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Untitled - California State University, Long Beach

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Alan Richardson grapples with Darwinian concepts of incest and the<br />

explication of Romantic sibling relationships in “Rethinking Romantic<br />

Incest: Human Universals, Literary Representation, and the Biology of<br />

Mind.” Rejecting the Freudian idea of repressed sexual desire, he focuses<br />

instead on its absence (558). Looking at the relationship between Victor<br />

and Elizabeth in the light of popular evolutionary thinking and cultural<br />

developments of the time, he argues that their relationship is idealized<br />

(and would have been encouraged to be so) to the point in which Elizabeth<br />

becomes Victor’s ideal intellectual, ethical, and affectionate partner (564).<br />

Such idealization is evidenced in Caroline Frankenstein’s departing words<br />

to the pair: “my firmest hopes of happiness were placed on the prospect<br />

of your union” (Frankenstein 49). Richardson argues, however, that a<br />

relationship such as Victor’s and Elizabeth’s could not exist on a sexual<br />

level. He contends that the wedding night could never happen because<br />

the sibling relationship would be averse to that dimension (564-565).<br />

Rather, he claims that Romantic writers like Mary Shelley idealized the<br />

incest desire but ended it tragically before any consummation could take<br />

place (570). While Richardson’s claims for the representation of idealized<br />

incestuous desire within Frankenstein are well-founded, his argument fails<br />

to account for the simultaneous mother role that Elizabeth adopts. In the<br />

same breath in which she calls for Victor and Elizabeth’s union, Caroline<br />

tells Elizabeth: “you must supply my place to my younger children” (49).<br />

Elizabeth is thus called upon to simultaneously marry Victor and be the<br />

mother of his siblings, complicating the relationship with Victor beyond<br />

either Gubar’s or Richardson’s conceptions of incestuous desire.<br />

Viewing Elizabeth as a reflection of romantic incest or of Victor’s own<br />

self-awareness neglects to explore the implications of her unfixed identity,<br />

her relation to the creature, and her subsequent monstrosity. Elizabeth’s<br />

identity is established as existing outside of a set role. To Victor she is<br />

sister, lover, and friend. She is his mother figure after Caroline’s death,<br />

82 | Wills<br />

as well as his future wife. In relation to Caroline, Elizabeth functions<br />

as a daughter, though Caroline never bore her. And, though seen as a<br />

daughter, Elizabeth becomes Caroline’s replacement, taking on her role as<br />

mother to the family. In all of these circumstances, Elizabeth’s identity as<br />

a female, the role assigned to her by anatomy and society, is both unstable<br />

and adaptable. Her role is all-encompassing within their family unit. She<br />

resists signification as specifically mother, daughter, sister, or wife and,<br />

rather, becomes all. This resistance is achieved through the space created<br />

by Elizabeth’s other-worldliness, an abstraction attached to her identity<br />

that allows for exploration and can be seen as supplement to the ugliness<br />

of the creature in the context of identity’s plasticity within their mutual<br />

monstrosity.<br />

While Elizabeth provides a space for Victor’s identity to find<br />

multiple outlets of relational expression, the creature represents a space<br />

where Victor is able to transgress gender normative roles and take on the<br />

aspects of maternal identity in the birthing of a human being. Cynthia<br />

Pon argues that “Mary Shelley describes the doomed trajectory of<br />

masculine creation that displaces the female” (37). Comparing Walton’s<br />

voyage of discovery to Frankenstein’s quest to create a new species, Pon<br />

contends that Frankenstein ultimately fails in his ambitions. Despite his<br />

efforts, Victor is only able to create a horrifying vision of himself (36).<br />

Pon concludes that masculine reproduction that bypasses the female<br />

ultimately creates monstrosity (37-38). Though Pon claims that the<br />

creation of the monster does not culminate in a work of originality (37),<br />

she is looking only at the results of the “doomed trajectory.” In focusing<br />

on the creation act itself, Victor’s identity can be seen to achieve plasticity<br />

and greater dimension. In fact, Victor moves beyond the maternal and<br />

aspires further after the god-like. Not only does Victor begin “the creation<br />

of a human being,” but he also “breaks through” the bounds of “life and<br />

death” (Frankenstein 58). He is not only looking to bypass a woman, but<br />

Wills | 83

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