Note on this edition: this is an electronic version of the 1999 book ...

Technodemons of the Digital Self 217(1973), derived from it a theory which centred on agonistic struggle againstprecursors in poetry, rather than celebrating the beauty and unity of art. Allliterature is a fight against the inevitable influence of earlier works. Accordingto this view, the “daemonization” of the most important precursors isthe subconscious formative power in creative work. 63 Mary Shelley’s noveladdresses such demonic impulses by incorporating the most important influencesinto its text – in the process becoming so involved in the problematicsof heterogeneity that Mary Shelley herself addressed this novel as her“hideous progeny.” 64 This suggests that the novel is monstrous in itself, or,as Michael Holquist writes, Shelley’s “novel, like the monster, is made up ofdisjecta membra, story inside framed story […]. Not only is there a mix ofnarrators, there is a compound of genres – letters, diaries, and a variety oforal tales.” 65 The “demoniacal texture” of Shelley’s hybrid creates polyphoniceffects, a case of textuality that might well be termed demonic. As awork about “making a man,” or as a drama of constructing modern (male)identity, Frankenstein explores heterogeneity, projects it in a demonisinggesture to the figure of monster, and finally portrays the return of this conflictand its tragic undoing in death.The roots for such narrative self-destruction can be found in earliertragic conventions (nemesis for a hybris), in the principles of religious andpoetic justice (retribution of the sinners) or in the problems in the structureof this type of self. Veeder points out that the Shelley circle was concernedwith the division and dualisms splitting the early modern self. They aimed totransgress such divisions as body/soul, or masculine/feminine, but actuallyMary Shelley’s experience revealed the Promethean men surrounding her(Percy, Byron, Godwin) as narcissistic, constantly bifurcated into “egocentricwillfulness” or “self-abandoning weakness.” 66 Veeder relates thePromethean will-to-power, that Victor exhibits in his trance-like pursuit ofmaking the monster, to Eros, the ego-centric and unbalanced love. It istempting to interpret monster as a purely intellectual element, a symbol ofthe unlimited quest for knowledge and technological hubris that has got outof control. As Veeder points out, this is not true; the monster claims it is“the slave, not the master, of an impulse, which I detested, yet could notdisobey. […] The completion of my demoniacal design became an insatiablepassion.” 67 Victor, too, feels himself “slave” in this double bind: “throughthe whole period during which I was the slave of my creature, I allowed myselfto be governed by the impulses of the moment […].” 68 In the context ofthis study, the daimonic character of this Eros is an important feature; whencreating the monster, Victor is possessed and driven, and the monster, in63Bloom 1973/1975, 20, 99-112.64 “Introduction” (1831); F, 10.65 Holquist 1990/1994, 97. (See also Cornwell 1990, 72.)66Veeder 1986, 49.67 F, 22068F, 153.