Ecocriticism in Frankenstein

by Mary Shelley

By:

Lucky Farid Masputri

2013060736

FACULTY OF LETTERS

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

UNIVERSITAS PAMULANG
 I. Intoduction

The reason of this essay is first to complete the assignment from our

lecturer Mrs. Indrani Dewi Anggraini. This essay analyze the ecocriticism

in The Frankenstein, a novel by Mary Shelley. This essay will discuss and

analyze the problem how the relationship between nature and human

being in the story. The writer believes tthat this essay can help the readers

to improve their literary critism skill, specially in ecocriticism approach.

Mary Shelley (1797-1851) is a famous novelist of the Romantic period

Writer Mary Shelley was born Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin on August 30,

1797, in London, England. She was the daughter of philosopher and

political writer William Godwin and famed feminist Mary Wollstonecraft—

the author ofThe Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). Sadly for

Shelley, she never really knew her mother who died shortly after her birth.

She married poet Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1816. Two years later, she

published her most famous novel, Frankenstein. She wrote several other

books, including Valperga (1823), The Last Man (1826), the

autobiographical Lodore (1835) and the posthumously published Mathilde.

Shelley died of brain cancer on February 1, 1851, in London, England.

She was buried at St. Peter's Church in Bournemouth, laid to rest

alongside her father and mother and with the cremated remains of her late

husband's heart.

1
 2

Frankenstein is a novel written by Mary Shelley in 1818. The story begins

with An English explorer, Robert Walton, is on an expedition to the North

Pole. In letters to his sister Magaret Saville, he keeps his family informed

of his situation and tells about the difficult conditions on the ship. One day

when the ship is completely surrounded by ice, a man in bad condition is

taken aboard Victor Frankenstein. As soon as his health allows it, he tells

Walton the story of his life.

He grew up in Geneva, Switzerland as the eldest son of a higher-class

family. He was brought up with an orphan, Elizabeth and also had two

younger brothers. He did not have many friends, Henry Clerval being the

only exception. At the age of nineteen, Frankenstein became interested in

natural philosophy, electricity, chemistry and mathematics. After the death

of his mother, who succumbed to scarlet fever, Frankenstein left for

Ingolstadt, Germany, to attend university. There, his interest in natural

philosophy quickly became an obsession. He was particularly fascinated

with the human frame and the principle of life. After four years of fanatic

studying, not keeping in contact with his family, he was able to "bestow

animation upon lifeless matter" and created a monster of gigantic

proportion from assembled body parts taken from graveyards,

slaughterhouses and dissecting rooms. As soon as the creature opened

his eyes, however, the beauty of Frankenstein's dream vanished: it

became a horrible creature. He realised he made a mistake in creating this

monster and fled from his laboratory. On his return the next day, the
 3

monster had disappeared. Victor was consequently bedridden with a

nervous fever for the next months, being nursed back to health by his

friend Clerval. On the eve of the return to his parental home, he received a

letter that his youngest brother had been found murdered. On his way

home, Frankenstein saw the daemon he has created and immediately

realised that it is he who is responsible for his brother’s death.

Frankenstein decided not to tell his family about the daemon because they

would simply dismiss it as insane. As he arrived home, he was informed

that the murderer of his brother had been found. The accused was

Justine, a good friend of the family. When Justine has been found guilty

and has been hanged, Frankenstein's heart was tortured. He could not

stay in the house and started wandering in the alpine valleys. There,

Frankenstein was confronted with his creation that tells him his life story.

After leaving Frankenstein's laboratory, he went to the village where he

was insulted and attacked by the frightened villagers. He eventually went

to the country and found refuge in a hovel next to small house inhabited by

an old, blind man and his two children. By observing the family and by

reading their books, the monster learnt how to speak and read. He felt

compassion for the family who has to struggle to get by, and anonymously

did chores for them. Longing for some kindness and protection, he

decided to meet his hosts. He got into a pleasant conversation with the

blind man but his children return unexpectedly. Horrified by his

appearance, they beat him and he fled the house. Completely

 4

disillusioned, the monster was filled with rage and decided to find his

creator. By chance he met Frankenstein's younger brother in the forest. As

soon as he discovered that the boy "belongs to the enemy" he choked

him. He also placed a portrait in the lap of a sleeping young girl, Justine,

thereby incriminating her with his crime.

The daemon's only request from Frankenstein was that he should create

another being: a female to accompany him. If Frankenstein complies, he

and his bride will stay away from other people and keep to themselves in

the wild. Frankenstein saw some justice in the monster's arguments and

also felt that he has a duty towards his fellow man, so he agreed to the

daemon's request. Victor left for England to finish his work accompanied

by his friend Clerval, promising to marry Elizabeth on his return. When the

work on his second creation was advanced, he started to question his

promise. He was afraid that they might hate each other, or that they might

produce a whole race of these creatures. When the monster visits to

check on the progress, Frankenstein destroyed his work. The monster

swore revenge and promised to be with him on his wedding night. The

following day a body was found and Frankenstein was accused of murder.

He was taken to the body, which he identified as Henry Clerval. He was

eventually cleared of all charges and returned to Geneva in a very bad

condition. Frankenstein married Elizabeth after promising her to tell her his

horrifying secret the following day. Remembering the monster's threat,

Frankenstein was convinced that he would be killed that night. The

 5

monster, however, kills Elizabeth instead. Frankenstein lost another family

member as his father died after hearing the news about Elizabeth's death.

Frankenstein had now lost every sensation except for revenge. He

followed the monster everywhere which eventually led him to the Arctic

region, where he was taken aboard Walton's ship.

After telling Walton his story, Victor asks him to kill the monster if he dies

before he can do it himself. The ship has in the mean time been freed from

the ice and pressured by his crew, Walton has decided to abandon his trip

and return home. Victor's health eventually deteriorates and he dies. Just

after his death, Walton finds the monster hanging over Victor's body. The

daemon speaks of his sufferings. Because of all the murders he has

committed, he now hates himself. Since his creator is dead, he decides it

is time that he too will rest in death. After stating that he will build a funeral

pile for himself, he leaves the ship and disappears on his ice-raft in the

darkness.

II. Analysis

Frankenstein by Mary Shelly has many allusions which link human and

nature. It gives us sense about the power of nature which conducts human

activities with different kinds of signs. Thus eco-criticism helps us to

analyze how nature has nourished the human species and controlled

excess human curiosity through this novel.

 6

During this novel the writer make a connection between nature and human

through its different perspectives. From very beginning of the novel she

uses the horrible scene of nature and tries to show that nature is not in

favor of the characters. Walton, a young and passionate navigator wants

to conquer natural rule and curiously wants to explore “a part of the world

never before visited, and may tread a land never before imprinted by the

foot of man” (p.3). Through his way he faces many difficulties and a

horrible accident where the ice broke and freed his ship. At this point he

was introduced to a stranger named Victor Frankenstein and enlightened

about the results of extreme curiosity of a human through his story.

As Walton, Victor, the central character of this novel is also an ambitious

person who wants to learn “the hidden laws of nature” (p.31), “secrets of

heaven and earth” (p.33). He tries to challenge the role of the God by

creating life through scientific experiments and faces different kinds of

environmental crisis throughout the process. Knowledge and passion of

Victor makes him to create life under his terms and conditions rather

focusing on natural role. Victor tries to be a mother figure by giving life to a

naturally death body.  It seems as if he allowed nature to determine his

fate in contrast what he had done by creating the monster. He disobeyed

nature’s power and put a strain on his society by creating the unnatural

creation and paid by losing his beloved ones. This shows that there is a

limitation to take knowledge otherwise every creature in this world has to

pay for it.

 7

We can observe many instances where nature resisting Victor’s efforts to

challenge the rule. He observes “most violent and horrible thunder-

storm”  (p.37) at his teenage; Elizabeth caught by severe illness, his

mother fell sick and died before he leaves for the University of Ingolstadt

are the signs of nature which were making him to resist from doing the

inhuman thing he was about to do. But he stubbornly led himself to create

the “daemon” and finally couldn’t endure the aspect of being he had

created. He quotes:

Oh! no mortal could support the horror of countenance. A mummy

again endued with animation could not be so hideous as that

wretch. I had gazed on him while unfinished; he was ugly then; but

when those muscles and joints were rendered capable of motion; it

became a thing such as even Dante could not have conceived.

(p.60)

This shows however human challenge the nature but it gives glimpse of

realization through many ways and signs. It’s upon human to realize it

rather running behind his blind curiosity.

Frankenstein faces another thunder-storm after he reaches Geneva after

he gets news of his brother’s death which makes him a sight of the

monster. This was a warning of nature to him that it is time to pay for his

curiosity. “A flash of lightening illuminated the object, and discovered its

shape plainly to me; its gigantic structure, and the deformity of its aspect,
 8

more hideous than belong to humanity, instantly informed me that it was

the wretch, the filthy daemon, to whom I had given life. (p.83).” This

incident made him aware that he could know the truth that his own

creation has come to take revenge with him. 

After Frankenstein abandons his own creation and reaches to Clerval

disoriented, exhausted and confused with fear of that ‘daemon’, he tries to

recover taking solace through the natural beauties around Ingolstadt. He

looks as if discovering pleasure of life within the natural beauty beyond his

laboratory with a warm company of his friend. His words has glimpse of

his enjoyment and recovery after the heart breaking moments through

nature:

I became the same happy creature who, few years ago, loved and

beloved by all, had no sorrow and care. When happy, inanimate

nature had the power of bestowing on me the most delightful

sensations. A serene sky and verdant field filled me with ecstasy.

The present season was indeed divine; the flowers of spring

bloomed in the hedges, while those of summer were in already in

bud. I was undisturbed by thoughts which during the preceding year

had pressed upon me, notwithstanding my endeavors to throw

them up. (p.75)

This shows how a person gets pleasure within the nature even after

horrified events keep a person in solitude.

 9

After Victor attempts to play the role of mother by creating the monster

and abandons his duty, that monster learns his life through nature. Like an

abandoned infant, the monster is forced to learn by itself or to seek some

mother figure. Nature, as witness of the abandonment of the creator,

adopts the wretched creature in order to live his life. The Monster first

finds a pool to drink water and learns the dangerous of fire by touching

inflamed branches. Then his hunger made him aware of food and found a

shelter as a hovel joined to a cottage belonged to a pheasant family. By

imitating the family and using tools around them the Monster could learn

happiness, generosity and affection as well as the pain. “If such lovely

creatures were miserable it was less strange that I, an imperfect and

solitary being, should be wretched” (p.129) was his reaction on the

pathetic condition of the family. He learns what pleasure or relief is after

he helps the family by bringing firing sufficient for them. The knowledge

gained by the monster can be connected with the animal’s struggle to

have knowledge through nature. He didn’t have anyone to teach him life

but he could perceive all that through nature itself. So, we can consider

nature as mother figure for the monster that nourished and helped him to

survive.

Another aspect of interplay between human and nature in this novel is the

realization of human being about the consequences of their activities.

Victor Frankenstein realizes what he is going to commit creating a female

species for the monster and destroys it. Though he had promised the
 10

monster to create his companion with a condition to leave Europe but

finally realizes what he was going to do is harmful for his own species.

Frankenstein argues as:

Even if they were to leave Europe, and inhabit the deserts of the

new world, yet one of the first result of their sympathies for which

the daemon thirsted would be children, and a race of devils would

be propagated on the earth, who might make the very existence of

the species of man a condition precarious and full of terror. Had I

right, for my own benefit, to inflict this curse upon everlasting

generations? I had before been moved by sophisms of the being I

created; I had been struck senseless by his fiendish threats; but

now, for the first time, the wickedness of my promise burst upon

me; I shuddered to think that future ages might curse me as their

pest, whose selfishness had not hesitated to buy its own peace at

the price, perhaps, of the existence of the whole human race.

(p.203)

This is the realization which every human being has to think of if they want

their race to continue for long time. Victor realizes that even he has to pay

lives of himself and his beloved one he gives us a sense what is nature all

about.

III. Conclusion
 11

This novel considers nature as a parental figure for human beings that

plays vital role in development of their knowledge. It also shows nature

encourages as well as controls human mind for their daily work through

different kinds of signs but it’s upon us to realize what nature is pointing us

to do or not to do. This novel gives a strong message that scientific

experimentations and expeditions should be held keeping nature and its

rule in mind. If we will not be able to realize it in time our own discovery

may be used on us as destructive force as nature uses the monster on

Victor Frankenstein. Frankenstein by Mary Shelly is a significant

representation of powerful nature and its resistance on human challenge

towards its eternal rules.

 12

References

Shelley, M. (1818). FRANKENSTEIN. Retrieved November 03, 2016 from

www.planetebook.com/ebooks/Frankenstein.pdf

Mary Shelley Biography. Retrieved November 03, 2016 from

http://www.biography.com/people/mary-shelley-9481497

Mary Shelley Biography. Retrieved November 03, 2016 from

https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/f/frankenstein/mary-shelley-

biography

short synopsis of Frankenstein. Retrieved November 03, 2016 from

http://mural.uv.es/laucomo/summary.htm

FRANKENSTEIN SUMMARY. Retrieved November 03, 2016 from

http://www.shmoop.com/frankenstein/summary.html

An Ecocritical Study On Frankenstein. Retrieved November 03, 2016 from

http://www.globethesis.com/?t=2155360272971099