Emotion and Reasoning
The gap between reasoning and emotion is broad. Reasoning is harbored by the mind to make decisions, govern thoughts, and manipulate bodies. Emotion is harder to understand, and exponentially more difficult to control. It exists as a layer of human characteristic that can be viewed and studied, but never fully mastered. Emotion distorts perception, yet occasionally makes it clearer. Without the equilibrium of reasoning and emotion, the study of human thought can’t be touched upon. In her novel, “Frankenstein”, Mary Shelley details the struggle of an ambitious doctor, Victor Frankenstein, who discovers the secret to creating life while making a hideous monster that soon controls and dismantles his life. Mary creates Victor as a psychological foil to his own creation by, succumbing Victor to his hunger for scientific knowledge, allowing the monster to be ruled by emotion, and having Victor and his creature’s lives bound together.
As Victor’s story is told, his deleterious need for scientific knowledge quickly becomes apparent. Victor begins his research with the intention of creating or restoring life. As he progressed, he continually ignored the boundaries of science; becoming more and more enveloped in his work. Moments after his successful reanimation of the monster’s hewn body, Victor recalls, “I had worked for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. For this I had deprived myself of rest and health” (Shelley 34). With his mind so narrowly-centered on this task, everything else became meaningless: even his own health. Judging by his thoughts and actions, it appears his mental health also severely deteriorated. Frankenstein continues his thoughts, admitting, “I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation” (34). Victor carried out what he wanted to accomplish, yet he never stopped to question if he should. In his almost maniacal endeavor he swiftly realizes his product isn’t all that he imagined. Victor then says, “but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart” (34). Victor’s creation came to life bringing with it regret; something Victor wrestles with to his death. Frankenstein further approaches lunacy in his research as he tries to keep everything secret. He takes great consideration in all his actions to hide what he has done and what is happening. Even on his wedding night he fails to tell his wife from what danger he is sending her away. His pride in knowledge leads him to cover up his actions without consideration to the problem that he is enhancing. Overall, this heartless thirst for knowledge is something that Shelley may have suffered from herself. Critic, Christopher Small writes in his article, "[Percy] Shelley and Frankenstein,” that “Shelley, like Victor Frankenstein, had an early passion to learn “the secrets of heaven and earth”; one may say that in both the drive was inherent” (Small 208). As a shared trait, Mary showed through Doctor Frankenstein that there may be grave consequences to blindly succumbing to the allure of knowledge.
The monster, in the novel, falls prey to his loneliness and emotions. As soon as he is created, his battle with rejection begins. To the average human he is a complete freak: born out of science, revolting to the sight. Victor describes him grotesquely saying, “his yellow skin scarcely covered the work of arteries and muscles beneath” (Shelley 34). With his unchangeable traits, he knows that he will never be accepted: the one thing that he wants. Frankenstein’s monster becomes increasingly dangerous as his emotions boil. In misguided revenge, he begins to kill off Frankenstein’s friends and relatives despite Victor being his only human contact. His depression leads to senseless murder. While bargaining for Victor to make him a companion, he says, “you still refuse to bestow on me the only benefit that can soften my heart, and render me harmless” (100). Here, the monster, though intelligent, fails to see that emotions are illogical. He believes that he will be harmless and that his emotions will logically change even though it is obvious that his emotions rule him into maniacal action. The monster’s insanity is masked by his eloquence with words, but little else. Judging by his actions – a continual self-defeating murderous rampage – he cannot control himself or his tendencies. It is only when his lunatic goal of killing Frankenstein is fulfilled that he finally sees his error. Within his lengthy closing speech to Walton, the explorer, over Victor’s death, the monster explains, “But it is true that I am a wretch. I have ... grasped to death his throat who never injured me or any other living thing” (155). The being saw that his action was founded on injustice. He also exclaims, “for whilst I destroyed his hopes, I did not satisfy my own desires” (154). In Frankenstein’s death his misery driven endeavor was shown to be purposeless. In an article titled, “Coming Unstrung: Women, Men, Narrative, and Principles of Pleasure,” Susan Winnett believes that a “series of brutal rejections ... transform the creature’s beautiful soul into a murderous one” (Winnett 296). Alternatively, the soul or underlying character of the monster isn’t transformed entirely. Instead, the monster’s true soul is so overwhelmed by his intense grief that he cannot function naturally. His goodness is recovered in his final epiphany, once the emotions are overlooked.
Mary Shelley created Doctor Frankenstein and his creation to be foils of each other; even to the death. While Victor continually drives himself with logic, his monster is mastered only by his own emotions. However, neither of them find themselves even close to stable in their minds. This dichotomy of emotion and reasoning are depicted perfectly to show the weakness in having only one. Mary Shelley saw that too much in one direction leads to disaster: exactly how the situation ended. With Frankenstein and the monster in a tumultuous battle, it is seen how emotion and reasoning cannot fight in order to have stability. As the monster finally understood what he had been doing, Frankenstein was dead. The monster could see with logic that he was wrong when Victor could no longer use it. The feelings of the two also parallel each other. As one of their lives become increasingly worse the other matches it. In Barbara Johnson’s article, “My Monster/My Self,” she suggests that, “Frankenstein recognizes in Walton an image in himself and rejects in the monster a resemblance he does not wish to acknowledge” (Johnson 243). Barbara’s insight shows that Frankenstein was unwilling to accept what he knew was true: that the monster was a product of Frankenstein and in turn was a part of him. The monster acts as the complementary half to what Frankenstein is missing: emotion. During the monster’s speech to Walton, he cries, “I shall die, and what I now feel be no longer felt” (Shelley 156). Being bound to Victor he kills himself. The two both die as separate halves of the same person.
Reasoning and emotion both have their flaws. But the flaws can be healed by having the two together. Emotion cannot be easily handled because doing so would be logical, and logic is with reasoning. With Frankenstein and his monster holding their respective traits, Mary Shelley created them as foils of each other psychologically. Frankenstein could only feel with his mind. He created the monster out of an unnatural drive to gain knowledge. He wanted to see if he could achieve the impossible without regard to the consequences. The monster on the other hand wants little. He desires only to be loved or to have a companion. His strife and turmoil only lead him to terrible things. Despite his good intentions, emotion from rejection cannot be overcome. Mary Shelley formed these perilous characters to fully embody the forms of reasoning and emotion. Through them she shows readers the dangers of imbalance. Walton in the story learns from seeing the both Frankenstein and monster. He learns that reasoning and emotion must meet together to avoid meeting a wretched fate.
Works Cited
Johnson, Barbara. “My Monster/My Self.” Frankenstein. W. W. Norton & Company Inc., 1996. 241-251. Print.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. New York: W. W. Norton & Company Inc., 1996. 1-156. Print.
Small, Christopher. “[Percy] Shelley and Frankenstein.” Frankenstein. W. W. Norton &
Company Inc., 1996. 205-208. Print.
Winnett, Susan. “Coming Unstrung: Women, Men, Narrative, and Principles of Pleasure.” Frankenstein. W. W. Norton & Company Inc., 1996. 287-301. Print.
