Discuss the concept of selfhood and otherness in Frankenstein
...en focuses on this interesting concept. There are many ways in which Shelly creates the feelings of otherness, not belonging and selfhood in her novel, much of this is aimed at the monster, who can be said to represent may key issues of the Victorian era. One way in which Mary Shelly gives the monster this aura of otherness and highlights the concept of selfhood is by not giving him a name, and by doing this he feels he has no identity (selfhood) or place (otherness), He eventually comes to realize this when observing the Delacy family in page 109 (Frankenstein), he dwells on the fact that he has “no money, no friends, and no kind of property” (Frankenstein pg109), This I feel is representative of her thoughts on women’s rights during the Victorian era, I feel she has created this character as a metaphor for these problems of otherness, but she has carefully hidden them away within the characters themselves. The questioning of ones selfhood is cleverly hidden hear by the monster being nameless, but Shelly also uses the monster to highlight this concept, or theme as it becomes in the novel. This is a prime example of a single action by Mary Shelly being interpreted as two separate issues. Shelly again creates this sense of otherness not through the monster, but through the action of not adding her name as the author of the book, this is a clear statement which portrays her feelings about the unfair Victorian stereotypes and schemas, this non titling of the book gives it as a novel, a sense of otherness, she does this by using her reluctance to reveal herself, as a statement against the cultural anxieties at the time of her writing. This idea is linked to an essay by Johnson; Johnson reads the novel as if it were an autobiographical piece, which is interesting because by doing this she has added to this concept of Mary Shelly, either subconsciously or purposely, using a distinct lack of femininity within the novel. From this it is clear that the lack of femininity within the novel portrays, either inadvertently or purposely, her personal feelings of alienation and otherness from the highly critical Victorian society, which at the time undervalued the thoughts of women. I feel this technique employed by Shelly is very interesting because it highlights her feelings about these critical issues of late Victorian societies without actually talking about them directly, thereby forcing the reader to look more in-depth at her novel and not to take things just at face value. The concept of self hood is tackled well in Shelly’s novel; Shelly uses Freudian thinking to tackle this issue in a powerful way. During the novel Shelly creates a scene based on the idea of the Freudian believer Lacan. Lacans theory is called the mirror stage, it is said to be the point when an infant first recognises itself as I. “During an infant's development, it will at some point look in a mirror and recognize itself” (http://www.iath.virginia.edu/~erben/crit3.htm) this is when the formation of the ego occurs. But Shelly forces the monster to go through a sort of “anti mirror stage” (lectures) she does this by making the monsters feel horrified by its own self image, when in his own words he says “I viewed myself in a transparent pool … I was filled with the bitterest sensations of despondence and mortification” (Frankenstein p104), this makes it impossible for the monster to gain a sense of oneness or fullness. Shelly’s use of this psychological theory is a brilliant way of tackling this again important issue of selfhood without addressing it directly, Shelly is extremely good at adding these “new age” theories ( as they were at the time) into her writing, in order to achieve her purposes which is shown well in this example. Another component of the mirror stage theory also is important here to the monster, because the mirror stage states that before this confrontation with your own self image, a child believes it is part of the mother and since the monster has no mother, he has no fixed identity and therefore can gain no sense of selfhood. Shelly has used this Freudian theory of the mirror stage many times during her novel and again she aims it at the monster who, as I said earlier is the character she uses most often as a symbol for the social problems of the Victorian era. The monsters body consists of the body parts of many other dead human beings, this is a problem for the monster because he finds it difficult to gain a sense of fullness, he cannot gain this fullness or oneness because his disintegrated body acts as a barrier to stop him from him becoming complete. Mary Shelly read Lord Byron’s Prometheus poem whilst writing Frankenstein in the 1810s, this poem greatly influenced her book and she added a subtitle to her novel which was “The Modern Prometheus” which is interesting because a Promethean figure is one that stands alone from the rest of the world and is differently superior. Victor wants to be different. We know this because he separates himself from his family in a kind of self created otherness, Victor has a good family and a woman through whom he can create life, yet he chooses to create life alone. These examples of Victor purposely separating himself highlights some of Shelly’s ideas about the issue of belonging and is another example of her tackling issues through the actions of her characters. The French revolution had a major effect on Shelly, because it was a benevolent idea that eventual...