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Alan Richardson grapples with Darwinian concepts of incest and the
explication of Romantic sibling relationships in “Rethinking Romantic
Incest: Human Universals, Literary Representation, and the Biology of
Mind.” Rejecting the Freudian idea of repressed sexual desire, he focuses
instead on its absence (558). Looking at the relationship between Victor
and Elizabeth in the light of popular evolutionary thinking and cultural
developments of the time, he argues that their relationship is idealized
(and would have been encouraged to be so) to the point in which Elizabeth
becomes Victor’s ideal intellectual, ethical, and affectionate partner (564).
Such idealization is evidenced in Caroline Frankenstein’s departing words
to the pair: “my firmest hopes of happiness were placed on the prospect
of your union” (Frankenstein 49). Richardson argues, however, that a
relationship such as Victor’s and Elizabeth’s could not exist on a sexual
level. He contends that the wedding night could never happen because
the sibling relationship would be averse to that dimension (564-565).
Rather, he claims that Romantic writers like Mary Shelley idealized the
incest desire but ended it tragically before any consummation could take
place (570). While Richardson’s claims for the representation of idealized
incestuous desire within Frankenstein are well-founded, his argument fails
to account for the simultaneous mother role that Elizabeth adopts. In the
same breath in which she calls for Victor and Elizabeth’s union, Caroline
tells Elizabeth: “you must supply my place to my younger children” (49).
Elizabeth is thus called upon to simultaneously marry Victor and be the
mother of his siblings, complicating the relationship with Victor beyond
either Gubar’s or Richardson’s conceptions of incestuous desire.
Viewing Elizabeth as a reflection of romantic incest or of Victor’s own
self-awareness neglects to explore the implications of her unfixed identity,
her relation to the creature, and her subsequent monstrosity. Elizabeth’s
identity is established as existing outside of a set role. To Victor she is
sister, lover, and friend. She is his mother figure after Caroline’s death,
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as well as his future wife. In relation to Caroline, Elizabeth functions
as a daughter, though Caroline never bore her. And, though seen as a
daughter, Elizabeth becomes Caroline’s replacement, taking on her role as
mother to the family. In all of these circumstances, Elizabeth’s identity as
a female, the role assigned to her by anatomy and society, is both unstable
and adaptable. Her role is all-encompassing within their family unit. She
resists signification as specifically mother, daughter, sister, or wife and,
rather, becomes all. This resistance is achieved through the space created
by Elizabeth’s other-worldliness, an abstraction attached to her identity
that allows for exploration and can be seen as supplement to the ugliness
of the creature in the context of identity’s plasticity within their mutual
monstrosity.
While Elizabeth provides a space for Victor’s identity to find
multiple outlets of relational expression, the creature represents a space
where Victor is able to transgress gender normative roles and take on the
aspects of maternal identity in the birthing of a human being. Cynthia
Pon argues that “Mary Shelley describes the doomed trajectory of
masculine creation that displaces the female” (37). Comparing Walton’s
voyage of discovery to Frankenstein’s quest to create a new species, Pon
contends that Frankenstein ultimately fails in his ambitions. Despite his
efforts, Victor is only able to create a horrifying vision of himself (36).
Pon concludes that masculine reproduction that bypasses the female
ultimately creates monstrosity (37-38). Though Pon claims that the
creation of the monster does not culminate in a work of originality (37),
she is looking only at the results of the “doomed trajectory.” In focusing
on the creation act itself, Victor’s identity can be seen to achieve plasticity
and greater dimension. In fact, Victor moves beyond the maternal and
aspires further after the god-like. Not only does Victor begin “the creation
of a human being,” but he also “breaks through” the bounds of “life and
death” (Frankenstein 58). He is not only looking to bypass a woman, but
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