Frankenstein (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Read Online Free PDF Page B

responsible for the death of the one who gave it life. “I have devoted my creator, the select specimen of all that is worthy of love and admiration among men, to misery; I have pursued him even to that irremediable ruin,” the monster wails, looking at the dead body of his creator. “You hate me; but your abhorrence cannot equal that with which I regard myself” (p. 196). The monster—and Mary‘s—punishment for this murder is life itself, and the constant realization that they will never live up to parental expectations.
    Godwin’s undying love for his wife, along with his demands on Mary to prove herself worthy of her namesake, also engendered a complex and problematic father-daughter relationship. Shelley admitted to her “excessive & romantic attachment to my Father” (Letters, vol. 2, p. 215)—the result of the projection of Godwin’s love for Mary Senior onto Mary Junior, perhaps, or Mary’s willing assumption of her mother’s role in the family. The incest theme was a new and provocative ingredient in many of the Gothic novels Mary enjoyed, which may help explain why she herself included so many incestuous relationships in her works; nevertheless, it is difficult to avoid recognizing autobiographical elements of the passionate father-daughter relationship in Mathilda (1819) or the May-December romance of Caroline Beaufort and her guardian, Alphonse Frankenstein. Love for a father was declared “the first and the most religious tie” in Valperga, (vol. 1, p. 199); Ethel Lodore’s “earliest feeling was love of her father” (Lodore, vol. 1, p. 30). And in Frankenstein, the creature’s sexually suggestive warning “I will be with you on your wedding-night” comes true: The monster enters the honeymoon suite and leaves Elizabeth “lifeless and inanimate, thrown across the bed” (p. 173). In obliterating the object of Frankenstein’s affection, the monster may be acting out Mary’s own jealous feelings toward her stepmother.
    Shelley’s extremely close ties with her parents were felt by her even to her death, when she was buried beside them as she had requested. But the inscription on her gravestone—“Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Daughter of Wilm & Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, and Widow of the late Percy Shelley”—indicates that there were three major influences on her life and work. Frankenstein is a testament to the influence of Shelley the poet, as well as Shelley the man. Though the character of Victor possesses some of Godwin’s traits and some of Mary’s own creative anxieties, he is most obviously modeled on Percy Shelley (and the similarity grows as Mary revises her text in 1831). The poet shares the scientist’s creativity, intensity, and passion; significantly, both were also self-absorbed partners who maintained dominant roles in their relationships and were capable of putting their love second to other interests. In Frankenstein, Elizabeth suffers separation anxiety from Victor, writes him letters that are never returned, hints of her jealousy of other women (Justine, she writes, was “a great favorite of yours”; (p. 58), and eventually dies because Victor’s attentions are focused elsewhere. Despite Mary’s apparent openness to her husband’s ideas of free love and multiple partners, she reacted strongly to rumors of his affairs; for example, she was “shocked beyond all measure” after hearing of Shelley and Claire Clairmont’s alleged love child in 1821 (Letters, vol. 1, p. 204). Percy also disappointed Mary in his lack of interest in their children. “I fancy your affection will encrease [sic] for [William] when he has a nursery to himself and only comes to you just dressed and in good humor,” she writes to him during one of their several separations in 1816 (Letters, vol. 1, p. 23). Significantly, Percy seems to have been oblivious to his faults as an ego-driven lover and neglectful parent and did not even recognize these flaws in Victor’s character. Instead,