In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Victor Frankenstein creates a monster that murders several people. and so flees through Europe to the Arctic Circle. In the beginning of the narrative. it seems that Frankenstein is merely a scientist trailing a pipe dream of happening the key to ageless life. but closer analysis of the text reveals that Frankenstein is non sane. and perchance enduring from one of many psychological science upsets. doing hallucinations and psychosis. it is my contention. that Victor Frankenstein is his monster.
Sanity is defined as the quality or province of being sane or the soundness or wellness of head by the Merriam-Webster lexicon. Victor Frankenstein shows several obvious marks of being “not sane” by our criterions. among them are the storage of cadavers inside of his flat and disintering the dead for parts to construct his monster.
The first spot of grounds we have to demo that Victor Frankenstein is non sane is the fact that no 1 in the book notices that he is making a monster until after he creates it. No one noticed him delving up dead organic structures and maintaining them in his flat. “Darkness had no consequence upon my illusion ; and a God’s acre was to me simply the receptacle of organic structures deprived of life. which. from being the place of beauty and strength. had become nutrient for the worm. Now I was led to analyze the cause and advancement of this decay. and forced to pass yearss and darks in vaults and charnel-houses. My attending was fixed upon every object the most indefensible to the daintiness of the human feelings. I saw how the all right signifier of adult male was degraded and wasted ; ” ( Shelley. p30 ) The scientific discipline of anatomy wasn’t precisely on the head during the Victorian epoch. and while the scientist that were analyzing anatomy often relied on grave-robbing. it was at great hazard to the grave-robber.
“Because fresh cadavers were much sought after but rare. they correspondingly attracted a premium monetary value. Seven to ten lbs per cadaver was the traveling rate in the 1830s. However. break uping cadavers. if they were non excessively far advanced in rot. could besides be used and provided a utile income for the grave robbers or alleged ‘Resurrectionists’ . Grave robbing was a comparatively easy manner to do money. and the culprits. if discovered. were far more likely to endure requital at the custodies of an indignant populace than they were to experience the wrath of the bench.
Exhumation was non technically a offense of larceny and although sedate robbers were on occasion punished through the tribunals the legal footing for such is unsure. Until the jurisprudence changed in 1820 legal effects could merely originate from sedate robbing if any of the victim’s ownerships were stolen from the grave along with the cadaver. ” ( Magellan. Par 19 ) If people had noticed Frankenstein’s behaviour. he would hold likely been the victim of an angry rabble assailing his flat with torches and pitchforks. This deficiency of reaction from the townsfolk leads us to believe that either Frankenstein’s actions are non being noticed. or that Frankenstein’s actions aren’t actions. but hallucinations inside of his ain broken head.
Causes of Victor Frankenstein’s insanity has many different causes. among them are the drawn-out societal isolation Frankenstein subjected himself to. and because his head snapped between his desires and world. Desiring something that you know is impossible is ne’er a good thing for your physical or psychological wellness. With Frankenstein. he foremost had a desire to transform worthless metals into valuable gold. When he realized this was non physically possible. he decided to analyze biological science and anatomy. and came upon a new desire to re-animate the dead and work to do adult male unrecorded everlastingly. All scientific discipline we have says that this is non possible. and I think that Frankenstein knew that. but was still denying that fact. so his head snapped in two. Dissociative Identity Disorder ( DID ) . more normally known as split-personality or multiple personality upset. Persons diagnosed with DID show a broad assortment of other symptoms including concerns. organic structure strivings. deformation of clip. depersonalisation. depression. schizophrenic disorder. and anxiousness upsets. ( Wikipedia. Dissociative Identity Disorder ) Frankenstein’s inability to physically capture the animal. but to hold conversations and statements with it. are underlying marks that Victor Frankenstein is the monster.
Social Isolation can besides hold improbably lay waste toing effects on psychological wellness. When a individual is isolates themselves from the remainder of the universe for a long period of clip. like Victor Frankenstein did to finish his work. there are several different psychological effects runing from depression to vivid hallucinations. “Psychological jobs reported included anxiousness. depression. sleep perturbation. backdown. arrested development. and hallucinations. ” ( Kellerman. Rigler. & A ; Seigel par 1 ) . Incredibly terrible instances of societal isolation can be seen in “feral children” . These kids. who are isolated from contact and interaction with worlds. whether by forsaking or disregard. have no lingual ability. have infinite psychological issues in our society once they are discovered. and in general appear to act as wild animate beings. ( Feral Children ) . It is possible that due to the isolation. Frankenstein’s alter-ego. the monster. does non hold complex communicating ability that most people have. and has to relearn how to interact with people by reading. There is besides a opportunity that Victor Frankenstein could besides hold schizophrenic disorder. either as a symptom of DID. or as its ain mental unwellness.
“Schizophrenia is a group of serious encephalon upsets in which world is interpreted abnormally. Schizophrenia consequences in hallucinations. psychotic beliefs. and disordered thought and behaviour. Peoples with schizophrenia withdraw from the people and activities in the universe around them. withdrawing into an interior universe marked by psychosis. ” ( MayoClinic. par 1 ) It is improbably likely that Victor Frankenstein is enduring from schizophrenic disorder. Symptoms of schizophrenic disorder are “hallucinations. paranoiac or eccentric psychotic beliefs. or disorganized address and believing with important societal or occupational disfunction. ” ( Wikipedia. Schizophrenia ) And using this to Frankenstein it begins to do sense that all of his work is within his ain head. His struggle with the monster. trailing it to the Arctic Circle. but ne’er catching it. all of these things point in the way of either split-personality upset or schizophrenic disorder.
Another issue is the assorted slayings by the monster throughout the narrative. The manner the text is written is seeking to do Frankenstein seem like the hero. particularly after Elizabeth dies and Frankenstein chases the monster throughout Europe and Russia and eventually to the north-polar circle. However. if you consider that Frankenstein is schizophrenic. so you see that he murdered those people. but “Victor Frankenstein” thinks that it is his “monster” . when in world. he is the monster.
Using these psychological upsets as a usher to naming Victor Frankenstein. it becomes more and more obvious that he has Dissociative Identity Disorder. He is his monster but has no cognition of it. He murdered those people. so chased himself across Europe. Russia. and eventually to the Arctic Circle. where it would look he regains control of his fractured head.
WORKS CITED
“Dissociative Identity Disorder” . Wikipedia. 3 April 2009. 23 March 2009.
Kellerman. J. . Rigler D. . Siegel SE. “The Psychological Effectss of Isolation in Protected Environments. ” American Journal of Psychiatry 134:563-565 ( 1977 ) Magellan. Karyo. “The Victorian Medico-Legal Autopsy” . 6 April 2009. 23 March 2009.
“sanity. ” Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2009. Merriam-Webster Online. 23 March 2009http: //www. merriam-webster. com/dictionary/sanity”Schizophrenia” . Wikipedia. 3 April 2009. 23 March 2009.
Mayo Clinic Staff “Schizophrenia” . MayoClinic. 31 January 2008. 23 March 2009.
Shelley. Mary. Frankenstein. New York: W. W. Norton. 1996.
Ward. Andrew R. . “Feral Children” . 6 April 2009. 23 March 2009.
