PRESENTATION
Let's be clear, the creature created by Victor Frankenstein IS NOT the stupid monster shown in films and popular iconography.
Even today we think of Phillip K. Dick's 1968 novel 'Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep', or Ridley Scott's 1979 film 'Blade Runner' as icons of the problem of the artificial creation of a human being.
But the author who first brought exactly this problem to the public's attention, when the science and medicine of the early 19th century had overcome the limits of muscle resuscitation, with Galvani's experiments with frogs, was the author of the novel Frankenstein.
I have no doubts about it.
What Mary Shelley accomplished in her most famous novel was to investigate the faculties of human consciousness in an attempt to define the biological origin of love towards people we admire and hatred towards people who have caused us pain.
This is a courageous introspection at the limits of neuroscience and psychoanalysis, taking as an example a mind that is reborn from death and is devoid of any memory of its previous life.
I was saying that it is a courageous introspection since the theme of artificial consciousness is taken to the limits of the mystical feeling of a creature that is fully aware of its creator, a feeling that is found, so to speak, in the soul of every human being.
But in this case does the author of the novel suggest that an artificial man also has a soul? An artificial soul that harbors feelings of veneration towards the human being who created it!?
Can an artificial conscience, the fruit of human ingenuity that brought what was dead back to life, look at the mystery of its existence and ask itself what substance it is made of and what the purpose of its life is?
Can he be able to appreciate the goodness of men as well as hate every single individual who reminds him of the rejection he suffered from his creator?
Is it ever possible that he could have the freedom of free will over his own feelings?
This is, therefore, the philosophical purpose of Mary Shelley's literary work, a story written with profound empathy towards every human being, to whatever condition he may belong, reasoning on the meaning of existence, thus telling the drama of the first 'replicant' in history of science fiction.
ANALYSIS
The narrative complexity of this novel is truly remarkable: there are three narrative voices, each with its own narrative action which develops its own theme, with its own problem to solve.
The first protagonist is Robert Walton, whose narrative action serves as a framework for the narrative of the other two protagonists.
R. Walton is entrusted with the final task of putting into practice the moral teaching that emerges from the story of the other two protagonists.
His narrative theme symbolizes the exploratory undertaking conducted in the interest of humanity and, therefore, to be completed heroically.
The second protagonist is Doctor Victor Frankenstein, whose narrative action enters into a dynamic and conflictual relationship with the third protagonist: his creature, brought back to life through an experiment in surgical and medical technology.
The third protagonist also carries out a narrative action that enters into a dynamic and conflictual relationship with Doctor Frankenstein, I'm talking about his creature.
To better understand the dynamic force of the mutual conflict between these two narrative actions, we can borrow the circular philosophical model of Eastern philosophy: Yin and Yang.
Frankenstein develops the theme of inventive life that persists with arrogant ambition in taking possession of biological laws to carry out feats of biomedical engineering in defiance of all bioethical morality.
The creature resurrected by the scientist develops the theme of contemplative life which with gratitude towards life respects its order with humility and joy, cultivating an intelligence for social philosophy for moral purposes.
As it is easy to see in these two definitions, the two mental orientations are exactly opposite and are irreconcilable.
Each of these two mental orientations develops a narrative action that enters into circular conflict with its opposite, without ever resolving with a positive solution, but only with the dramatic final outcome which will be witnessed by the first protagonist, the navigator R. Walton.
However, the complexity of this novel also involves the moral dimension.
Reading the confessions of Doctor Frankenstein's creature, one cannot help but think of comparing his brutal life to that of a dangerous multiple-homicidal brigand.
The complexity of this novel puts before us the probable point of view of a criminal who tries to justify himself following the sentence brought against him by civil laws. He finds in the injustices suffered the excuse for his hatred and violence against people, thus saving his soul from the final judgment of social morality.
The ambiguity of M. Shelley's purpose in giving meaning to his novel is difficult to resolve.
Perhaps, precisely in the circularity of the two narrative actions, the author wanted to present us with a dilemma in which she attempted to represent the origin of evil in society, carried out by human beings who may have had a personal history comparable to that of the creature and, therefore , more exposed to the moral weaknesses of conscience.
Perhaps, the novel's author's message is to imagine how much evil could arise from bringing into the world an artificial human conscience, repudiated by everyone for the reason of not being natural. In this I see the origin of the science fiction mythology of the 'replicant', an individual with human feelings but more exposed to contempt than those he sees as similar to him and, for this reason, devoted to indifference and oppression.
The Europe in which Mary Shelley lived, when she wrote this story, had just crossed the boundaries of bioethics, thus finally grasping the 'forbidden apple' of the tree at the center of Eden, the tree of knowledge of GOOD and of BAD, and it is evident that in this context, of the moral mythology of Western culture which has its most significant symbol in the forbidden tree of Eden, it is precisely a woman who warns the man of science, with all the force of this novel, to do not to eat from that fruit.
Completeness of information
Since in this novel there are narrative actions corresponding to three characters, the analysis of the parameter of completeness of information (relating to the 5 Ws) must be done for each of the three characters.
Robert Walton is a english man from a wealthy family who inherited the financial resources to set up an oceanographic expedition in search of the Northeast Passage, from the Arctic Sea to the Bering Strait and thus trace a polar route towards the Pacific Ocean. His undertaking takes place in an unspecified year of the 18th century.
Victor Frankenstein is a Swiss doctor of biological-medical sciences, who was able to study at the University of Ingolstad (Germany) and thus become an expert in the subject, thanks to his intense interest in discovering the secrets of life and the biological laws that regulate it, in order to to be able to use them ambitiously for the benefit of humanity.
Creature of Dott. Frankenstein: He is defined only in this way. We know nothing of its origin, apart from the fact that the anatomical parts of which it is composed were taken from different graves in the Ingolstad cemetery. He himself will say what he does, when, where and why in a confession made to his creator, Dr. Frankenstein.
However, although its true identity is never revealed, despite the film versions which say that its brain was that of a criminal, something which is kept silent in the novel, the story that the creature gives to its creator seemed similar to that that a son does to his father after a growth experience on a trip or in any other long-lasting challenging experience. At first, the creature shows satisfaction with the things it learns and confidence in its abilities. On the basis of this positive self-awareness he is able to plan his own future according to positive ethical principles of sharing the social values of human society.
He is even capable of leaving behind the trauma of having been rejected by his creator, the human being to whom he attributed the value of a father.
The problems arrive later, when the people from whom he had learned the virtues of social life violently reject him when he, aware of his physical diversity and his anomalous origin, tries to be accepted with the aim of living in harmony with They.
It is at this moment that the collapse in his conscience occurs and the faculties of appreciating human goodness are irremediably damaged, transforming all the love there was in him into visceral hatred against humanity.
The burning house where he had learned to love social life is the pivotal moment of the creature's moral transformation, from a gentle conscience to a criminal conscience.
Why am I talking about this moment in the 5 W parameter?
Because this is exactly the most important information in the entire novel. It is at this moment that the reader is informed as to why the creature becomes evil.
It is on this 'why' that the whole novel rests the reason that led it to be written. Conscience is never good or bad, but it is dynamic and adapts and reacts to the emotions and feelings that animate it. Telling a story where consciousness is described in this way means doing psychological investigative work. But this is a discussion that belongs to the next parameter of analysis.
Scientific verisimilitude
There is a lot of scientific verisimilitude in this novel, but not the kind of subject matter we would expect.
Doctor Frankenstein's feat of medical engineering heralds the narrative trend of 'replicants' and 'artificial organisms' widely described in the novels of the second half of the 20th century, yet there is not a single theoretical or practical indication in this novel on how to resuscitate a dead organism, nor on how to recompose parts of dead bodies to obtain a complete individual.
None of this is in this novel.
But that's what a 20th century science fiction writer would do.
Mary Shelley is a writer who lived between the 18th and 19th centuries, an era in which the Enlightenment had freed the conscience of citizens from the cultural canons of the Ancient Regime, where the patriotic morality of loyalty to the sovereign and the Church had to be respected.
With the Enlightenment, under the multiple humanistic impulses of Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau, the conscience of European man can finally follow new paths of introspection of the soul without the conditioning of clerical morality.
It is for this reason that the real topic of interest in this novel is not the practical technique on how to create the artificial human creature but, rather, investigating the paths of human consciousness with an Enlightenment method and, in this case it is correct to say, with a scientific.
From the point of view of psychological sciences, the scientific verisimilitude present in this novel is impeccable; despite having been written many years before the popularization of the psychological theories known to us.
Yet, we must not forget to pay attention to one thing: the psychological problem will be a component that will constantly accompany the theme of artificial individuals told by science fiction.
So, what can we conclude from this analysis?
The novel 'Frankenstein' opens a narrative thread that will flourish starting from the 1940s, that of the 'replicants', 120 years in advance, and it does not do so by insisting on the technical-practical aspect, but rather by putting into clear all the psychological elements that would serve subsequent writers to give shape to the drama of being in the world as artificial people.
Creativity in Fantasy
It would be easy for someone to say that Mary Shelley did not prefer to tell about the resuscitation of a whole individual because this event would have forced her to face the problem of the soul. In fact, since it was a whole person, would or would not her soul return within him, abandoning either Heaven or Hell?
Instead, I am convinced that the writer's interest was to describe the origin of a consciousness 'ex novo' for the purposes of the development of history.
Therefore, the only way to obtain the formation of a consciousness without any connection with the previous life was, in the author's intentions, to imagine with his imagination that Frankenstein managed to put together many human body parts from different corpses. Only in this case, this narrative subject was the only logically acceptable solution for her.
Therefore, it is not wrong to say that Doctor Frankenstein's creature is the first example of artificial consciousness of an exclusively biological nature and devoid of any spiritual ontological properties.
Here Shelley's ambiguous allusion to the common religious language that attributes the name 'creator' to the Christian divinity is evident. In the same way, the artificial consciousness of the creature calls Doctor Frankenstein 'creator'.
Should we perhaps see in this narrative construction made up of moral, religious and scientific problems a form of creativity in the parameter of imagination?
Without a doubt it is a narrative construction that brings together many different topics in a very elegant and refined way, to the point of remaining in the reader's memory with a strong suggestion for his conscience.
This, therefore, is enough for me to say that yes, this is a remarkable display of creativity in imagination.
Meaning of the ending
As I have already said, the narrative actions of this novel are two: one linear and the other circular.
R. Walton's linear narrative action ends with his renunciation of finding the North-East passage, recognizing the importance of safeguarding the safety of his crew in the face of the dangers of death by freezing, if they had gone even further north in the cold waters of the Arctic.
The circular narrative action of Frankenstein and his creature ends with the death of both, after having recognized the importance of safeguarding the integrity of the natural order of things, which deserves respect from men and all its creatures , thus avoiding committing bioethical violations.
So, is this perhaps a resolving conclusion to the problems generated during the novel?
I can say yes only in the case of R. Walton's story.
As regards, however, the story of the creator and his creature, the ending is decidedly tragic and does not resolve either the sense of guilt that drove Frankenstein to madness, much less the murders committed by his creature.
If anything, the ending only serves to put an end to the circular and unsolvable dynamism of their two stories, a circularity that consumed them until their deaths; where the faults of one are to the detriment of the other who is, in turn, guilty of the pains of the first. Both are victims of this circularity of guilt and suffer from it to the point of madness.
But the thing that makes this ending so alienating for us, biologically natural human beings, is the fact that to find the complete solution to this circular conflict, between the human desire to dominate the laws of nature and the artificial creature's desire for revenge, turns out to be the creature itself who, no longer feeling hatred towards Frankenstein, now dead, once again showing the morally positive side of his conscience, implements the ultimate solution, that is, the destruction of his own body, as it is the proof of the possibility of subverting the natural order of terrestrial biology. An act of responsible conscience that goes beyond the boundaries of the common survival instinct and affirms, incontrovertibly, his existence as a spirit with free will.
In this statement of maximum will, the novel proves to be the progenitor of all science fiction about 'replicants'.
In this extremely moving moment, the creature's words remind us of Roy Batty's famous final monologue in 1979's Blad Runnes.
I end my analysis with selected parts from the final monologue of Frankenstein's creature, pronounced at the conclusion of the novel, which demonstrates an impressive similarity with the words spoken by the evil, and then repentant, dying 'replicant' of Blade Runner, a film made 161 years after the publication of novel by M. Shelley:
<<He [referring to V. Frankenstein] did not suffer even the thousandth part of the torment that tortured me in carrying out my deeds. An endless pride pushed me forward, while my heart was poisoned by remorse [...].
My heart was made to respond to love and sympathy [...]. Once upon a time my dreams were filled with visions of virtue, fame and joy. [...] But now sin has put me lower than the most despicable animal [...]. I have murdered good and harmless creatures, I have strangled innocents while they slept [...]. I condemned my creator to despair, the prototype of everything among men that is worthy of love and admiration.
Don't be afraid [addressing R. Walton], my work is almost done [...]: only my death is enough [...].
Light, passions, senses will disappear, and then I may find happiness.
[...] Now death is my only consolation [...].
I will triumphantly climb my funeral pyre, and I will exult in the torment of the flames that will devour me. The light of this fire will fade, my ashes will be scattered into the sea by the winds. My spirit will rest in peace and, even if it thinks, it will be differently.
Goodbye!. >>
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