Untitled - California State University, Long Beach
Untitled - California State University, Long Beach
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 />
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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 />
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