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

218Demonic Texts and Textual Demonsturn, is possessed, too. The split between reason and emotion is deep; in thefigurative level the monster evokes supernatural fear as there is a striking incongruencein his features – at the level of identity, there is no unity ofagent.It is important to note how the demonism in man-machine is particularlya problem of isolated individuality. The “workshop of filthy creation”is placed in “a solitary chamber, or rather cell, at the top of the house, andseparated from all the other apartments by a gallery and staircase”; 69 whenVictor encounters the monster, the setting is in the superhuman heights andcoldness of glacier in the Alps. 70 The monster speaks of having “no link” toanyone, and how this makes him malicious; he begs for another creature likehimself, so that they could be “cut off from the world; but on that accountwe shall be more attached to one another. […] My evil passions will havefled, for I shall meet with sympathy!” 71 Victor is suspicious, and the readershould be, as well. Veeder has interpreted the novel as “negative Oedipal”;the effort to awaken dead flesh might indicate Victor’s desire to resuscitatehis dead mother. The real thrust of the novel, however, is to kill the lovedones. The nightmare kiss does not revive the mother, but reduces Elizabethto a dead corpse, as well. 72 The “link” to other people is loaded with ambivalence;the power over life and death that Victor desires is acted out when themonster kills the people surrounding Victor. The connection that Victorreally desires is to himself – he attempts to make another human being, butactually makes a monstrous image of an isolated individual, demonic in itssubconscious conflicts.When the monster is interpreted as a sign of a daimonic conflict, thedemonic attributes and irrational behaviour becomes easier to understand.Rollo May mentioned that Eros and a craving for power are possible sourcesof the daimonic, and Stephen A. Diamond emphasised that cathartic expressionof this area is not enough, it has to be integrated to the self. 73 Frankensteindoes not portray the dialogue with the daimonic elements as successful;the conflict remains demonic, irresoluble. Victor and his other – his monster– are too intimately interconnected; the monster reveals too much unacceptablematerial, and in the end both must perish. The conclusion is similar tothat of Father Karras and his demon in The Exorcist; they also shared Victor/monster’sambivalence towards the body. The Promethean spirit possessingVictor/monster has, after all, a dual character. Prometheus is thesemi-divine trickster, the titan who stole fire from the gods and taught humankindarts and sciences – Prometheus pyrphoros. Another, later version ofthe myth attributes to Prometheus the creation of mankind from figures of69 F, 55.70 F, 98.71F, 145-7.72 Veeder 1986, 143.73See above, chapter two.