#frankenstein spoilers

[eleancrvances]

robert walton: but i have one want which i have never yet been able to satisfy, and the absence of the object of which i now feel as a most severe evil, i have no friend, margaret! well, these are useless complaints; i shall certainly find no friend on the wide ocean...

victor frankenstein:

[qaraxuanzenith]

having gay thoughts about Frankenstein? me?

it's more likely than you'd think

[image id: the "galaxy brain" meme with 4 expanding brains. first brain is captioned "frankenstein is the monster"; the second brain is captioned "frankenstein is the scientist"; the third brain is captioned "frankenstein is the monster because he is legally the scientist's child and takes his name"; the biggest galaxy brain is captioned "frankenstein is the arctic explorer because they got married before victor died and walton took his husband's last name"]

[unfried-mouth-wheat]

sooooooo about that Dracula x Frankenstein crossover comic idea I was throwing around

[faithful-grigori]

[dathen]

(Frankenstein spoilers)

Reading this book for the first time while knowing the overall plot beats is a lot because on one hand you’re just “Victor you don’t even KNOW that your creation killed anyone and you’re despairing of life over it??” and on the other there’s just the simple fact he’s right. In fact he doesn’t even seem to suspect the Creature purposefully framed Justine—just that she’s collateral from the first murder—so he’s more right than he knows. But for the WRONG REASONS..

But the thing that really killed me today is how the only thing that keeps Victor back from suicide is not wanting to make his family even more unhappy, and not wanting to leave them to face the Creature alone. When in reality, if he had killed himself at this point…it’s very likely they would have all lived. They’re only killed as revenge towards him. He’s dragging himself forward in a life he doesn’t want to live because he doesn’t want to hurt his family, when dying is the only possible way he could have saved them.

[vickyvicarious]

Yes while Victor DID dream of kissing his cousin on the lips, when awake he doesn't seem to be maintaining this kind of romantic feelings that much. Maybe partly due to this being said in retrospect, or maybe because he doesn't really see her as a romantic partner. I haven't read many books with romance in them lately to compare (been reading Moby Dick, 20k Leagues, Jekyll And Hyde) but comparing the, contrary to popular belief, evident attraction between Jonathan and Mina, or between Marcus and Cosette (though in a different context) it reads are less romantic to me.

To be honest, I forgot about any such scene. So I looked it up, and, well...

At length lassitude succeeded to the tumult I had before endured; and I threw myself on the bed in my clothes, endeavouring to seek a few moments of forgetfulness. But it was in vain: I slept indeed, but I was disturbed by the wildest dreams. I thought I saw Elizabeth, in the bloom of health, walking in the streets of Ingolstadt. Delighted and surprised, I embraced her; but as I imprinted the first kiss on her lips, they became livid with the hue of death; her features appeared to change, and I thought that I held the corpse of my dead mother in my arms; a shroud enveloped her form, and I saw the grave-worms crawling in the folds of the flannel.

Yeah, there's a reason this scene didn't stick in my memory as 'Victor dreams about kissing Elizabeth' so much as 'Victor has pretty revealing nightmares about the things on his mind'. This kiss doesn't seem romantic to me at all.

Elizabeth is very clearly overlapping his mother here - quite literally, she turns into her. I think that points to a couple things.

First, Elizabeth greeted with a first kiss = Victor meeting his mother's final wishes (on her deathbed some of the final words were that she had always hoped to be made happy by seeing Victor and Elizabeth married).

And yet his kiss is the kiss of death, killing her = reflecting Victor's horror over what he's done, the Creature he created being something monstrous to his eyes (also foreshadowing how his relationship to her will put her in danger along with his other loved ones, but that's meta knowing how things with him and the Creature turn out)

Elizabeth becomes his mother's corpse as she dies = again the preoccupation with his mother. One of his stated goals was to eventually master bringing back the dead, and he embarked on this study not long after her death, so the link there feels pretty easy to make for me. After his 'failure' to make the beautiful human he imagined this now seems out of his reach too, and he's still grieving.

He wakes up shuddering and then Creature is looming over him... it all ties in much more to his feelings about what he has just done than his feelings about/for Elizabeth, in my eyes. The happy impulse doesn't read to me like genuine romantic feelings but more just the idea of a happier reality (the one his mother longed for).

I mean, Frankenstein is definitely not a romance, but neither are Dracula and Les Miserables. But they feature a romantic relationship, whereas in my opinion the role of Elizabeth and Victor's relationship is much more bound up in ideals and expectations and familial love than anything romantic.

[dodger-chan]

So I've read chapter seven now and,

The tortures of the accused did not equal mine

Really, Victor? Really?

Victor, you are not the worst because you are a bad parent (though you are). You are the worst because you see other people as supporting characters (at best) and props for your life.

Okay, at this point in the book Victor is still the only person (except possibly William) who has seen the creature. Without the context of the rest of the novel, it is still possible that Victor simply had a breakdown and hallucinated his success. That his brother was killed by Justine (we know it can't be a random murderer, because Justine had the picture; she is either specifically being framed or she stole it herself).

Aside: I wonder how long I'll be able to string out the "Victor Frankenstein never created life" theory before the book explicitly contradicts it? I kinda wish I were able to read this without the context of several adaptations/general pop culture knowledge. Because if this were a completely new story to me, I'd probably believe this theory, and I really like how Shelley has written her story to leave this possibility open so long.

[disco-tea]

I feel so much better now that I know Robert is the narrator. I was so worried he was gonna like die and end up being cut up for pieces of the monster wksksks

[cockadoodlebumtits]

One of my favourite things about Frankenstein is that we (the big book club aka Frankenstein Weekly) are currently in the middle of a literary turducken.

We're reading the random dude from the beginning (whose name I can't be bothered to look up at 4am)'s account of Frankenstein's account of Frankenstein Jr's account of his experiences.

If - and I don't remember if he does - but if he then recounts one of the old man from the cottage's stories, we'll be in a nesting doll. Or one of those book covers that's a picture of someone reading the book in question, with a mini-them on the cover, reading the same book, and so on.

How deep does it go???? Will we ever emerge, blinking, into the light of the original perspective?

[excentricat1]

It seems rather stupid and shortsighted of Victor to assume Adam would go after him on his wedding night and not Elizabeth. He just tore up his work in making a companion for Adam, assuring him misery and solitude for the rest of his life. Victor, if he wanted you dead he’d have killed you then. He wants you as miserable and alone as he is.

The fact that he went after Clerval that very night should have been a clue to his actual plan. For a guy supposed to be so smart (if he does say so himself) he really missed the flags.

[unfried-mouth-wheat]

People who haven’t read Frankenstein: Who’s this friend Victor is talking about having lost?

Me, who has read Frankenstein:

[sexchangewerewolf]

SPOILERS FOR FRANKENSTEIN!!!!!!

HE’S DEAD???? he was the 2th best character wtf

[a-couple-of-notes]

You know, this discussion about Imogen and her hometown really gives me flashbacks to the arguments around Frankenstein. My experience of the Frankenstein discussions is that (with overlap between groups):

Some people interpret the text through a queer lens, situating Frankenstein's Creature within a history of queerness expressed through monstrosity. The Creature is isolated, othered from society, for a body and existence he did not choose, and his rage is a profoundly sympathetic one.

Some people interpret the text specifically through its themes of parental abandonment and neglect. Victor, the parent, abandons his child and refuses the responsibility of raising him; thus the Creature's terror, rage, and destruction are at least partially due to Victor's lack of guidance. Again, in this reading, the actions of the Creature become--if not condoned--very sympathetic.

Some people straight-up woobify the Creature.

Others take a more literal approach and say, "As sympathetic as the Creature is, he did still kill Victor's close family, so it's understandable that Victor isn't too cool with him."

Sometimes this is in bad faith, with people veering the complete opposite direction from woobification; they assign all blame to the Creature.

But oftentimes people are just trying to complicate the more sympathetic readings.

Anyway, this kind of argument always crops up when I talk about Frankenstein with people, and I figure there's always going to be tensions around Imogen's culpability, too. That's just the kind of character she is. But I think it's worth noting that interpreting a text through a lens can be a perfectly valid and honest way to engage with it. Like, I think there's something to be gained from analyzing Frankenstein as a narrative of queer monstrousness and othering, in a very similar way to Imogen. Does it have blind spots? Sure, but every lens does.

I'll close off by saying that the most important similarity between Imogen and Frankenstein discussions is how heavily monsterf*cking is featured.

[brennacedria]

reading ahead in frankenstein, then reading the posts for the current emails like

[vickyvicarious]

If he were vanquished, I should be a free man. Alas! what freedom? such as the peasant enjoys when his family have been massacred before his eyes, his cottage burnt, his lands laid waste, and he is turned adrift, homeless, pennyless, and alone, but free.

This passage just reminds me so much of poor Ernest. He isn't homeless or penniless at the end of the book, but he too shares that same 'freedom' born of the loss of everyone around him at the end.

[frankenstaning]

Frankenstein spoilers??

YALL ELIZABETHS DAD IS KINDA SHIT