Check out the Google ads at the bottom of the sidebar. Google has analyzed my blog and determined that anyone reading it needs serious mental help. Which can, of course, be obtained over the internet. I'm not really miserable 24/7, it's just that when I'm in a good mood I don't exactly dwell on it like I sometimes do when I'm in a bad mood. Plus, it doesn't take as many words to explain it when things are going right. When i started this blog I had an idea that it would provide insight into the "real me." I guess it didn't quite work out that way.
Anyway, I just finished reading Frankenstein the other day. It's amazing to think that that story was written almost two hundred years ago. In some parts it strongly reminded me of that entry I made a week ago, Why do people get angry when they are lonely. The story is centered around the creature's lashing out against Frankenstein, because he blames his creator for his isolation and lonleyness. And he has a point. Frankenstein really should have started off creating something that wouldn't mind being hideously ugly.
At first I thought that the acts of violence didn't fit in with the creature's character, since he had been so generally benevolent and kind in the first part of his story. But when I think about them they make more sense. The creature's isolation is profound, and its cause is permanent, so I would expect his reactions to it to be hugely magnified. And each act of violence came right after some particular offense, or percieved offense. Now that I've sat here thinking about it for a while, I think I understand everything that the creature did. But when I started this entry, and when I was reading the book, I didn't. There was one particular act, though, which i completely understood and symphathized with from the moment I read it; the act of framing Justine for William's murder.
Okay, here's a basic overview of the creature's story, which he relates to Frankenstein about halfway through the book. He wakes up, wanders into the forrest, and over the course of a few days figures out things like "fire is hot" and "food tastes good." He stays there for a while, eating nuts and berries, and then he goes exploring. He comes to a village, anc gets chased off by a mob. Quite an unpleasant experience for him. He finds a place to hide out, and it happens to be perfectly situated for observing the domestic life of a poor family without their being able to observe him. Yeah, I'm not sure how that works, either. He grows quite fond of these folk, and at night when he can't be observed he does some of the chores he's seen them doing, like choping firewood. They attirbute the firewood that appears on their doorstep to a good spirit watching over them, or something. He learns their language by listening to them, and he also figures out how to read with the help of some books he found abandoned in the woods. All this takes place in less than a year. Eventually, once he's comfortable with the language, he tries to introduce himself to the family. That doesn't go over so well. He barely has a chance to speak before he's beaten off with a stick. He runs off into the woods, very upset and hurt, but decides that he went about it wrong and resolves to try again in a different way. But they're gone, and they're not coming back. He overhears one of them telling the landlord that they could never live in that house again, and that's the last he hears of them. He smashes up the place, sets it on fire, and runs off into the forrest. In the direction of Geneva, which he knows is his creator's hometown. (Before he wandered off into the woods the first time, he somehow managed to put on a coat, which happened to have one of Frankenstein's journals in its pocket.) On the way he saves some kid from drowning in the river, and gets a nice musketball in the shoulder as a thank-you present from the kid's father. When he eventually gets into the area of Geneva he finds a young boy in the woods. He gets the idea that the boy will be too young to be prejudiced about his ugliness, so he tries to go up to the kid. Kid runs away, of course, but the creature grabs him to try to talk some sense into him. Kid starts calling him an ogre and suchlike, and saying that the creature ought to let him go, because his father isn't someone you want to mess with. He identifies his father as "M. Frankenstein," which is exactly the wrong thing to do, as the creature blames Frankenstein for absolutely everything at this point. Now at this point it's written in such a way that I'm not sure whether he was just trying to shut the kid up or if he intended to kill him, because I think that's something that authors do when they want their character to kill somebody but they don't want you to lose sympathy with them just yet, but the end result is that the kid (Frankenstein's little brother) ends up getting strangled. Around his neck is a kind of jeweled amulet thingy with a picture of his mother in it. The lady in the picture has such a kind and benevolent face, full of love and acceptance. The creature is moved for a moment, but he knows that if the woman in the picture were actually looking at him her expression would turn to one of fear and loathing. Later on, he comes upon Justine sleeping in a barn She's been out all night frantically looking for the missing child, and that's where she crashed. Since I've got the full text right here in ASCII format thanks to Project Gutenberg, I'll quote the relevent passage.
"While I was overcome by these feelings, I left the spot where I had committed the murder, and seeking a more secluded hiding-place, I entered a barn which had appeared to me to be empty. A woman was sleeping on some straw; she was young, not indeed so beautiful as her whose portrait I held, but of an agreeable aspect and blooming in the loveliness of youth and health. Here, I thought, is one of those whose joy-imparting smiles are bestowed on all but me. And then I bent over her and whispered, `Awake, fairest, thy lover is near--he who would give his life but to obtain one look of affection from thine eyes; my beloved, awake!'
"The sleeper stirred; a thrill of terror ran through me. Should she indeed awake, and see me, and curse me, and denounce the murderer? Thus would she assuredly act if her darkened eyes opened and she beheld me. The thought was madness; it stirred the fiend within me--not I, but she, shall suffer; the murder I have committed because I am forever robbed of all that she could give me, she shall atone. The crime had its source in her; be hers the punishment! Thanks to the lessons of Felix and the sanguinary laws of man, I had learned now to work mischief. I bent over her and placed the portrait securely in one of the folds of her dress. She moved again, and I fled. |
Did you see what he did there? This is what reminded me of the entry I made last week. In her he saw a symbol of everything he wanted, which everyone else could have, but he couldn't. He'd give anything for one smile, but he'll never get one. And Justine's smile is so beautiful, it becomes the symbol of all the smiles he'll never see turned his way. From there he makes the leap that it's
her fault that he'll never get that smile. You have to put the blame somewhere, don't you? Everything he wants is right there, hers for the giving And she gives it to others, but wouldn't even consider giving it to him. It's a leap for him to transfer the blame for the murder onto her, but I can follow it. If she and people like her would change their attitude towards him--which would only be fair, since he didn't choose to be an 8 foot tall monster--then he never would have done what he did.
Justine had already been executed for the murder by the time he related this story. Her complete lack of an alibi combined with her inexplicable posession of the jewelry was enough to convict her. After i read the story from this side I never had the same attitude toward it. The creature's other innocent victims I felt sorry for, but I stopped feeling that for Justine. I knew, logically, that transfering guilt onto her wasn't fair, but it
made sense to me. I understood the creature's perspective on this, and from that point on i saw Justine as the creature had. A symbol of all the love and acceptance in the world, which is forever denied to the unfortunate creature. It almost seemed like justice.
That's fucked up, I know. But I can't help feeling that way, and I don't think it's good to deny it. When you want something, and someone else has it, and it should be
yours, and you deserve it as much as they do, it comes naturally to blame them for it, as if they'd taken it from you. That's why people get angry when they are lonely.