History and the Monster

Rather than spend the bulk of my post searching for a question, I am going to pose the question first and then attempt to work through a possible answer or understanding.

Question: Why does the creature attempt to learn?

Spivak writes that "the narrative of the monster...is of his almost learning, clandestinely, to be human." It is worth noting that all of the cottage's characters have been separated from their histories. The family is living in a sort of exile away from their former upper class lifestyle; Safie, as Spivak reiterates, is removed from her "residence in Turkey;" and the monster has drifted from both his creator and place of creation.

I recognize "Caliban/Ariel distinction" to which Spivak refers, and it is important to observe that in this case the "Caliban" feels an intense longing for the same acceptance the cottagers extend to Safie--Spivak's Ariel. Like the monster, Safie "was left alone, unacquainted with the language of the country, and utterly ignorant of the customs of the world" (85), but the Ariel has a distinct advantage because she shares a common history with the cottagers--both from past encounters, and a broader shared 'human' history.

The monster is self-aware; because he found the notes that document his creation, he realizes that his genesis is of a different sort--Paradise Lost is not his tale. So his knowledge serves to build a sort of cultural bridge: a link that can allow him to successfully engage with the cottagers. The monster's countenance alone would betray any attempts at humanity, so he can only hope to entice the humans with his knowledge of their culture. He does not have Safie's half-Christian heritage--without knowledge, there is nothing in him, no common thread of history, that the cottagers will find redeeming.

Returning to Spivak's original quote, I would argue that the monster does not learn in order "to be" human, rather he learns so that humans might possibly attempt to empathize. Perhaps the humans would see the similarities the monster observed between his own creation and Milton's tale of human origin. But when empathy fails and the monster is shunned, all that remains is the recognition that his history is irreconcilably different.

Spivak notes that "the simple suggestion that the monster is human inside but monstrous outside" does not begin to resolve the "tangential unresolved moment in Frankenstein." Though no single resolution exists, a more plausible assertion is that the monster is monstrous inside but human on the outside. His parts are human, though grossly out of proportion, but his origin and history--attributes that reaffirm human bonds in the story--are decidedly monstrous. Even if a reader believes the monster is human, the monster sees himself as something different: the lack of a shared history keeps him outside of humanity.

Perhaps this is why the monster, as Spivak articulates, is allowed to step out of the story's frame. His narrative is too foreign for the human reader or writer to close: he fits into the unknown beyond Walton's trips to the borders of human knowledge.

-Rob