Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a timeless story with many iterations since its publishing. There are many ways one could interpret the actions in this story, but I personally am more interested in the actions of the author that led to the creation of this story. The author, Mary Shelley, is a very interesting woman. Her father was a philosopher and political writer and her mother was a feminist. Her mother died when she was very young and she was raised by her father. Her father later remarried and her step-mother did not give her the same opportunities she afforded her own biological children. Shelley did not have a formal education but spent a lot of her time in her father’s library, reading and writing stories. At seventeen she fled England with Percy Bysshe Shelley, who at the time was married. Mary and Percy traveled for some time and had financial struggles. In 1815 she lost her first child, a girl who died days after her delivery. This isn’t the only baby Shelley would lose. By her passing Shelley had had five pregnancies with only one surviving child. Shelley’s letters and journals show a deep love for children and recount the terrible grief and sorrow she felt losing them. Shelley’s life came with a lot of loss. Between her children and the suicides of her half-sister and Percy’s wife, it is safe to say Shelley experienced a great deal of sorrow. Shelley began writing Frankenstein the summer after losing her first daughter; it would be published a few years later. The grief and sorrow experienced by Shelley at a fairly young age seemed to have a great impact on her writing, Frankenstein in particular. There is a common theme in Frankenstein of regret and grief. We see a great deal of regret from Victor immediately following the creation of his monster, as well as grief following the deaths of his siblings.
With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet.
Chapter 5, Frankenstein‘s creation comes to life
Yet, as I drew nearer home, grief and fear again overcame me. Night also closed around; and when I could hardly see the dark mountains, I felt still more gloomily. The picture appeared a vast and dim scene of evil, and I foresaw obscurely that I was destined to become the most wretched of human beings.
Chapter 7, Frankenstein receives word of William’s death
Victor spends the majority of the story running around trying to contain and solve the problems he has created; and he does not do it efficiently or confidently. This leads him down a road of high anxiety, regret, and stress, all emotions that were very present in Shelley’s life.
How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God!
Chapter 5, Frankenstein‘s creation comes to life
I feel as if Frankenstein is really the story of Mary Shelley’s relationships with herself and her children. There is a lot in this story that could connect back to the ways in which Shelley’s life played out, however I think there is an overwhelming amount of connections to Shelley’s pregnancies. Shelley spent a lot of time during her childhood writing and reading, trying to escape from everyday life. And the actions of the adults that raised her had to have left her with some trauma. This trauma is the perfect set up for what is now called postpartum depression. These symptoms can sometimes persist and become anxiety disorders. Postpartum is something that affects most women and for some can be very detrimental to the development of a relationship between mother and child. For someone like Shelley, I can’t imagine giving birth and possibly having these feelings, and then losing the child a few days later. Shelley experienced this loss four times in her life, and this loss is represented in her writing. Knowing that as a child Shelley enjoyed reading and writing and used it as an escape from everyday life, the stories she wrote often came about because of what was happening in her real life. The horror story of creating life and it destroying everything around you was something that Shelley experienced first hand. When you compare women’s postpartum symptoms to Frankenstein it is clear this is a story about postpartum depression and anxiety.
There are many similarities in the way Victor reacts following the creation of his monster, and the feelings women experience after childbirth. Victor spends months working to perfect his creation, making it his life work to find the meaning of life. Only to feel immense regret and emptiness once he brings him to life. Much like women sometimes feel an emptiness and sadness following childbirth. Not only do Victor’s actions, immediately following his life changing night, apply to postpartum, his actions in the wake of his creation do as well. Once Victor returns and finds an empty home, he immediately feels regretful and is fearful that something bad is going to happen. He begins to accuse the monster of ruining things with no clear evidence and experiences a manic episode lasting nearly the entire book. Victor has these imeese feelings of regret and sorrow, he feels he has made a huge mistake and there will be ramifications for it, some as bad as death. This is very similar to the anxiety disorders that can develop postpartum. These feelings do not necessarily coincide with how one might assume Victor would react. He has spent countless hours trying to come up with the perfect recipe for life only to feel let down when he succeeds, you would assume it would be the opposite. Much like you would assume new mothers would be beyond happy to bring new life into this world. Victor and the monster’s desire to find each other and get revenge may also be representative of Shelley continually trying to have a child. Following the loss of her first child she spent almost nine years being pregnant and breastfeeding children she would later lose. Her desire for a child with repeated failure can be a metaphor for the “monsters” in Frankenstein. It is unclear whether the monster is Frankenstein’s creation or himself, something I assume Shelley felt as she tried to have a child. Was she the monster to keep trying? Or was the repeated deaths of her children the real monster? I think that viewing Shelley’s novel through this lens provides the reader with a completely different view of the characters. This is not my first time reading this story however this idea came to me pretty early on in the reading and completely changed my views. I have sympathy for Mary Shelley because her life was filled with so much grief and sorrow. But on the other hand her ability to turn her story into a story that would last generations after her brings me a sense of comfort. I think that the legacy that this story leaves is greater than any legacy a child could bring. Although Shelley lost so many of her babies, I hope the baby she created with this book brought her a sense of relief and that the emotion and depth she put into it will keep the memory of her children alive forever.
Sprockets and Springes 