victor.

"Victor Frankenstein is a 2015 British science fiction fantasy horror film based on contemporary adaptations of Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein. It is directed by Paul McGuigan and written by Max Landis. Starring James McAvoy as the title character and Daniel Radcliffe as Igor, the film was released by 20th Century Fox on November 25, 2015." (IMdb)

It's Igor who brings out whatever the love and compassion Victor has left in his mind. The story is narrated by Igor and through his story we see Victor in a different light. The movie begins with the thoughts of a nameless 18 year old circus clown:

"You know this story... a crack of lightening...   a mad genius ... an unholy creation... The world of course remembers the monster, not the man. But sometimes when you look closely, there's more to a tale. Sometimes the monster is the man... I didn't have a name back then. I was just a hunchback or freak if you are being kind. But the truth is I didn't hate them for it. It's hard to judge cruelty when you've never known kindness..." (Radcliffe)

The clown narrates as to how his whole life was inside the circus tent. He found medical books as an escape route from the torture he faced from circus manager and others. He knows circus should stick together as a family but each family needs its clown as well to vent out their frustrations. He has no other option but to succumb. His only fascination is the anatomy of human body and its working. When he didn't perform, he became the company's doctor. He tried to gather as many information about the human body and learned all he can about the "internal universe that makes us who we are" (Radcliffe). On a chilly London evening where the Circus stopped for their performance, he finally meets the man who changes his life forever. While working as a clown he had a huge love towards another circus performer called Lorelei. That night she falls from the swing from a height and breaks her collar bone which hinders her breath. Victor Frankenstein being a doctor rushes in to help her and so does the clown. With nothing else to prepare and Victor's pocket watch, both of them sets the bone straight and saves her. At that moment Victor realises that he has found a companion that he could take with him to his mad journey of science. He asks the clown to leave the circus and join him. This enrages the manager and others. They lock the clown up and burn all his medical books. Victor helps the clown to escape but it results in the circus tent burning down and a man that tortured the clown getting killed by another circus performer 'accidently'.  After reaching home Victor make the clown realise that he was not a hunchback. It was just a fluid pocket that was left untreated for many years. He sets his bones straight and turns him into a new man. He gives clown the name Igor, the name of Victor's previous housemate and asks him to pretend to be Igor. Igor comes to know that Victor values his talent and has kindness towards him and that his sympathy did not stemmed out of Igor's condition but from the awe towards his medical insights. Victor offers Igor all his medical equipments and books and in return asks him to assist in his scientific endeavour that would change the world. Victor wants to create life. He argues why death should be permanent whereas life is temporary. Victor had come to the circus to harvest animal parts to complete his project he called 'Gordon'. He shows how he has mastered the chemical conversion to Igor thus giving life to a pair of dead eyes. Victor realises Igor's true potential and promotes him from assistant to lab partner. The police officer Inspector Turpin a deeply religious man sniffs something suspicious about Victor's project and decides to sabotage the 'unholy' plan to save mankind and his religion. When Igor secretly visits Lorelei in hospital he sees the posters on wall that declared him and Victor as wanted criminals. Turpin had framed Victor and Igor for the circus murder which puts Igor in great dilemma. Victor seems to be least bothered by it and says that they are looking for a hideous, nameless hunchback and Igor was nothing like that. Victor's presentation in the Royal College of Medicine to give life back to a dead chimpanzee he made with Igor, invites contempt from others but Lorelei and Mr. Finnegan (Victor's classmate and member of England's third richest family) stays back to witness. Gordon attacks everyone around and he is put down. Lorelei warns Igor to think whether Victor is bullying him into these experiments and if he is a true friend to Victor he must take a stand and stop him.

"Lorelei is horrified by Victor's experiments and urges Igor to dissuade him from pursuing the matter further, but Igor is reluctant to do so upon learning that Victor is driven by the need to atone for his indirect role in the death of his older brother, Henry, for which Victor's domineering father, Mr. Frankenstein (Charles Dance), blames Victor. Victor is expelled from college for his unorthodox methods, and later approached by his wealthy, arrogant classmate Finnegan (Freddie Fox), who wants him to create an artificial humanoid creature. Victor and Igor outline a behemoth being known as "Prometheus", but Igor's deepening relationship with Lorelei soon causes a rift between them. Shortly afterwards, Turpin and his men raid Victor's laboratory, hell bent on destroying his inventions, and during an altercation with Victor, Turpin loses both a hand and one of his eyes, while Victor and Igor are extracted by Finnegan's men and taken to his family's estate in Scotland, where Finnegan provides them with the necessary funds to build Prometheus. Igor is mistrustful of Finnegan and leaves after having a falling out with Victor. Finnegan later kidnaps and binds him, revealing his plans to kill Victor once Prometheus is complete and weaponize his creation. Igor is then thrown into the River Thames to drown, but manages to escape and reunites with Lorelei, who nurses him back to health. Once recovered, Igor returns to Finnegan's estate with Lorelei in tow in order to rescue Victor, and finds Victor on the verge of using lightning to animate Prometheus. He ignores Igor's pleas not to and activates the machine. Due to a power surge the machinery overloads however, killing Finnegan. After the ensuing chaos Turpin unexpectedly arrives, blaming and threatening Victor for his creation, upon which both realize the experiment was a success and Prometheus came to life. Victor shares a brief moment with Prometheus but is interrupted when Turpin opens fire on Prometheus, who eventually kills Turpin. Realizing his efforts were misguided Victor joins forces with Igor to kill Prometheus by stabbing its two hearts. After regaining consciousness the next morning, Igor reunites with Lorelei, who hands him a letter written to him by Victor, in which Victor apologizes for all the suffering he caused and recognizes Igor was his "greatest creation". Victor retreats to the Scottish countryside in search of new discoveries." (IMdb)

       The movie tends to portray Victor as a man driven to create life for a specific reason: to give back the life he took when his brother Henry Frankenstein protected him from blizzard when they were kids. Father of Victor is unsympathetic towards his son's pain and ashamed of his madness to create life. He wishes Victor could be like Henry which shakes Victor to the core. The need to create life for him becomes a necessity to do justice to his brother's sacrifice and make his father proud. When he finally realises Prometheus has life in body but not in eyes and shows no human like emotions he exclaims "Forgive me my brother Henry because this is not life!"(McAvoy, Victor). He kills the monster at the very same night of its creation. The plot revolves around the emotional turbulence of victor and not the monster. It's only used as a side prop for a few minutes to suggest his biggest mistake. The character called Lorelei brings a strong feminine presence to the whole plot. Though Victor aims for days where science can displace the value of 'motherhood', Victor and Igor realises the value of feminine companionship in life through Lorelei.

The character of Inspector Turpin and Mr Finnegan brings in two peculiar yet common aspects of our society. Both understands that the power of Science to cause destruction. One fears the destruction of his religious beliefs whereas the other intends to create a weapon. One fears the Prometheus and the other yearns for it. Turpin and Finnegan take all the effort to execute their plan with the same fervour Victor shows to create a new life. Both the characters intend to kill the creator to get their wish fulfilled, thus reflecting their own inner demons. No religion or science can determine the fate of a human being. It's cosmic and beyond our reach. The one who fails to realise it lets loose his rage and ultimately perish by the power of nature.

       The sympathy we feel for the Victor in the novel and the movie are different. One is driven by ambition whereas the other is driven by loyalty to blood. Victor 'creates' Igor and changes his life for good who returns him the brotherly love he misses. Igor feels the pain of Victor and supports him throughout the scientific endeavour but later takes the stance Henry would have taken to stop Victor's plan going out of control. This movie is special in its portrayal of Victor since the other movie adaptation Frankenstein; Victor is a cruel villain to the hero who is the Monster. Victor Frankenstein takes special care to humanize his mad genius and bring a reason to justify his insanity. It's Igor and not the monster that is Victor's greatest creation.

To conclude, the movie focuses more on the monster within. The value and essence of a human life is not something born out of Petri dish. It's the morals we inculcate and humanity we develop with experience. Any scientific experiment used only for selfish reasons and not for the general good turns out to be fatal. It's not just the issue of God and man or life and death; the moments we spent in this world may turn out to be a struggle against the inner demons but it's the small victories that would propel the mankind forward.

 

Bibliography

·       IMdb. "Victor Frankenstein." 24 December 2015. IMDB. 11 March 2016 <http://www.imdb.com/victorfrankenstein>.

·       Shelly, Mary. Frankenstein. New Delhi: Excel Publishers, 1999.

·       Victor Frankenstein. Dir. Paul McGuigan. Perf. Daniel (Igor) Radcliffe. 2015.