Barthes: The Bridge between Formalism and Reader-Response?

Sorry my post is so late this week.

Upon reading Roland Barthes' "The Death of the Author," it seems like Barthes is sort of a bridge between Formalism and reader-response theory. He describes writing as "the destruction of every voice, of every point of origin" (1322). He is wary of the author, on which criticism centers: "To give a text an Author is to impose a limit on that text, to furnish it with a final signified, to close the writing" (1325). Barthes argues that the language speaks for itself; it has no origin. This seems very closely related to "The Intentional Fallacy" as delineated by Wimsatt and Beardsley, who argue that critics should not debate about or try to find the author's intention and should instead look at the form of a work for meaning. With the death of the author that Barthes proposes, the reader is born: "The reader is the space on which all the quotations that make up a writing are inscribed without any of them being lost; a text's unity lies not in its origin but in its destination" (1326). The prominence of the reader, however, is not part of Formalism, but rather, reader-response theory. Thus, Barthes' theory seems to form a bridge between the two approaches to a text. Like Wolfgang Iser in "Interaction between Text and Reader," Barthes acknowledges the role of the reader while still focusing on the structure of a work.

Indeed, the headnote to Barthes' essays describes him as being in between structuralism and post-structuralism, and this is due to the great diversity of his works. His later works in some ways contradict or reconstruct the ideas posited by his earlier works. For instance, he later writes that the author exists, but not as "an extratextual identity determining meaning;" instead, the author is a text that can be read (1318). In addition, in another work Camera Lucida, Barthes contradicts his arguments about photography that he presented in Mythologies. In the earlier work, he described how photographs reveal a reality that is contrived, whereas in the later work, he writes that a photograph can tell us "This has been" (1319). I bring these two ideas up because they show the contradictions inherent in Barthes' work and also because these are two subjects that I find interesting, having studied the body as text and the role of photographs in the poetry of Natasha Trethewey.

With regard to Frankenstein, I guess I would then ask, what is the structure from which it is created? Barthes writes that "The text is a tissue of quoataion drawn from the innumerable centres of culture" (1324), and that "the book itself is only a tissue of signs, an imitation that is lost, infinitely deferred" (1325). What are the cultural signifiers that make up Frankenstein? What does the language (especially since we have three narrators) tell the reader?

Archetypes, Imitation, and Writing

Analogous to Saussure’s analysis of language, in “The Archetypes of Literature” Northrop Frye attempts to examine the structure of literary works by outlining the archetypes or myths that act as the building blocks of literary works. Trying to accomplish a unifying form of criticism, Frye contends that masterpieces draw readers to “converging patterns of signification” (1309). Judging from the literary success of Frankestien, it was most certainly entrenched with patterns of signification. While Frye believes that a great deal of writers seem to be unaware of the recurring archetypes in their works, Mary Shelley purposely accentuates the myth of the fall from grace and the struggle between good and evil in Frankenstein. Mary Shelley builds upon Milton’s “Paradise Lost” which was in turn based upon the Bible. The Creature comes to think of himself sometimes as Adam and other times as Satan: “Like Adam, I was created apparently united by no other being in existence…..Many times I considered Satan as the fitter Emblem of my condition…. For often the bitter gall of envy rose within me” (87). Here we can see how one basic structure can regenerate into other forms. Thus, in order to recognize the impact of prototypes, there has to be a systematic study of them. Knowing archetypes allows us to interconnect between different works of literature. While Frye advocates a formalist reading of a text, I believe his approach encourages an intertextual reading of archetypes, although I don’t think he will agree. Speaking of a writer’s unconscious and private mythology, I wonder how much of that mythology is actually private. No doubt many psychologists, most prominently Freud, emphasize the importance of childhood in shaping adulthood. Do fairy tales and scriptural stories fixate in a child’s mind so that even when he or she grows up to be writers these stories, albeit disguised, resurface? Is creativity exhausted to the extent that instead of creating new types of characters, settings, or plots we must recycle older patterns? Where does that leave novelty in a novel? I believe that the notion of archetypes is very confining and seems to sideline other elements of a literary work.
It also appears to me that Frye echoes Barthes dismissal of the author when he says that “the poet’s task is to deliver the poem in as uninjured a state as possible, and if the poem is alive, it is equally anxious to be rid of him, and screams to be cut loose from his private memories and association… and the other navel strings and feeding-tube of his ego” (1307). Nonetheless, Frye appeals to the private mythology that the writer is unconscious of, thus delving into the writer’s psychology, yet not acknowledging it.
Barthes also seems in accordance with Frye’s notion of archetypes when he declares in “The Death of Author” that “the writer can only imitate gesture that is always interior, never original. His only power is to mix writings….. the inner thing he thinks to translate is itself only a ready-formed dictionary” (1324). It seems far-fetched and very generalizing to strip away originality from a writer and suggest that he or she or only imitators, yet Barthes himself is only reiterating what Plato articulated thousands of years ago that if all art is mimesis than all artists are imitators. Knowing the influences Mary Shelley had in writing Frankenstein, that of Milton, Lord Byron, and mostly her husband Percy, who edited, reviewed and wrote the preface for her book, how much claim does Mary have to her work? There are even instances in the book where Mary quotes verses from Percy’s poem “Mont Blanc”. It is possible that Percy co-authored Frankestien with Mary. After all, he did pressure Mary to live up to her name, being the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin. I have to admit that I question why Mary did not publish her own preface until after her husband died, and why her literary career began and ended with Frankestein.
Like Frye, Claude Lévi-Strauss searched for patterns of significance in the native Brazilian tribe he was studying. According to Saussure writing is the concrete representation of language “language is a storehouse of sound-images, and writing is the tangible form of those images” (850). In “A Writing Lesson” from “Tristes Tropiques” Lévi-Strauss, with some astonishment, reveals how the Nabikwara tribe chief, for two full hours, pretended that he knew how to write. The chief grasped the meaning of writing. He would give Levi-Strauss his writing as he latter can read it. Levi-Strauss describes this façade: “He was half-taken in by his own make-believe’ each time he completed a line, he examined it anxiously as if expecting meaning to leap out of the page” (1280). The signs that the tribe leader wrote had no meaning, yet as Saussure established that the relationship between signifier and signified is arbitrary, the tribe leader could have easily created a writing system. Nonetheless, as Saussure contests that the community is necessary in ascribing value to a linguistic system, the signs the tribal leader wrote were meaningless since they were not agreed upon by the collective community. By using writing to raise himself above the clan, the Nabikwara tribe leader neglected the social aspect of writing, thus stirring resentment and bitterness among his people who eventually abandoned him. The tribe leader borrowed writing as a sociological symbol; still, it was not for the purpose of knowledge, but for increasing prestige and power. This leads Lévi-Strauss to examine the structure of writing not as a power tool of oppression.
In a similar sense language is what gives the Creature his edge, in which he describes language as a “godlike science” which he “ardently desired to become acquainted with” (75). Admitting that he was unable to discover languages connection to visible objects, the Creature realizes the arbitrariness of the relationship between signifier and signified, leading him to focus on distinguishing sounds. The Creature did not attempt to introduce himself to the cottagers until he became a “master of their language” (76). Here the conventionality of language comes into place as he believed that that he can be a part of their community by sharing their language. The Creature further becomes interested in the linguistic sign when he sees the cottagers read. Thus, after improving in speech the Creature focused on learning how to read. After being rejected by the cottagers the creature became obsessed with deciphering Frankenstein’s writing, and when he does he is so full of rage that he vows to take revenge. Through reading, the Creature became powerful and capable to carry out his wrath on Frankenstein by knowing everything about him, such as his name and where he lives. Furthermore, both Walton and Frankestein are moved by the Creature's eloquence and mastery of language.

My, thy Myth!

Northrop Frye’s “The Archetypes of Literature” delivers an amalgamation of previous literary and cultural theorists, including Feud and Jung, that clarifies and systematizes, while he intersperse his own highly accessible emendations and deviations. Like Freud and Jung, Frye delves into what was once considered peripheral; he approaches the obscure, like myths and dreams, with a critical attentiveness that enables him elicit and establish meaning from the marginal. Where Freud is concerned with the epistemological questions that can be raised and addressed through dreams, Frye appears to follow Jung down an avenue leading to ontological issues. The essay, along with Frye’s own delineation of his methods, shows that Frye is able to clarify the concepts that are obfuscated by Jung’s seaming impenetrability. The complete title of Shelley’s work – Frankenstein; or the Modern Prometheus – is enough to direct the reader’s attention to the mythological influences that Northrop Frye considers to direct and inform literary production. I immediately considered the Monster’s narrative, and the seasonality of the cottagers’ and his own related experiences delivered in some sort of succinct collage of mythemes. It is also interesting to note the Monster’s fascination with Paradise Lost while locked in his own myth configuration. In his discourse, it seems that the Monster speaks with a peculiar mythological meta-cognition. This is an interesting issue that asks the reader to not only consider the mythological underpinnings of a work and its characters, but to what extent and to what end the characters (or authors) themselves are cognizant of their own myth-influenced/informed existence. Frye writes that “the human cycle of waking and dreaming corresponds closely to the natural cycle of light and darkness, and it is perhaps in this correspondence that all imaginative life begins” (1313). This section makes me consider if ever we hear of the Monster dreaming. Then I considered how the majority of the monster’s existence challenges the diurnal/nocturnal binary that Frye identifies as one of the foundations of “imaginative life”. Once the cottagers began their soporific correspondence with the night, the monster explains how “if there was any moon, or the night was star-light, I went into the woods, and collected my own food and fuel for the cottage” (76). Frye posits that “it is in the darkness of nature that the “libido” or conquering heroic self awakes”, but in the case of the Monster the night signifies a period of perfunctory obligations and deeds - one may consider altruistic – that benefit others.

The Creature's Language Classes and Modern Political Photography

I can’t help reading Barthes’ “Photography and Electoral Appeal” without thinking of the U.S. Senate hopeful Christine O’Donnell’s ad which goes one step beyond Barthes’ “Look at me: I am like you” (1320.) In it, she explains that, “I’m you.”

Check it out: http://tinyurl.com/26b2xuu

Though I enjoyed reading Barthes, I feel that many of our conversations about Shelly and Frankenstein would be squashed if we apply his comment about the Author: “The explanation of a work is always sought in the man or woman who produced it, as if it were always in the end…the author ‘confiding’ in us” (1322). This is especially true when Barthes disagrees that the Author, “is thought to nourish the book, which is to say that he exists before it, thinks, suffers, lives for it, is in the same relation of antecedence to his work as a father to his child” (1324) or, in our case, a mother to her child.

We seemed to have been able to draw many plausible parallels between Frankenstein and Shelly through her biography and in constantly comparing the two prefaces that preface the novel. While each analysis has their strengths and weaknesses, why can’t these different critical styles enhance each other?

On another note, I found De Saussure’s concepts from “Course in General Linguistics” extremely relevant and exciting when applied to the creature. De Saussure states, “Language is a well-defined object in the heterogeneous mass of speech facts” and “It is the social side of speech, outside the individual who can never create nor modify it by himself; it exists only by virtue of a sort of contract signed by the members of a community” (850).

Isn’t it clever how Shelly constructed the monster’s education of language? She faced the challenge of: how would one learn to read and write without being among people? The creature may have been able to make some sense of the books that came into his possession, but without the context of the family speaking, without his “social community,” he would not have been able to further decode the text and apply it linguistically. Were there any other ways in which this could have been accomplished in the text?

Having said that, there still appears to be some disconnect between the creature’s ability to speak and his ability to read. While he was carefully studying the family and Felix and Safie, he may have had trouble being able to decode the books that he found which were “fortunately…written in the language the element of which I had acquired at the cottage” (Shelley 86). De Saussure tells us on pg. 862 that, “The signs used in writing are arbitrary; there is no connection, for example, between the letter t and the sound that it designates.”

Who is the Real Hero?

The monster follows a trajectory similar to Frye’s myth cycle. He is created by Victor and goes through a birth or growth while observing the cottagers; he seeks out Victor in the hope of the construction of a bride; in the death phase he chases after Victor on the frozen wasteland; finally, the monster defeats Victor and dies in the darkness of the ice. Does this make the monster and not Victor the hero?

In The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud warns against reading “characters according to their pictorial value instead of according to symbolic relation” (819). Saussure states that “the linguistic sign unites, not a thing and a name, but a concept and a sound-image” (852). Are Freud’s symbolic dream-thoughts similar to the sound-image relationship presented by Saussure?

As the monster begins to learn language, he discovers that the words the cottagers use had no “apparent connexion with visible objects” (74). Is the monster stumbling on the same concepts of Freud and Saussure?

The “Quest” for Mythology and Archetypes in Frankenstein

Northrop Frye concedes in The Archetypes of Literature that his tables of archetypes are “not only elementary but grossly over-simplified” (1315), but these tables can still be of use in analyzing Shelley’s Frankenstein. One reason why Frye’s examples translate well to Shelley’s piece is that Frankenstein is conspicuously mythological. It is, consciously, a creation myth, a myth of the fall, and, in some ways, “the return of chaos.” The novel also embodies some of what Frye refers to as the “central pattern” of tragic visions.

The early portions of Victor’s narrative are not necessarily defined by season, but they certainly have a spring-like quality—what Frye refers to as “the birth phase.” Frankenstein was born to a noble father (the father is often a subordinate character in these ‘spring’ myths according to Frye) and enjoyed a somewhat idyllic youth. But the birth phase is not consummated in what Frye refers to as “zenith” or “triumph phase,” because the marriage to the would-be archetypical bride is delayed by Victor’s education.

During this education, the novel takes on the form of the “autumn and death phase” (1312). This is “the archetype of tragedy” in which we see Victor confined to his laboratory/apartment—the “isolation of the hero” (perhaps the antihero?).

Finally, the text seems to arrive at the “winter and dissolution phase” characterized by the archetype of “the ogre.” It is no surprise that we see Victor’s demise in frigid and wintry terrain. This area of the novel represents both the fifth pattern of tragic vision, the flood myth set at sea (Victor’s death is on a boat), and the fourth, set in a desert of sorts—sometimes characterized by “sinister geometrical images,” which makes the Norton version’s choice of cover art all the more interesting.

Just as Frye says his examples may be oversimplified, this is a rather simplistic view of the novel. It fits nicely in many ways, but the text is far too complex to be so easily adorned in archetypes. How does Frankenstein conflict, or, as often is the case in the novel, subvert the conventional archetypes? Does the texts skillful misuse or, again, subversion of archetypes complicate the way we think about the novel?

"Look at me: I am like you."

Ronald Barthes presents in his excerpt from Mythologies an essay entitled “Photography and Electoral Appeal,” in which he outlines the idea that through photography, a political candidate is able to connect with the masses, to show them that ultimately, they are the one in the same. This idea, of electoral photography, allows a candidate to illustrate the sameness between himself or herself and the voting public, to declare “ ‘Look at me: I am like you.’” It is this idea that interests me; the idea of looking into another person for some sort of inherent commonality, a sense of sameness between yourself and the person or character that you are examining. In this week of Structuralism, where we are urged to look at the language of the text, I would like to explore how Shelley’s language creates an image of Dr. Frankenstein, and in turn, how this image functions in terms of a photograph of a man, a man who as a reader, we are encouraged to relate to. In examining Frankenstein, can it be said that there is a sense that a common ground can be assumed with this man or do we, as readers, shy away from him because of the extremity of his behavior? Similarly, is it the idea that at some points in the novel, readers are able to relate to Frankenstein that makes people so uncomfortable with the work, because of how inhumane Frankenstein becomes? Underneath all the intricacies of the plot, though, isn’t Frankenstein a man like any other, a man who has been a bit greedy, pushed his limits, and now must come to terms with the consequences of his actions? Is this not an idea that is completely relatable to all humans?

Shelley writes Dr. Frankenstein in a manner that the reader is able to paint a perfect portrait of him while reading. Victor is described as a typical man, nothing particularly interesting about him, except his obsession with learning. By having Victor be such a normal looking man, it allows for him to become a relatable character, a man who the reader can easily create an image of, and in turn, relate to. I guess this is the main idea I am attempting to convey in this post; does Shelley intentionally write a common character, whose desires have spun a bit out of control in order for the reader to look at him and say “I am like him?” Is that the reason for the portrait of Frankenstein we receive from Shelley, so that a reader can relate to him, and in turn, look to themselves to see their own faults? Is Shelley making a commentary on humanity in general, through her portrait of Frankenstein as a sort of universal character, depicting that every human has a little bit of Frankenstein in them, and wants to push the limits as far as they possibly can to achieve their own personal goals? I sure think so.

The Birth of the Scriptor - the Death of the Artist?

I've mentioned a few time that when reading and interpreting a novel, typically I prefer not to think about the specific author. So I was excited to read an essay titled The Death of the Author. I share Barthes' objection to the idea that a "true" reading of a text depends on the discovery of its author: "When the Author has been found, the text is 'explained' - victory to the critic" (1325). This is definitely something that irks me.

But (much to my surprise) I'm finding that I have trouble with criticism that totally denies the author. Barthes says that "the scriptor no longer bares within him passions, humours, feelings, impressions, but rather this immense dictionary from which he draws a writing that can know no halt: life never does more than imitate the book, and the book itself is only a tissue of signs, an initiation that is lost, infinitely deferred" (1325). Now, I can put aside consideration of the specific author (Shelley, for example). But how can we deny that a text springs forth from human "passions, feelings, impressions" etc.

Barthes would say that the "feelings" that are being "expressed" are not feelings at all, but something else: "Did he wish to express himself, he ought at least to know that the inner 'thing' he thinks to 'translate' is itself only a ready-formed dictionary" (1324). This seems like a much too literal take on the idea that "we can't get out of language" that we've referred to in class. Perhaps I'm just not comfortable with the idea that my thoughts and feelings are actually "dictionaries."

If I have a question for this week, it would be this: In the effort to make the study of literature scientific, do we get away from the fact that literature is artistic human expression? Barthes says that literature "would be better from now on [called] writing" (1325). As critics of art, are we comfortable with this?

Incidentally, I found myself relating well to Frye. Though the Norton introduction to Frye tells us that he "insists that literature is an 'autonomous verbal structure' quite cut off from any reference beyond itself" (1302), the existence of archetypes suggests to me the existence of Jung's collective unconscious, in which case we can ignore the specific author, but we can still note that the text reflects our collective human dreams, desires, emotions, etc.

Perhaps Frye is not concerned with the origins of archetypes, but his acknowledgment of their existence in literature as in myth and ritual prevent us from making the (I believe) false observation that a work of literature exists in a vacuum.

Dan

The Orphaned Text: Seminar paper for 10/27

Hello all,

My seminar paper for this week is over on Blackboard.

See you Wednesday.

Chris

The Power of Language

When Claude Levi-Strauss ventured into the Amazon and encountered the Nambikwara tribe, he commented on how the tribe leader pretended to know writing. He stated “I could not help admiring their chief’s genius in instantly recognizing that writing could increase his authority, thus grasping the basis of the institution without knowing how to use it.” (1283) He went on further to explain that language, in itself, is a tool of power. Civilizations that possess it are able, he believes, to use it as “artificial memory” and store their past while moving forward to a more concrete, informed future.

Levi-Strauss also states that “the primary function of written communication is to facilitate slavery.” (1282) “The fight against illiteracy is therefore connected with an increase in governmental authority over the citizens. Everyone must be able to read, so that the government can say: Ignorance of the law is no excuse.” (1283) Although I agree with him that writing has been used to facilitate slavery, I do not believe that the possession of it is what enables that slavery. If we look at slavery in the Americas we can see that it was illiteracy that allowed slave owners to hold power over the enslaved and that the threat of literacy is what possessed the slave owners to avoid teaching reading and writing at all costs. Today this idea still holds true, as the lack of information is what allows people of power to make decisions without the interference of a complacent public. As Thomas Jefferson said, "Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.”

Aside from this disagreement in theory, however, Levi-Strauss made one strong point that is in agreement with Ferdinand De Saussure: Writing is a tool that enables us to communicate and translate the world and events which surround us. What Saussure sought to do, however, was analyze exactly how this tool works and through analysis create a science out of language, which he called “semiology.” “Semiology would show what constitutes signs, what laws govern them.” (Saussure 851) The people of Levi-Strauss’s Nambikwara tribe, along with vast amounts of other civilizations, acknowledged what Saussure was trying to distinguish in his teachings: that writing and “sound-images” are used to make tangible the world around us.

This course has been focusing on the theories that are attached to literature, however, yet none have addressed until this week’s readings the actual science of language and literature. All of our studies are focused around the application of language in either a creative or theoretical form, yet we have yet to determine how this tool is actually used to communicate ideas. Referring back to our studies of psychoanalysis and formalism, this week’s readings break down further how language is applied and try to create scientific systems to interpret exactly how we use language, not only in just Saussure’s ideas of linguistics, but also in Northrop Frye’s analysis of how archetypes have been used throughout the ages to communicate ongoing themes of human concerns. Roland Barthes work focuses more on a formalist perspective of allowing the text to communicate to the reader what it will, regardless of authorial influence.

How do these readings translate into Frankenstein? There are different angles we can take to look at how these different theories apply to the text. The easiest and probably most obvious is looking for archetypes within Shelley’s writing. Here is a simple website that provides a list of common archetypes: http://www.listology.com/list/character-archetypes . I think it would be fun to see if any of these apply to Frankenstein while also taking into consideration the statements on behalf of Frye in part III of his work on page 1310.

Another question I would propose is how did the Creature use language to affirm the world around him?

I am co-facilitating this week and I look forward to what we may come up with. See you Wednesday.

How should I read?

Eichenbaum's "defamiliarization" deals with noticing only what is out of the ordinary, in order to freshen and renew readers' perceptions (923). This privileges certain literary works that make "the familiar strange" (923). Wimsatt and Beardsley want literary theorists to ignore the author's intention when judging a literary work, leaving the text as its own authority. Iser discusses how texts are constructed through a person's reading process according to that individual. Texts are actively constructed by the individual. Fish focuses on the experience of the reader in their encounter with the text.

Ignoring for the moment that Mary Shelley was... Mary Shelley. Ignoring the historical context and the time it was written in, the person who wrote it and the occasion for the writing... where do we as readers stop? If I'm only to analyze the text, how do I know what to include and disregard? Shelley leaves readers a lot of clues as to how the novel should be read, how readers should read. Do I disregard that as it falls under the heading, "author's intentions" or do I keep it because it's in the text?

The monster begins to read, and funny enough, in the style that Iser encourages. The monster "applied much personally to my own feelings and condition" (86). He compares himself to the character, finding himself "similar, yet at the same time strangely unlike the beings concerning whom I read" (86). The monster learns "high thoughts" and how to "admire and love the heroes of past ages" from Plutarch, yet admits that "many things" he read "surpassed...understanding and experience" (86). If we are to apply Fish to the monster-reader, the monster's encounter with the text is one of confusion. Although he was "perfectly unacquainted" with many of the topics he comes across, he still feels "ardour for virtue" and an "abhorrence for vice," allowing them to "take a firm hold on [his] mind" (87). What are we readers, separated from the monster-reader, to take away from this moment? Is this Shelley suggesting tips to potential readers? Her advice on 'what to do when you don't quite understand a text'? If so, she tells us to understand it in our own way, like Iser implies, even if it is inapplicable to us. Even if we encounter things "that surpass our understanding and experience"? I should make assumptions and attempt to draw... something... from the text?

This sounds like terrible advice.

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In “The Theory of the “Formal Method” Eichenbaum advocates a factual scientific approach to literature. To the Formalists, theory acts as a working hypothesis to discover facts and test their validity in a trial-error method, similar to the empirical nature of science. Formalists tend to neglect the socio-aesthetic aspects of literary work and or only concerned with the literariness of a text. Ignoring the content of a work, they study techniques, artistic form, and the phenomena of language. These they treat as independent from content and meaning. For instance, formalists consider that poetic devices such as rhyme, meter, and alliteration do not only enforce the theme of a poem, but have their own autonomous, self-determining, and genuine meaning. Form, in the same sense, does not merely function as a frame or container for content, but also functions as a dynamic entity. Therefore, formalists focus on the historical sense and significance of form. Eichenbaum’s study is very influential as it fore-grounds the Formalist theory by tracing its evolution and influences.
Applying the Formalist approach to Frankenstein, we cannot deny the function of the form in enforcing the meaning of the story; however the question is if it can stand on its own regardless of the content. The narration structure is very complicated as it passes from Walton to Victor to the Creature- whose story is a segment of Victor’s story which is framed by Walton’s overall narration. There are also much smaller stories, the story of Justine that is narrated by Elizabeth in a letter to Victor, as well as the story of the cottagers that the Creature narrates. We must not also neglect that the novel is epistolary- taking the form of letters that Walton writes to his sister Mrs. Saville. The function of Walton’s narration I believe is an attempt from Mary Shelley to distance herself from the story, so that no one thinks that there are any personal connections or similarities between her and Victor if the story was only told from his viewpoint-so as not to be mistaken with the writer’s viewpoint. Walton’s perspective helps us see Victor and the Creature from an objective perspective that offers some kind of sympathy to them both. Walton’s narration also serves as a dual plot device that allows for gaps in Frankenstein’s story, such as that of the actual and detailed biological creation of the beast, by asking Frankenstein the questions we as readers might have in mind, whereas Frankenstein dismisses these details for their horror and for fear that another monster may be created. The other function is filling the gaps that Frankenstein cannot, like the descriptions of his charisma that makes Walton want to befriend him, thus making him more humane and appealing to us. I noticed in most movie adaptations of Frankestein Walton’s narration is omitted, which I think makes Frankestien a static character- rather than a full dimensional one, who is the basis of the stereotype of the mad scientist. Breifly discussing the form of Frankestein, I believe that it is plausible to study only the form of this novel, a whole book can be written about the form alone, but still I am skeptic about separating it from content as I believe they go hand in hand. After all, what is a frame without a picture?

Wimsatt and Beardsley in “Intentional Fallacy” and “Affective Fallacy” share a formalist view of literature by undermining the role of the author as well as that of the reader in reading a literary work. They claim that an author’s intention is not important and that his or her work is no longer in their realm them as it becomes a public utterance. Wimsatt and Beardsley also believe that the focus of a literary work should be internal evidence rather than external. Therefore, the author’s biography tends to lead away from the work, thus impairing our understanding. I strongly disagree with this claim as I believe that the author’s intent rather augments our understanding of his or her work. For instance, I remember a long time ago reading a surrealist poem by Hugh Davies, which I couldn’t grasp until I read about the Surrealist movement and their methods in writing poetry that uses language in unconventional ways.
Wimsatt and Beardsley also dismiss judging a work based on its emotional impact on the reader, and between what a work is and what it does. I get the impression that, like jurors in a courthouse, we are not to allow our feelings impair our judgment. Yet that is not the case, and many literary classics survive the passing of time because of their emotional appeal and their implications in life. The Greek tragedies aimed to move their viewers into catharsis- a purgation of feeling- by stirring in them the deepest emotions that still has the same effect on modern readers.
Mary Shelley also appealed to her readers emotions: she declares in her introduction “what terrified me will terrify others” (172). Yet her intent was not what made Frankestein a success , it was the effect it had on the genteel Victorian sensibilities. Although the appeal to affections is not a basic pillar of literary works, yet it is what leads readers to appreciate a certain work.
It seems to me that Stanley Fish would go up against Wimsatt and Beardsley’s affective fallacy, yet he is similar to them in disregarding the role of the author. Fish’s “Interpreting the Variorum” is a reaction against the formalist notion of an autonomous self-contained text. He supports a subjective reading of a text rather than an objective one. He argues that meaning exists, not in the text, but rather in the reader and the interpretive community. The interpretive community encourages a collective reading of a text in which knowledge for the individual is socially conditioned. According to Fish everything a person knows is determined by the social context he lives in. The author of a work is also socially conditioned his time, belonging to a world different than the reader. Therefore, a reader’s interpretation of a work clashes with the intent of the author, who must be taken out of the interaction.
For example, a reading of Frankenstein in today’s culture would not have the impact it had at the time it was written. I doubt that it will strike fear and woe in the readers of today, where the idea of vampires, zombies, werewolves, and other supernatural creatures have infiltrated culture. Add to that the fact that Frankenstein’s monster has been the object of parody, comedy, and satire. To tell the truth, whenever I think of the creature, the popular image of a green –skinned monster with green skin (although he really has yellow skin) and two bolts on the sides of his forehead is what comes to my mind. I wonder if anyone else is fixated on that image.

Hi, everyone!

I hope you are all ready for a great discussion about formalism and reader-response theory tomorrow evening.

My paper is posted on Blackboard's discussion thread.

See you soon!

ezt

Shelley's Brilliant Blanks

Frankenstein, for all of its wonderful images, leaves perhaps the most important illustration—at least, I would propose, it is the one the reader craves most—hidden from view: the image of the creature. She informs readers that Frankenstein’s creation is big, ugly, and has facial features (I vividly recall her description of the teeth and hair) that seem to be out of proportion, but what does this manifestation of human creation really look like? Why does Shelley choose to leave the monster—for the most part—blank?

There are more questions to ask on this subject. We’ve observed in class that Shelley does little to explain the actual science behind the creature’s creation. The answer, as far as we’ve casually supposed, is that Shelley wouldn’t have had the kind of scientific acumen necessary to describe the animation of such a creature. But there might be something larger at work here—a method to this conspicuous use of absence.

In “Interaction Between Text and Reader,” Wolfgang Iser says that such gaps in a text are “what stimulates the reader into filling the blanks with projections.” This is not a practice unique to Frankenstein; Iser’s text seems to indicate that these blanks are “the guiding devices operative in the reading process” (1526). Yet, there is no denying that the gaps in Frankenstein seem particularly blatant: the book is about creating a monster, but readers get no depiction of the actual act of creation, and only a meager drawing of the monster.

Iser’s piece left me appreciating the brilliance of Shelley’s move. What does the reader know about the monster’s assembly and animation? We are told the process involves scientific equipment and parts and pieces taken from dead bodies; a rather grotesque stock that the reader can incorporate in any number of ways into his or her “projections.” Likewise, Shelley gives just enough information about the monster’s appearance so that the rest “comes to life in the reader’s imagination” (1527). The act of animation and the presence of a monster are so unique that any attempt to bring them to life with words could fall short of expectations and leave the whole novel in peril. Instead, Shelley lets the reader’s imagination create its own horrible designs.

What are some other noticeable blanks in Frankenstein? Is Victor left rather blank? How does the rather thorough portrayal of the characters’ psychologies impact, if at all, the work performed by our imagination to compensate for a lack of physical descriptions?

Similarities in Formalism and Marxism

In Eichenbaum’s essay, he quotes Sklovsky’s Theory of Prose saying “The work of art arises from a background of other works and through association with them. The form of a work of art is defined by its relation to other works of art?” (937). How is this similar to Harold’ Blooms claim in The Anxiety of Influence that all poems are derivative of previous poems?

Eichenbaum quotes Shklovsky again claiming that “in each literary epoch there is not one literary school, but several. They exist simultaneously, with one of them representing the high point of the current orthodoxy. The others exist uncanonized. (948). How does this relate to the Marxist ideas of dominant and emergent culture? How is this related to Deleuze and Guattari’s conepts of minor literatures?

How does the shifting narrative voices in Frankenstein moderate the relationship between the reader and the text? Is Victor’s narrative fundamentally a different relationship with the reader than the narrative of the monster? Why is it framed by a narrative of the captain?

If a reader “puts into execution a different set of interpretive strategies” leading to a “different succession of interpretive acts” (1989), how can any reader agree on the interpretation of a reading?

The Invisible Author

Hello all,

My (rather long, I apologize) post is over on Blackboard. However, while mulling over this week's theorists I found a recent column of Stanley Fish's in the New York Times, "Literary Criticism Comes to the Movies," which discusses the upcoming movie Howl. So, if you have it in you, try a little more Stanley Fish to unwind. (A "Paradise Lost" movie... It's good stuff, I swear.)

See you in class.

Chris

Intentional Food for Thought

This week’s readings focus on the idea of intentions in literature and if it is ever possible to understand exactly what an author intended by his or her work without allowing personal interpretations to come into play. To do so, the reader would have to approach a text with a completely clear mind, free of any preconceived notions concerning the work and without the influence of societal constructs. Needless to say, this would be impossible.

In discussing Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein the idea of intentions is ever present. In my readings of this week’s selections, I came up with two different ways that intentions can be viewed in relation to Frankenstein. The first, which we have previously discussed in class, and I’m positive will discuss further on Wednesday, is the intention of Mary Shelley. What intentions are depicted in the two, very different, prefaces. Being that Percy Shelley did not write the actual work, but wrote the preface that was originally published, does this skewed declaration of intention forge a disconnect between the preface and the work itself? Similarly, in comparing the two different preferences, does it then become obvious who is the truth author of the work based on the intentions stated?

The second notion that came to mind, and the one I wish to explore further, stems from Wimsatt and Beardsley’s “The Intentional Fallacy” in which it is stated that “Intention is design or plan in the author’s mind. Intention has obvious affinities for the author’s attitude towards his work, the way he felt, what made him write” (1233). Let us, for the sake of this argument, view Frankenstein as the as the author, with his creation as his written work. In this case, then, how can the intentions of Frankenstein be viewed in relation to his creation? Upon taking up this task, what were his actual intentions? Was it simply that he was eager to learn as much as he could and apply this new knowledge through experimentation? Was it a less noble notion, like the ideas often discussed, that Frankenstein wanted to play the role of God? In understanding Frankenstein’s intentions, one could possibly begin to understand the way he interacts with his work.

The interaction of an author with their text is something that is familiar to all of us. Upon completion of a creation, there is always either a sense of pride in what is produced, or a feeling that there is room for improvement. To an author, this is something that is absolutely normal. Similarly, in the event that the work produced is simply average, it is not odd for an author to completely abandon the original, and attempt to start over. I say this all to say, if we view Frankenstein as an author, can’t his reaction simply be considered a normal response of an author to his work? Could the way he reacts simply be because he is disappointed that his work did not live up to the standards that he has set for himself, that he was not able to properly manifest his intentions?

Of course, this is all dependent on his actual intentions and since we will never be able to know what these intentions actually are, I guess we are just left to ponder these ideas. Food for thought, nonetheless.

Form, Content, and the Bloomian process of Misprision

After reading Boris Eichenbaum's From The Theory of the "Formal Method," I couldn't help but perceive a connection between the formalist concern with literary history, and Harold Bloom's interest in how poem begets poem. Eichenbaum tells us that after the publication of Shklovsky's essay, "we found that we could not see the literary work in isolation, that we had to see its form against a background of other works rather than by itself" (973).

Eichenbaum also informs us that Shklovsky says that "the more you understand an age, the more convinced you become that the images a given poet used and which you thought his own were taken almost unchanged from another poet ... poets are much more concerned with arranging images than creating them" (933). In other words, there is no such thing as new content, just new form. What would Bloom have to say about this? If "every poem is a misinterpretation of a parent poem" (1658), could we say that the Bloomian process of misprision is simply a reorganization of form in order to express the same content as the precursor poem?

Dan

Reader as Interpreter of Form

Hey Everyone!

I posted my seminar paper on blackboard. After reading the works for this week, I was left with several questions, which I tried to come to terms with in my paper, but I'm still left wondering some things. Does our interpretation of Frankenstein change when we know it was written by a woman? Can we avoid the baggage that we come in with knowing when, in what country, and by whom a work is written? Sometimes, it seems impossible to avoid these associations, so in what way might they change our reading of a work? In some ways, I agree with the formalists that if some part of the historical background and historical context is meant to enhace the meaning of a work then it will make it's way into the work. But not every poem one reads says the year it was written, so does this affect our ability to make sense of certain works? Or is this not important at all?

Shelley's Intentions

From what I have gathered, this week's readings focus mainly on the subject of interpretation of a text and how that interpretation both attends to and skews the intentions of the author and the perspectives of the reader. When associated with last week's readings of methods of psychoanalysis as applied to literature, this week's assignment seems to focus on how valid those interpretations can be made and if they do the literature in which they are focusing any justice.
Boris Eichenbaum in "The Theory of the 'Formal Method'" explains how the formalists wanted to split away from Symbolism and focus on the physical structuring and the composition of the literary piece in question. He states "Before the appearance of the Formalists, academic research...made use of antiquated aesthetic, psychological, and historical 'axioms' and had so lost sight of its proper subject that its very existence as a science had become illusory." (927) Much like what Wimsatt and Beardsley address in "The Intentional Fallacy" and "The Affective Fallacy", the Formalists believed that the construction of the literature itself was getting replaced by theorists' focus on what the text symbolized and not the literary structure itself. In order to create a more correct scientific observation of literature, the Formalists wanted to develop a system that took into consideration every aspect of the literary piece, from the composition of a sentence to the specific word's application and the linguistic nature of the entire work.
Like the Formalists, Wimsatt and Beardsley wanted to create a purer view of literature by removing any element of outside influence and focusing on the creative work itself. According to the Norton Anthology, they believed " if information about the author or period is relevant, it will be in the poem; if it is not realized in the poem already, then it is not relevant." (1231) In "The Intentional Fallacy" they state "The poem is not the critic's own and not the author's (it is detached from the author at birth and goes about the world beyond his power to intend about it or control it). The poem belongs to the public." (1234) In "The Affective Fallacy" they lend the same mode of thought to how people on the outside will interpret the poem. Because of emotional influence, depending on who is reading it, the poem's meaning will always be interpreted in relation to the reader and their experiences and because of that, the poem's true meaning will never be realized.
Contrary to this school of thought, Stanley Fish in "Interpreting the Variorum" believes "it is the structure of the reader's experience rather than any structures available on the page that should be the object of description." (1978) Wolfgang Iser follows in this same school of thought and takes it a step further when he describes the reader-text relationship. Iser believes that it is up to the author to control the text and by doing so, the reader will be guided by the text to come to a conclusion similar to the meaning the author was trying to communicate in the first place.
What all of these theorists agree upon, however, is that there can never be a true interpretation of any text because we are all subject to outside influence. However, people can try to come to conclusions which may heighten our understanding of the literature involved.
How does this apply to Frankenstein? Frankenstein being a work subject to multitudes of criticisms and dissections falls victim to everything that these theorists are arguing against and for. I don't think that any literary work of the magnitude of Frankenstein, when taking into consideration not just the idea (or assumed ideas) the novel conveys but also the life and background of the author, would be exempt from this type of criticism.
Against the ideas of the formalists, Frankenstein has had almost every mode of theory and historicity applied to it. From Gilbert and Gubar applying feminine emotional trauma to it and Spivak talking about it in the scope of English imperialism. To look at it from a formalist standpoint, however, I feel that a lot of what makes the novel what it is and such a topic of conversation would be to limit it to only a monster story with a lot of unneeded details. The formalist method would strip its magic away and not do justice to the intelligence that it took to create such a novel. Similarly, in applying Wimsatt and Beardsley's method to the novel, I think that all of the details mentioned within the story would lead the reader to want to delve deeper into the history and modes of thinking of the time to gain a wider perspective on what Shelley was talking about. If we didn't go outside of the text then all of Shelley's efforts to apply intertextuality to the story would be lost. I would say it was her intention that by citing other works in the story she wanted her readers to see how those works applied to her own.
If we want to talk about communicating a message, I believe that we could apply Iser's standpoint on the reader-text relationship and say that Mary Shelley communicated her views rightly because all of the detail involved in the story brings the reading audience to question human desire and the world in which we all exist.

So Frankenstein and God had a Child...

I’m sorry this is late! L I’ve been a bit under the weather and when I sat down to post yesterday it was clearly evident that I would get nothing done. Anyway…Here’s my post.

Freud argues, in his “The Interpretation of Dreams”, that “The attempt to harmonize divine omnipotence with human responsibility must naturally fail” (817). I cannot help but use this quote as a springboard of my analysis of Dr. Frankenstein in accordance with Freud’s principles. Frankenstein ultimately personifies this statement, in that, his attempts to produce a being out of the parts of corpses, is his way of taking the power of the divine and filtering it through his own human abilities. Needless to say, his experiment does not prove successful. The product of his experiment, however, is arguably a functioning being, and in this, develops a certain longing for companionship and the acceptance of those around him, especially Frankenstein. In creating him, Frankenstein forges a paternal relationship with his offspring, even if he tries to deny it. However, such bonds are nearly impossible to break, and although Frankenstein attempts to deny this lineage, he is undoubtedly the father of his creation. Furthermore, being that in creating his off spring in his own image, Frankenstein is also taking on the role of the heavenly father, ultimately functioning as both the father and the divine power ruling over the creature. According to Freud, men have a natural desire to detest their fathers, and in turn, kill them. The same, he argues, is to be said of the “primal father” or God. Therefore, in the world of Freud, it is impossible for the creature, let’s call him the son, to not want to kill his father, Frankenstein, or his primal father, arguably also Frankenstein.

But why is it that there is so much animosity towards Frankenstein, as both father and primal father? In reading Freud, and this awesome article I found entitled “The Symbolism of the Father- A Freudian Sociological Analysis” by Robert J. Bocock, I have gathered that in a situation where there is no mother present, the son will want to kill the father anyway, being that he upholds these morals of society, whether they be social, religious, or both, that preach strict code of repressing sexuality. There is also an inherent disliking of the primal or heavenly father in that he is the one who established these rules, and these constraints which inhibit sexuality. In following the primal father’s example, the father becomes just as bad, in that they both impede on the son’s ability to be sexually fulfilled which results in his aggression towards his father. Therefore, in destroying the female creature, which would be the male creature’s sexual outlet, Frankenstein is upholding this code, and assuring that the creature functions according to the proper rules of society. The creature is unable to have a sexual outlet, and is denied by Frankenstein, his biological/primal father, a way to ever express himself sexually. Thus, it is this repressed sexuality, according to Freud, even if there is no actual mother figure to direct the desires to, that enrages the creature, and causes him to kill his maker, showing that the role of Frankenstein as the father figure, the creator and enforcer of social regulations, in accordance with Freud’s work, is ultimately doomed.

That was fun! See you in class! J

So Oedipus, Freud and the Monster enter a bar...

Delving into Frankenstein equipped with a Freudian panoply yields the exhumation of an impressive array of conflicting, though equally elucidating, critical artifacts. Considering Frankenstein when reading the excerpt from Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams and “The ‘Uncanny’”, I was struck with an (uncanny) sensation that Shelley’s text deliberately conflates what would be espoused by Freud’s writing nearly a century later.

The Monster’s narrative seems to provide fertile ground for Freud’s theories. To begin with, Frank’s Monster, in his state of obliviousness preceding his vicarious educational experiences, may be conceived as a breed of character vastly different from King Oedipus. Freud explains how Oedipus “shows us the fulfillment of our own childhood wishes”, but the Monster does not avail us (or Frankenstein) with like satisfaction of such vicarious fulfillment and punishment (816). The Monster laments that “No father had watched my infant days, no mother had blessed me with smiles and caresses” (81). While Freud understands the character of Oedipus as a projection of inherent and universal psychosexual drives and through the opportunity his experience provides us to displace or “detach our sexual impulses”, the Monster’s early narrative emphasizes an anxiety inconceivable in its estrangement from the familiar psychosexual anxiety Freud understands as universal. The Monster lacks a genuine mother through which any incestuous actions can be consummated; he lacks a genuine father to supersede. As the ‘production’ of a creator that need not necessarily be affiliated with either gender, the Monster asks “What was I?”, but without the universal desires and anxieties to repress, to transfer or displace, or (unknowingly, as in the case of Oedipus) actualize, what type of answer can a Freudian reading provide?

The Monster pines away, qualifying in a statement his early condition as “a blind vacancy in which I distinguished nothing” (81). Further qualifying the impotence and indistinguishableness of his origin and resultant existence, the Monster complains that “all my past life was now a blot” (81). The convoluted tense of this description and the ambivalence of the word ‘blot’ can be understood in terms of the Monster’s unique position. ‘Blot’ as an indistinguishable mark can refer to the Monster’s unique state in one way, while ‘blot’ as an erasure may yield another understanding. Either way, the choice of the word should be understood as peculiar and particular as a decision made by bibliophile like Shelley. In this statement there could be detected the possibility of an inversion of the story of Oedipus and Freud’s notion of castration anxiety. In his discussion of the uncanny, Freud posits that “the fear of going blind, is often enough a substitute for the dread of being castrated” (831). Already blinded by his uncertain origins, and without the possible filial irony that plagues Oedipus, the Monster emerges in his inchoate consciousness as castrated; he has no reason to fear his nonexistent father or any desire for his nonexistent mother. The Monster, besides being created as already castrated – and only to be castrated subsequently (if that is possible) once he ‘transforms’ Frankenstein into his father - cannot affirm (unwittingly or no) what Freud sees as universal as it explains having never “seen a being resembling me, or who claimed any intercourse with me” (81).

Finally, the Monster’s statement that the question of his identity can “be answered only with groans” may be fruitful in the consideration of Freud’s ideas of the uncanny. Freud’s understands the uncanny in terms of infantile complexes being repressed and then revived and the surmounted primitive being confirmed (839). The answering “groan” to a question of identity resulting from the absence of psychosexual ‘universals’ in the Monster’s experience is significance to both of these distinctions and I think it can relate or help to substantiate what I see as a colonial discourse in Freud’s understanding and the Monster’s narrative.

Victor & Father & Freud

The book opens up Freud's "Interpretation of Dreams" with the Oedipus Complex. They start with,

In my experience, which is already extensive, the chief part in the mental lives of all children who later become psychoneurotics is played by their parents. Being in love with the one parent and hating the other are among the essential constituents of the stock of psychical impulses which is formed at that time and which is of such importance in determining the symptoms of the later neurosis.

Moments of love and hatred are always magnified to the child's mind (814). This theory makes sense, considering Victor's relationship with his father (or what he deems worthy enough to repeat to Walton). The fact that the first information Victor reveals about his father is the man's "honour and reputation...respected by all who knew him for his integrity and indefatigable attention to public business" (18). The first information we hear from Victor about Victor's relationship with his father, the first time the two communicate is when his father "looked carelessly" at Victor's book. The first thing the man says in the novel is, My dear Victor, do not waste your time upon this; it is sad trash" (21). Readers even get Victor's reaction... or his perception of his reaction, as we need to remember that he is recalling and retelling this to Walton. Victor doesn't take pains to hide his resentment towards his father: If, instead of this remark, my father had taken the pains to explain to me... under such circumstances, I should have thrown Agrippa asside... It is even possible, that the train of my ideas would never have received the fatal impulse that led to my ruin. But the cursory glance my father had taken of my volume by no means assured me that he was acquainted with its contents" (21-22). Victor believes that his father's glance didn't "assure" him that his father was knowledgable of the contents, but his resentment earlier in the paragraph resounds louder.

Applying Freud to the theory makes sense: early in Victor's experience of the scientific world, his father's reaction and facial expression is enough to make a lasting impression on Victor- so much so that he includes it in his retelling of his story. This was a feeling on a "magnified scale," most likely of hatred (as opposed to love), in response to his father.

The fact that this moment is included in Victor's account- that Shelley includes it, even- is remarkable.

It’s Psychoanalysis Week (or, oh boy, here we go)

There is much about this week’s readings that interests me, but the major problem I have with all of them is the heavily male-biased and patriarchal mindset of all these theorists. The need to fit women into the work of Freud and Lacan particularly, strikes me as something of an afterthought. Even children seem to possess more psychoanalytic validity than women. However, ironically, given that we’re also talking about Frankenstein, a male-centered novel written by a woman, maybe all this maleness actually works to our benefit.

To begin with Freud, I do find the discussion of the dream-work interesting in its discussion of the inequality between the dream thoughts and the dream content and the inability to draw 1:1 comparisons between the two. This idea that the conjunctions are missing: the if, and, because, although, either, that has to be filled in between ideas in the interpretive sequence is fascinating if only because it is something we do for ourselves, naturally, as we try to figure out meaning. It also works so nicely with Frankenstein because she claims the genesis of the story came from a dream. Not that she wrote exactly what she saw in the dream, but she interpreted it and filled in the gaps, trying to replicate not simply what the dream contained, but the feeling that the dream left her impressed upon her. This terrible sensation of fear. Of “what arouses dread and horror” (825) the birth of a man without a womb.

The very definition of unheimlich.

A man birthing a man, by hovering over a mishmash assemblage of parts. No wonder she was terrified.

So what would Freud make of this dream? What can you make of a castrated woman creating an anxiety-stricken man who runs from his bizarre creation? Is the anxiety simply an extreme case of unheimlich feelings stemming from an “intellectual uncertainty whether an object is alive or not?” (833)

Additionally, when Frankenstein sees his own image and is horrified, how would Lacan interpret his reaction? How do we interpret this aesthetic recognition of self, and what influences our reaction to it, especially if it is one of revulsion?

The Deleuze and Guattari excerpt on “minor literature” is another excerpt that is interesting with respect to Frankenstein. They write: “The three characteristics of minor literature are the deterritorialization of language, the connection of the individual to a political immediacy, and the collective assemblage of enunciation.” (1453) In Frankenstein, I think we see all of these at play in some respect, given that the monster is an outsider separated from society. He learns language, but can’t speak to anyone, so in effect, language becomes a frustration to him as it does not prove to be a viable means of communication. There is a political immediacy to him, given that he lives as a fugitive on both the social and legal levels, and he is outside any collective, having no one like him and being unable to form a social connection with anyone other than Victor, who he has a strange hunter to hunted/pursuer to pursued (working in both directions) relationship. So this creates the story of someone outside society, trying to connect and tell his story, while the author represents the same construct as well, being a woman living in the society of men. Shelley writes in her Introduction (1938), “Many and long were the conversations between Lord Byron and Shelley, to which I was a devout but nearly silent listener.” Thus she presents herself as being outside the circle of men, writing her own story of femininity and childbirth from within the context of a male-dominated environment, and she does so using the methodology that they have given each other, which is not of her own construction: the ghost story.

I love this idea, I suppose, because I like to revise the strictly feminist reading of this text as one of repression and explanation into something more assertive, perhaps more egalitarian and less explanatory, as in what if Mary Shelley is not so much trying to compete with men on their terms, but drag men into hers, which, unfortunately is one of birth and death all rolled into one.

See everyone in class.

Bettelheim and Animistic Animation

I can’t help thinking about an essay I read some time ago by Bruno Bettelheim titled, The Child’s Need for Magic. Many of the concepts seem to be relevant to our readings this week. If anyone cares to read it, here is the link: http://tinyurl.com/23mxw59

I found Freud’s passages about animated parts especially relevant to Frankenstein. In his description of Hauff’s fairy tales he describes, “a severed head, a hand cut off at the wrist...feet which dance by themselves” (835). These concepts feel very familiar, but it does not seem that Shelly could have been influenced by them as Hauff was born in 1802. Can we assume that Shelly may have played a direct impact on these tales, or did they live, via folklore, before having been written down?

Would it be feasible to say that Victor may have been attempting to live out an unresolved childhood impulse by making the inanimate, animated? This theory may seem slightly literal, but I mean it in the childlike “animistic” sense. Though Victor’s family was extremely loving and altruistic, we can assume that plenty of psychological baggage remained (mother’s death, in love with “cousin”) in his young adulthood. Wouldn't it make sense, then, that Victor’s obsession with animating the inanimate would be some kind of an attempt for him to deal with these unresolved family conflicts? Could these “uncanny” feelings that Victor had have led him to, as Freud quotes from Jentsch, “doubt(s) whether an apparently animated being is really alive; or conversely, whether a lifeless object might not be in fact animate” (828). Were his perceptions somehow stunted, leaving him in a childlike state of animistic awe?

Dream Analysis and Victor's Morbid Nightmare

Frankenstein’s horrifying dream in chapter IV of Mary Shelley’s novel struck me for its curious similarity to J. Robert Oppenheimer’s quotation of the Bhagavad Gita following the successful test of the atomic bomb: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” Oppenheimer’s remark signifies that he fully realized, and foreshadowed, the destructive force of his creation after seeing it function—Frankenstein’s dream operates in the same way; after catching a glimpse of the monster, Victor, through the act of dreaming, sees himself as the “destroyer” of his loved ones. I mentioned this Frankenstein/Oppenheimer metaphor in SciFi class, but did not have the benefit of Freud’s analysis to fully unpack the dream.

Victor’s dream consists of three elements: First, the appearance of Elizabeth, who was “in the bloom of health walking in the streets of Inglostadt.” This is followed by an embrace and kiss, and this kiss leads directly to the third portion: Elizabeth transforms into the “grave-worm” infested corpse of Victor’s mother (34).

Freud tells us that “[t]he alternative ‘either—or’ cannot be expressed in dreams in any way whatever” (823). Let’s leave aside the oedipal aspects of both the dream and the nature of Victor’s relationship to Elizabeth, and focus strictly on how the dream-work handles the dream-thoughts. Frankenstein’s pursuit of “infusing life into an inanimate body” (34) was partially grounded in an earlier wish to bring the dead back to life. He abandons the latter, but the former seems almost like a precursor: as if one must—in biblical and Miltonic order—first master creation before attempting resurrection. So his rooted desires could, potentially, be twofold: he wants to attain Elizabeth’s affection and bring his mother back from the dead.

After witnessing the monstrosity that is his own creation, Frankenstein’s mind is full of questions: I have created life or I have created a monster? The monster is horrible or I am horrible for creating the monster? My failure has jeopardized Elizabeth’s safety and destroyed my chances for resurrecting my mother?

A seemingly limitless number of questions can be invented, but the point is that the dream, like Freud says, “show[s] a particular preference for combining contraries into a unity or for representing them as one and the same thing” (824). So that in the dream Frankenstein is both a monster, but not horrible: his kiss turns Elizabeth to death (monstrous), but his intentions are affectionate.

Dreams also merge “whole material into a single situation or event” (822). The question of Elizabeth’s welfare and inducing resurrection warps into the kiss that turns Elizabeth into Victor’s dead mother. We’ve reached a jumping off point for another discussion; but I will stop here and just leave the rest in question form.

Freud says that “whenever [dreams] show us two elements close together, this guarantees that there is some specially intimate connection between what correspond to them among the dream-thoughts” (822). What kind of conclusions can we draw about the way Victor connects his mother and Elizabeth in the dream? Do they have to be predictably Oedipal?

Shelley as a Precursor Psychoanalytic Theory

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Mary Shelley predicts the development of psychoanalytic criticism creating in Victor’s monster an ideal platform to demonstrate the methods of the theoretic approach. The discourse of psychoanalytic theory has evolved into a pervasive system at the foundation of multiple critical disciplines. While Freud outlines a system intended for the analysis of the dream world, his system also serves as the dialogue for approaching criticism of literary works. Literature is language. But language is amorphous, a system based on arbitrary representation of concepts defined by and greed upon by the users of the system of language. Thus to enter a dialogue on literature is to enter a dialogue on language itself. The fictional realities constructed by authors are a fantastical reality, a dream world invented by authors with language. But a dream world cannot be consumed literally. A dream world requires interpretation to correctly assess the information contained within it. Freud argues that literal meaning exists in opposition to the actual meaning and attempting “to read these characters according to their pictorial value instead of according to their symbolic relation” would lead inevitably to error (Freud 819). Thus approaching a text from a literal standpoint will inevitably lead the reader astray. If a “dream is a picture-puzzle,” than literature is a puzzle constructed of linguistic signs (Freud 819). The signs of a literary text are misleading and comprehending the meaning requires interpretation because “meaning is always in some sense an approximation, a near miss, a part-failure, mixing non-sense and non-communication into sense and dialogue” because language is fundamentally a subjective system (Eeagleton 147). Literary criticism is an attempt to extract the true meaning from the series of symbols of a text.

Frankenstein’s monster encounters the same difficulties faced by readers: assimilating the system of language. Language is not innate. The crisis the monster faces arises because he is not privy to the system of language. The monster evolves much like a child beginning first in a state without language and then conforming to the system in order to participate in it. Such is the fundamental component of any discourse; “language and its structure exist prior to the moment at which each subject at a certain point in his mental development makes his entry into it” (Lacan 1169). That is, the participation in language requires participation in and acceptance of an existing system. Lacan serves as an extension to Freud’s construction; not only does the dream world – the fictional reality of a literary work – require interpretation, but that interpretation is dependent on participation in language, a system that can itself be misleading. As a result of the ambiguities of language, “there are no interpretations but only misinterpretations” (Bloom 1658).

The monster of Shelley’s Frankenstein serves to demonstrate these theories in action. The monster begins in a child like state, discovers the importance of language, and then uses his knowledge of language to construct his perception of reality. However, the reality the monster comes to perceive is a fictional one, even within in the limits of the fictional world created by Shelley. The monster’s perception of the world is the result of misinterpreting literature. The monster comes to understand reality but it is a fictional construction of reality based on a false interpretation.

Both Freud and Lacan begin their arguments with childhood development. Victor’s monster too endures a childhood like experience that ultimately sets the stage for his for his ascent into the broader societal context: language. While the monster advances at a much faster pace than a normal child would, he nevertheless evolves over time exhibiting the stages of maturation. The monster at first begins to “distinguish [his] sensations from each other” (Shelley 68). Much as a child begins to gain a sense of his surroundings, the monster grows aware of his environment and his power over that environment. The monster too plays with fire, thrusting his hand “into the live embers but quickly drew it out again with a cry of pain” (69). It is with this experience with fire that the monster understands both pain and a system of cause and effect, fundamental lessons of a natural childhood. He further learns to control his environment using fire for heat and light. He learns to forage and to wear clothing. But much like a child, the ultimate lesson becomes that of language, a moment when the monster transcends his existence outside of the human experience and develops a relationship, albeit a distant one, with humanity. Through this process, the monster “discovered the names that were given to some of the most familiar objects of discourse” (75). Like a child, the monster evolves from an infant stage without understanding of basic sense to an adult with the understanding of language as a system of signs; the words lacked “any apparent connexion with visible objects” (75). Because language is a system of arbitrary signs, the words the monster learns possess no innate link to the objects they describe. The Monster, and by extension Shelley, has stumbled on the fundamental component of Lacan’s interpretation of language. The relationship between these signs and language as a method of communication provides a link between Freud and Lacan; Lacan recognizes, much as the monster does, that language is a system already in existence.

Before the monster can assimilate and participate in the dialogue of humanity—before he can fulfill his lacking—he understands that he must learn the language of the dominant culture. In his earliest interactions with the cottagers, the monster recognizes he must “first become master of their language” (76). He also observes “they made many signs which I did not comprehend” (78). And when he overhears Felix reading a story, he is left “puzzled” (76). The important point here is that the monster identifies language as a sign that leaves him puzzled, the very same lexicon that Freud and Lacan would later use in describing the system of psychoanalysis; language, the monster unknowingly observes, is like Freud’s picture-puzzle. Further illustrating the importance of language is the monster’s observation of the barrier between Felix and the Turkish girl. Felix reads her letter, a text that has been translated by an old man. Without assimilating the preexisting system of language, two persons cannot communicate.

When the monster has learned the language of the cottagers, he is able to communicate and construct an identity. When the monster speaks to the old man of the cottage, the man remarks, “by your language, stranger, I suppose you are my countryman” (90). The monster’s identity then is tied explicitly to the language; the man feels kinship to him precisely because the monster has adopted the language of the dominant culture. Of course had the old man possessed the gift of sight, the monster’s appearance would have acted as a sign conveying a different and distinct concept: fear. It is at this moment where Shelley briefly introduces Freud’s concept of the uncanny, something that is “frightening precisely because it is not known and familiar” (Freud 826). However, neither Shelley’s focus nor the focus of this paper is on the concept of the uncanny. Rather, the critical point is that the monster begins to form his identity based on common language with the cottagers.

Once in possession of language, the monster sets about reading the texts of Paradise Lost and The Sorrows of Young Werther. In so doing, he springs the trap set by the ambiguity of language; he misinterprets the texts. The monster read the books “as a true history” (Shelley 87). He allows the texts to serve as a model for his reality. But while the monster is “able to decypher the characters,” he has not unlocked the meaning of the signs (87). He reads the books literally falling into the trap that Freud warns about: literal interpretation leads to error. The reality the monster creates then is no more real than the world Shelley lays out for her reader; he is living in a fictional reality, a dream world to which he is the author. The moment the monster creates a fictional reality, he succumbs to the very problem laid out by Bloom in The Anxiety of Influence. His fictional reality is a misinterpretation of the texts he has read. He comes to believe in Paradise Lost as containing real historical events rather than as a parody or fable. As a result his worldview is cast in the terms set out by Milton. The reality the monster comes to know is then a manifestation—in the same way an authors created work is a manifestation—of anxiety.

The monster’s narrative serves as an example of psychoanalytic theory in action; the use of and the interpretation of language play a central role in shaping the monster and his relationships with society. Shelley, perhaps unknowingly, predicts Freud and the subsequent psychoanalytic method of literary criticism. But even more salient, Shelley perhaps serves as a precursor to Freud and The Interpretation of Dreams merely the resulting anxiety from the misinterpretation of Frankenstein.

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Works Cited

Bloom, Harold. “The Anxiety of Influence.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed Leitch, Vincent B.; Cain, William E.; Finke, Laurie; Johnson, Barbara; McGowan, John; Sharpley-Whiting, T. Denean; Williams, Jeffrey J. New York: Norton, 2010. 1651 – 1659. Print.

Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory. 2nd ed. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota, 2003 Print.

Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed Leitch, Vincent B.; Cain, William E.; Finke, Laurie; Johnson, Barbara; McGowan, John; Sharpley-Whiting, T. Denean; Williams, Jeffrey J. New York: Norton, 2010. 814 – 844. Print.

Lacan, Jacques. The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic
Experience. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed Leitch, Vincent B.; Cain, William E.; Finke, Laurie; Johnson, Barbara; McGowan, John; Sharpley-Whiting, T. Denean; Williams, Jeffrey J. New York: Norton, 2010. 1156 – 1189. Print.

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Ed J. Paul Hunter. New York: Norton, 1996. Print.