I was riveted and moved by this analysis of Frankenstein as a treatise on loneliness – not to mention intrigued by the new edition (which I must get). The new edition includes Percy Shelley’s edits (and I agree with Thomas – it does sound to me like the edits were not of the formal variety, but passed back and forth while they were sitting in the same room together) and I am dying to take a look.
There is a sense that someone (an “ideal reader”, I guess) can make you better, can make you go deeper into your work, can RE-SAY what you have already said – but in a more piercing manner because they (the one who didn’t write the original) aren’t as close to the material. The whole “did Mary Shelley write the book” controversy is old news, I won’t go over it – what I really responded to here is the image of intimacy and generosity – that the edits given to her by her lover were not just bossy corrections of something she hadn’t said well (and in some cases, he said it worse). The edits show just how deeply he GOT what she was “going for”.
Yet he also helped with some of the novel’s most moving lines: the monster’s appeal to his creator for affection. “Remember that I am thy creatureâThy Adamâor rather the fallen angel for every where I see bliss while I alome [sic] am irrecoverably wretched,” Mary had written. Percy altered it: “Remember that I am thy creatureâI ought to be thy Adamâbut I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed; everywhere I see bliss from which I alone am irrevocably excluded.” Percy grasped what lay beneath Mary’s language and pulled it to the surface. “I ought to be thy Adam,” the creature saysâbut his creator rejected him before his mate was made. He is not inhuman because he was brought to life on a surgical table. He is inhuman because he is alone.
“I ought to be thy Adam” is so much more tragic and, well, human, than “I am thy creature – thy Adam” – and it brings me to tears.
To examine Percy’s edits is not to take anything away from Mary Shelley – and much of the controversy has swirled around that particular point. What I liked about this article was its picture of generosity between them – there is no need that anything would be taken away from Mary, just because Percy scratched away at her prose, editing it, or making suggestions. The idea was hers and hers alone.
Loneliness does make “monsters” of people. It warps what could be straight. Not should be straight, because there are no shoulds, not when it comes to life experience. But what COULD be straight, if given the chance.
After cloistering himself to bring dead flesh to life, Victor Frankenstein condemns his creature to loneliness. The creature does the same to him in revenge. Solitude makes monsters of both.
Wonderful article. I highly recommend the whole thing.