Deformed and lonesome here I sit without
a morsel, for my maker made and made
elsewhere he goes. Mirac’lous God if thou
doth sit upon celestial light indeed,
then dost thou thereby share in deed and burd–
en Man’s first disobedience?… Viktor’s also?
For armed like sword and shield, philosophy
of nature and this free-to-sin you grant
enabled Viktor’s deeds and ‘gressions thus
against my person. Where art his amends
for ‘sembling me of corpses drawn and quart–
ed he selected from thy victims?… Yours too?
But, say I, hypocrite thou aren’t ‘bout this:
like thou, you’ve ‘llowed my father (father, in
as much as thou are father over man)
impun‘ty in creation and aband–
‘ment. What is different in what you have done
to man?… At least our mercy r’ceived is equal.
Perfidious though thou art in dealing out
thy retribution; ‘spite my quilted fig–
gure made of creatures — THINE words — dearly loved,
alone I’m left to levy lev’ling just–
ice out litigiously. Din’st he steal the fire
from thine own heaven?… ‘haps thine mercy unequal!
As in that blind man’s hovel with a wand–
‘rer’s eyes I read: “freely they stood who stood,
and fell who fell”, began to think did I
about the freedom had I not in fall–
ing, liberté m’fait, impure étincelle!
Will Viktor ever fall?… will I yet stand too?…
As mere creation your creation made,
received will be my prayer by you?… Amen.
Some thoughts
For this poem, I wrote from a point of view of Victor’s monster which I see as a very probable development from an inexorable anger at his human creator: an extension of that anger to Viktor’s hypothetical creator, God. I see this as a justifiable extension of Frankenstein’s Monster’s character for several reasons. It should be noted that I am not a poet, though would certainly like to be. This is my first attempt at poetry.
The monster attests that a large part of his moral and emotional human knowledge was attained through his avid reading of Milton’s masterpiece: “Paradise Lost excited different and far deeper emotions. I read it, as I had read the other volumes which had fallen into my hands, as a true history. It moved every feeling of wonder and awe that the picture of an omnipotent God warring with his creatures was capable of exciting.” (Shelley 129) It is not difficult to imagine, given the monster’s factual reading of Paradise Lost, that the monster’s anger and despair could have turned from Viktor to his omnipotent creator. In this sense, Viktor and God’s deeds overlap. Shortly thereafter, in his reflection on his creator in relation to his reading, he exclaims, “Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust?” (Shelley 130) Upon the monster’s increasing understanding of the human condition, it is a small jump to a realization of the similarities between his relationship to his creator and that of humans to theirs. Writing a little more than half a century after the infamous Lisbon Earthquake, Shelly was surely cognizant of the rising prevalence in human tendency towards a feeling of abandonment by God and a corresponding increase in theodicy amongst intellectuals. I think it is inevitable that the character of Frankenstein’s monster begins to draw such parallels, turning his anger to the ‘higher’ creator.
Following this train of thought, I imagine an additional, related sentiment towards God by the monster. Not only does it seem such a realization of the similarity of his condition to that of mankind would spur resentment towards the creator of his creator for having allowed his creation in the first place, but the monster’s desire to punish would breed an additional anger towards God for what he perceives as a lack of punishment for Viktor. In telling Viktor how he feels, the monster says, “I am malicious because I am miserable. Am I not shunned and hated by all mankind?” (Shelley 146) Again, it seems inevitable that the monster begins to feel shunned by God as well, and feels that this shunning is a reason for God’s refusal to enact what he sees as justice. I can imagine the monster is malicious not only because he is shunned by humanity, but perhaps because he has devveloped a feeling that he must punish where God will not.
My poem thus addresses an age-old human question: how might we come to terms with the inevitable suffering of the world? In Frankenstein, the monster’s detachment from a creator despite Viktor’s merely human nature can be paralleled with an increasingly secular world which must come to terms with the loneliness and suffering of life without an omnipotent creator to enact justice, provide comfort, and exact purposes for us. In a sense, I have further humanized Viktor’s monster by acquainting him with the profound existential despair of the human condition which, until my creative development of his character, is perceived as his anguish alone. Viewing this through a cultural lens, we can draw parallels to Nietzsche’s famous declaration of the death of God in his attempt to convey the idea that we must posit a new foundation for our values and purposes. Just as the monster must grapple with the absence of a nurturing creator, so too has humanity been grappling culturally with such a problem beginning about the enlightenment. With the monster’s (hypothetical) realization that Viktor’s creator is, by extension, his, he is met with the uncomfortable reality that he is seemingly lacking both. This lack, much like one might say has occurred throughout modernity, has caused a malicious and destructive response. I would be remiss not to mention that Shelley seems to have had this idea in mind in her writing of Frankenstein.
Some final details I added to enrich this view of the monster is his question at the end of the poem which asks if his prayer will even be heard. After his explanation of his maliciousness in chapter 17 he says, “My vices are the children of a forced solitude that I abhor, and my virtues will necessarily arise when I live in communion with an equal.” (Shelley 149) In my extension of the character of the monster, I see a twofold anguish: he is miserable from his separation from mankind and at the same time miserable from his separation from God. Can he even pray to the creator of his creator? If not, his insistence on meting out his own punishment to Viktor is further justified, and his feelings of separation from humanity are reinforced. Additionally, given the monster’s language is French, I have chosen to include a play on a French idiom. ‘Étincelle pure’ literally translates to ‘pure spark’, serving as a play on the implied fact that the monster was animated by electricity. Idiomatically, it means something which small but can potentially be greater, something like ‘glimmer of hope’ in English. I have changed this to ‘étincelle impure’ to imply something which seems promising but is flawed, much like Viktor’s original vision of creating life.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. Everyman’s Library, 1992.