The Political Geography of Horror in Mary Shelley’s "Frankenstein"

28 Pages·02.924 MB·English

by  Fred V. Randel

The Political Geography of Horror in Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein"
Author(s): Fred V. Randel
Source: ELH, Vol. 70, No. 2 (Summer, 2003), pp. 465-491
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30029885
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THE POLITICALG EOGRAPHYO F HORRORI N MARY
SHELLEY'S FRANKENSTEIN
BY FRED V. RANDEL
The monster who startles unsuspecting victims in Mary
WollstonecraftS helley'sF rankensteinb y his sudden and fatala ppear-
ance seems to them to come from nowhere. He steps out of the
placeless space of our most terrifyingn ightmares.F or many fans of
the novel and its filmic adaptations,t he murderso f Frankensteina re
likewise situated in a shadowy land of Gothic fantasy and thrill-
of our unconscious.T hankst o recent schol-
provokingm anipulations
arship,h owever,m any of the historicitieso f Frankenstein-its inter-
actionsw ith French Revolutionarye ra discoursesa bout gender, race,
class, revolution,a nd science-are now as recognizablet o informed
readersa s its psychodrama.'B ut we have only begun to decipher the
significanceo f the geographyo f this novel, the rationalef or setting its
horrorsi n particularp laces, arrangedi n a specific sequence. Franco
Moretti'sA tlas of the European Novel 1800-1900 argues that "in
modern European novels, what happens depends a lot on where it
but omits Frankensteinf rom his Does it
happens," analysis.2 really
matter that William Frankensteind ies at Plainpalais,J ustine Moritz
and Alphonse in or near Geneva, Elizabeth at Evian, and Henry
Clervali n Ireland?D oes Victor'st rip through England and Scotland
serve any purpose except to evoke personal memories of Mary and
Percy Shelley?W hy does the novel begin and end in Russia and the
Arctic?
MaryS helley inherited a usage of the Gothic that, in contrastw ith
the expectationso f many modern readers,f oregroundedh istorya nd
geographyA. s Chris Baldicka nd Robert Mighallh ave shown, Renais-
sance humanistsu sed "Gothic"t o refer scornfullyt o the architecture
of northern barbarians viewed with
European (as they them), par-
ticular reference to the Germanic and the medieval, but late eigh-
teenth- and early nineteenth-century English Protestant writers
set their "Gothic"f ictions in Catholic southern
typically Europe,
while keeping the term's crucial association with the archaic and
oppressive.3" Gothic,"t herefore, was implicatedi n shifting regional-
ELH The Johns Press 465
70 (2003) 465-491 © 2003 by Hopkins University
ist, nationalist, and sectarian mythologies, but it was characteristically
used to align the author and reader with the supposedly enlightened,
against the anachronistic and benighted. "The present study," Robert
Mighall writes, "will challenge the notion that settings in the Gothic
are its most dispensable properties, by observing how various histori-
cal and political factors help to shape the narrative material and
determine those settings." He excludes Frankenstein, however, from
the history of Gothic and from his own treatment, on the ground that
its greatest horrors are the product of enlightenment and a projected
futurity rather than "legacies from the past."4 I suggest, by contrast,
that Mary Shelley's novel is an astute extension and complication of
the political geography of Gothic, as applied to the spread of
revolutionary ideas, and revolution itself, in Europe and beyond since
the mid-seventeenth century. She complicates the Gothic fear of
being pulled back into a despotic past by exposing the despotic
residue which, in her view, can shadow-but not stop-a potentially
liberating, progressive process. At a time when the Congress of
Vienna had just given official status to a reactionary interpretation of
the French revolutionary era and a reactionary reconstitution of
Europe as a whole, Mary Shelley imagines a liberal alternative
through the geographical subtext of a European Gothic fiction. She
"A View of
anticipates Percy Bysshe Shelley's Philosophical Reform"
(1819) by opting for an international and comparatist frame of
reference, invoking a relatively long-range perspective, and urging
the need for the dominant forces of society to abandon Restoration
intransigence in favor of fundamental reform-a liberal version of
enlightenment-as the only alternative to the spread of violent
revolution.5
I. INGOLSTADT AND NORTHERN ICE
Lee first showed chose
Sterrenburg why Mary Shelley Ingolstadt
in Bavaria, as the place where Victor Frankenstein brought the
monster to life.6 An influential ultraconservative cleric, the Abb6
Augustin Barruel, whose Memoirs, Illustrating the History of
Jacobinism Mary and Percy read on their honeymoon, had claimed
that the French Revolution was the product of a conspiracy of
intellectuals in that town. The novel's indebted-
originating university
ness to Barruel is even more extensive than Sterrenburg suggested.
When Adam Weishaupt founded a secret society called the
"Illuminees" at Ingolstadt on 1 May 1776, he "formed a monstrous
digest," in Barruel's words, of the various kinds of subversive thinking
466 The Political Geographyo f Horror
current in the much as Victor Frankenstein
already Enlightenment,
combines an assortment of to form his Like
body parts monster.7
Victor,W eishaupt led a double life at the University of Ingolstadt:
distinguishingh imself in respectable academic pursuits while se-
cretly,i n the privacyo f his rooms,p ursuinga n invisiblep roject. Both
men took intellectual shortcuts:W eishaupt,u nable to endure delay,
recruitedd isciplesb y pretendingt o have a new "codeo f laws"t hat he
had not yet formulated,w hile Victor Frankensteinm akes an eight-
foot giant, rathert han a creatureo f normalh uman size, for the same
reason (81; vol. 1, chap. 3). Weishaupt'ss ecret society then infiltrated
the Freemasons, penetrated France, enlisted the Duke of Orls,
and spawned the Jacobins, "that disastrousm onster"w hich would
wreak "days of horror and devastation."B ut the details of the
conspiracy'sg rowth are as mysteriousa s the comings and goings of
Frankenstein'sc reature:" The monster has taken its course through
wildernesses,a nd darknessh as more thano nce obscuredi ts progress."18
This sentence, remarkablyi,s Barruel's,n ot Mary Shelley's,a lthough
it would, except for its neuter pronoun, be as suitable in the novel.
No killing occurred at Ingolstadti n either version, but the monster
formed in that place eventuallyc auses multiplek illingse lsewhere. In
borrowingf rom Barruel,M aryS helleya cceptsh is metaphorice quiva-
lence between the French Revolutiona nd a monster,t ogether with
his assumption that ideas can have profound social and political
consequences. She also assimilates Barruel's suggestion that the
conspiratorials ecrecy and deceptiveness in which the monster was
formed foreshadow major flaws in its socialization.B ut she adds a
sympathyf or the monster and an entrancei nto his thought-processes
wholly lackingi n the Abbe'sd iatribea gainstt he Enlightenmenta nd
revolutionaryc hange. She uses a conservativet ext as a sourcebookf or
but without its
political geography accepting ideology.
Rather than an her method in
constituting exception, treating
Ingolstadt instantiatesh er systematic procedure in this novel. For
example, her creature not only shares a birthplacew ith the French
Revolution,b ut also a scene of putative endings. St. Petersburghi s
the address from which Walton sends off his first letter on the first
page of the novel, and St. Petersburgh was understood to be
Napoleon's initial destination in his fateful Russian campaign of
1812.9 The novel'ss ubtitle-"The ModernP rometheu-sw"o uld have
invoked Napoleonic associations for a contemporarya udience. As
Paulson observes, "Napoleon was associated with Prometheus by
Byron and his own propagandam achine."'0V ictor'sp ursuit of the
Fred V Randel 467
monster across Russia, as "the snows thickened, and the cold in-
creased in a degree almost too severe to support"( 227; vol. 3, chap.
7), would recall for readersi n 1818 the Napoleonic army'sd esperate
retreat from Moscow by a northern route as a severe early winter
began in November 1812: "The Russianw inter,w hich began on the
7th with deep snow, greatlya dded to their difficultiesa nd sufferings,
and their bulletins acknowledget he loss of many men by cold and
fatigue in their night bivouackings."V ictor, like the Grand Army,
forages for food, and lacks the Russiann atives'a bilityt o endure the
temperature:" amidst cold that few of the inhabitantsc ould long
endure, and which I, the native of a genial and sunny climate, could
not hope to survive"( 228; vol. 3, chap. 7). The "sledge"( 57; vol. 1,
letter 4), chosen by Victora nd later by the monsterf or transportation
vol. the vehicle used
(228; 3, chap. 7), repeats reportedly by Napoleon
when he left his armyi n Russiaa nd headed secretlyb ack to Paris:h e
"set off in a single sledge under the title of the Duke of Vicenze."11
The French armyw as never trappeda midsti ce floes in the Arctic
like Victor, his creature, and the men on Walton'ss hip. But the
atmosphereo f baffled movement,w intry disorientation,a nd despair
which envelops the novel's charactersi s a figurativec ounterpartt o
the plight of Napoleon'sr etreating forces. A celebrated account of
the latter,p ublishedi n France in 1824, supportst he connection.T he
Count de S6gur,N apoleon'sQ uartermaster-Generaoln the Russian
Campaigno f 1812, invokes the metaphoro f a ship on a sea of ice to
describe the French decision to throw into a Russian lake the
trophies of the conquest of Moscow: "There was no longer any
question of adorningo r embellishingo ur lives, but merely of saving
them. In this shipwreck,t he army,l ike a great vessel tossed by the
most violent storm,w as throwingo verboardo n a sea of ice and snow
everythingt hat might encumber it or delay its progress."1A2 lthough
Mary Shelley could not have read Segur when she wrote the 1818
Frankenstein,s he and the Count were drawn to similar symbolic
seascapes to represent the same momentoush istoricale vents.
Against the novel's final setting of Northern ice, one contrasting
image has strikingf orce: the monster'sp lanned suicide by fire on the
book's final two pages. The comparable historical image is the
burning of Moscow by the Russians, as the Napoleonic army pre-
to settle into it for winter The monster'sa nnounced
pared quarters.'3
motive-that his "remainsm ay afford no light to any curious and
unhallowedw retch, who would create such another as I have been"
(243; vol. 3, chap. 7)-resembles the Russian action insofar as it
468 The Political Geographyo f Horror
immolates something priceless of one's own to deny use of it to
another.T he novel is not proposingt hat the monster represents the
anti-Napoleonicf orces of the Czar. Rather,t he creature'st rajectory
from birth in Ingolstadt to death by fire, amidst Northern ice, is a
figure for the historyo f the French Revolution.N ot only Napoleon's
victoriousc areer,b ut also the revolutionarya ge itself seemed to have
met its fatal blow in the flames of Moscow and the consequent
retreat. With the Grand Army now severely reduced in size and
morale, Napoleon'sd ays were numbered. His message in this period
was the same as the monster's on trees and stone:
inscription "My
reign is not yet over"( 226;v ol. 3, chap. 7). But for the Emperoro f the
French, the end was in sight. The dominant powers, which had
assembled at the Congress of Vienna, sought to convince the world
that the French Revolutioni tself was now finallyo ver.
But was it? In the novel'sl ast line, the monsteri s "losti n darkness
and distance,"p roducing a sense of obscurity and open possibility,
rather than certainty. The monster's inscription echoes beyond
fate to the return of
Napoleon's suggest possible revolutionary
violence. The novel uses the idea of a recently completed French
revolutionaryh istorya s a point of departuref or a sustainedc onfron-
tation with the international legacy of revolution, including its
promise, its violence, its possible continuance, and its geographical
emplacement.
II. GENEVA
For the Byron-Shelleyc ircle, Geneva was above all the city of
Jean-JacquesR ousseau, the deeply flawed but uniquely prophetic
and intellectual father of the French Revolution.
instigative During
the sojourno f Lord Byron, MaryS helley,a nd Percy Shelley there in
1816, they read and wrote about him extensively.G enevaw as also the
site of actual revolutionarye vents in both 1768 and 1794. Mary's
three and a half months in and near the city gave her an incentive to
read about its and an to draw the
history opportunity upon living
memory of natives and long-time residents. Frankensteinp uts this
geographicallys pecific materialt o use.
Frankenstein'sm onster commits his first murder-the of
killing
Victor's youngest brother, William-just outside the ramparts of
Geneva in vol. to which
Plainpalais( 98-99, 102-3; 1, chap. 6), Mary
had attributedp olitical significancei n History of a Six Weeks'T our:
Fred V Randel 469
To the south of the town is the promenade of the Genevese, a grassy
plain planted with a few trees, and called Plainpalais. Here a small
obelisk is erected to the glory of Rousseau, and here (such is the
mutability of human life) the magistrates, the successors of those
who exiled him from his native country, were shot by the populace
during that revolution, which his writings mainly contributed to
mature, and which, notwithstanding the temporary bloodshed and
injustice with which it was polluted, has produced enduring benefits
to mankind, which all the chicanery of statesmen, nor even the great
conspiracy of kings, can entirely render vain. From respect to the
memory of their predecessors, none of the present magistrates ever
walk in Plainpalais.14
Both Frankenstein'sc reature and revolution engage in "temporary
bloodsheda nd injustice,"w hich readilyi nvite a responseo f wholesale
condemnation.T hat is precisely the response given to the Genevese
politicale xecutionsi n the source most readilya vailablet o an English
reader of the early nineteenth century:F rancis d'Ivernois'sA Short
Account of the Late Revolutioni n Geneva.15 Ivernois, like Barruel,
was an emigréw ho had settled in England, but unlike the Abbé he
had credentialsa s a political moderate:a supportero f the Genevese
settlement of he was the historian of
revolutionary 1768, principal
that earlier revolution,i n which his father had been a majorp artici-
pant. In an emigrdso ciety of monarchists,t he younger Ivernoisw as a
republicanw ho supported a somewhat extended franchise, but he
thought universal suffrage inevitably caused mob rule. He was
entrustedb y the Genevese governmentw ith negotiatinga treatyw ith
France, when Geneva was under siege by a French armyi n 1792. In
while Maximilien was at his of
July 1794, Robespierre height power,
an uprising occurred in Geneva, instigated partly by France and
disenfranchisedr esidents of the A
partlyb y city-state. Revolutionary
Tribunaln ow preempted the constitutionalg overnment. Under the
influence of intimidation by "the savage multitude," and without
credible judicial proceedings or evidence of violationo f law, accord-
ing to Ivernois, the Tribunale xecuted eleven persons, including at
least four magistrates,t wo of whom were ex-syndicso r presidentso f
Geneva. Ivernois sums up these events-including the executions
which MaryS helley links to Plainpalaisa nd to William'sm urder-as
a "worko f horror"o r "horrors."1M6 aryS helley,w hose only son at the
time was also a child named William, registers the horror;i n that
sense, she is no apologistf or murder.B ut she refuses to demonize the
revolutiono r the monster:t he first, she claims "hasb roughte nduring
470 The Political Geographyo f Horror
benefits to mankind,"a nd the second, she gives a sympathetic
hearing on the basis of Rousseau'sr evolutionaryp hilosophy.
Plainpalaisi s the site of a monument to "the glory of Rousseau,"
whose "writingsm ainly contributed to mature" the revolution of
France as well as Geneva. By locating the novel's first murder at a
spot consecratedt o the memoryo f the propheto f revolution,s ituated
just outside the city where he was born and bearingi ts own historyo f
revolutionaryb loodshed, Mary Shelley establishes an equation be-
tween the monster'sm urders and revolutionaryv iolence. Although
some recent criticsp osition this novel in a conservatived irection,h er
explicit ruminationsa bout Plainpalaiss uggest otherwise.17 Franken-
stein itself is sympathetict o the monster of revolutiona nd, as David
Marshall and James O'Rourke have shown, is pervaded by the
philosophya nd literaryp recedent of Rousseau.'8E ven the murdero f
the child William is seen through a largely Rousseauvian lens.
Followingt he Genevese philosopher'sr evolutionaryp remise, that all
human beings are naturally good, Mary Shelley claims that the
monster is naturallyg ood as well, but society has imposed its evil
ways upon him.'19A s in Rousseau'ss tate of nature,t he creature'sf irst
feeling toward others is pity: he stops stealing food from the De
Laceys "when I found that by doing this I inflicted pain on the
cottagers,"a nd he gathersw ood for their fire to save them labor (137;
vol. 2, chap. 4). When his first effort to tell his story is brought to a
traumatic end with an unmerited beating by Felix De Lacey, he
refrainsf rom strikingb ack though "I could have torn him limb from
limb"( 160;v ol. 2, chap. 7). He saves the life of a "youngg irl"w ho has
fallen into a stream,o nly to be shot by her male companion( 165; vol.
2, chap. 8). Biased people torment him solely because of his
appearance,b ut he has still not harmed or sought to harm any of
them, and he yearns for acceptance in some kind of social unit. He
concludes that his only chance for a friend is to talk to a child who is
"unprejudiced"b ecause society has not yet corruptedh im (166; vol.
2, chap. 8). Young William, however, turns out to be already the
product of an artificiala nd malignants ociety: he labels the creature
with visual stereotypes-"monster,"" uglyw retch,"a nd "ogre"-and
pulls social rank upon him by insisting that his father is "a Syndic"
(167; vol. 2, chap. 8). The creaturei s finallys tained by the social evil
that already infects William. By killing the boy, he shows the
extremityo f social wrong that surroundsh im, and he illustratest he
need in the novel'si mplied system of values for profound social and
political change, in the direction of greater inclusiveness. But he
Fred V Randel 471
never ceases to have a core of naturalg oodness, as his final remarks
about his persistent cravingf or "love and fellowship"a ttest (243).
Before committing his first murder,t he creature resorts on one
occasion to violence of a lesser kind. When he learns that he will
never get a second chance to try to gain the friendship of the De
Laceys because they have permanently abandoned the cottage in
fright, he burns the unoccupied structured own at night (163; vol. 2,
chap. 8). This episode bears a strikingr esemblancet o a famouse vent
in the revolutionaryh istoryo f Geneva. In January1 768 the city faced
a constitutional crisis, as the patriciansw ho controlled the Small
Councilw ere locked in disputew ith the GeneralC ouncilo f Burghers
about the respective rights of each body and how restrictively
citizenships hould be defined. One night a public buildingb urned to
the ground,a nd it was believed by many that the burgherf action set
the fire. The patriciansa greed to a majorc onstitutionalc ompromise,
which secured the public peace. The incinerated structure was a
theater built by the patricians in defiance of the burghers' view,
articulated by Rousseau in his Letter to M. d'Alembert on the Theatre
(1758), that such an institution would corrupt Geneva'sr epublican
manners and moralsw ith aristocraticd ecadence.20 The first revolu-
tion in the post-Enlightenment West-and the first to bear the
imprint of Rousseau-had, as one of its central events, a nighttime
conflagrations imilart o that which Mary Shelley uses as the first act
of violence by a Genevese thinker'sc reation.21A happy outcome
followed in the city-state in 1768: patrician accommodationa nd a
more inclusive political order, which lasted until royalist France
imposed the reactionaryB lackC ode on Genevai n 1782. In Franken-
stein, on the other hand, continued rejectionisma nd exclusionm ake
bloodshed inevitable.
William'sd eath is followed by another:t he authoritiesi n Geneva
execute the innocent servant, Justine Moritz, for the crime. This
fictionalm iscarriageo f justice is rooted in Genevese politicalh istory.
The revolutionarye xecutions in Geneva in the summer of 1794 had
been swiftly followed by Robespierre'sf all and execution, and the
ThermidoreanR eactioni n Paris. Geneva too recoiled againstr adical
excesses and sought scapegoats. Six weeks after Jacobinisms eemed
triumphant in Geneva, a reactivated RevolutionaryT ribunal con-
demned four members of the radical Mountaineerf action to death
although,a ccordingt o Ivernois," no positive evidence was adduced"
to supportt he charges,a nd testimonyw as introducedi mplicatingt he
judges in the crimes for which they condemned the defendants.22A s
472 The Political Geography of Horror
in Justine's wrongful execution, the institutional punishment for one
fatal crime becomes another murder.
The only observer who behaves creditably at Justine's trial is
Elizabeth Lavenza. While Victor Frankenstein remains silent, despite
his knowledge of who killed William and his own responsibility for
making that creature what he is, Elizabeth speaks eloquently in
defense of Justine's character. But her testimony fails to overcome
the "public indignation" against the defendant (111; vol. 1, chap. 7),
and the guilty verdict follows. There is a precedent for this combina-
tion of male silence and admirable, though futile, female intervention
amidst popular frenzy. Ivernois's account of the history of Geneva in
the summer of 1794 includes this memorable episode:
One generouse ffort,i ndeed,w as madeb y the womeno f Geneva( for
the experimenwt as too hazardousfo r men to engagei n), who, to the
number of two thousand,w ent in a body to the Revolutionary
Tribunal,t o intercedef or them ["theu nhappyv ictims"];b ut their
tears and entreatiesh ad no other effect, than that of exposingt hem
to the brutalr idiculeo f the Judges,w ho orderedt he fire-enginest o
be got ready,i n ordert o administerw hat they profanelyc alled,t he
rights[ sic] of Civic Baptism.
Elizabeth speaks not merely for herself in Mary Shelley's book, but
for a multitude of women who, in recent Genevese history, had
bravely sought to inject generosity into a dehumanized political
context-and who had been spurned for their efforts.
Justine's execution is, in one sense, highly untypical of Geneva's
experience in 1794. Ivernois contrasts France's conduct with his own
city's:
In one point indeed, and in one point only, the Frencha re still
without a rival; for out of no less than 508 persons, on whom
differents entencesw ere passed,o n the late occasion,t here was but
one Woman,w ho was condemnedt o be imprisonedf or life, for
having given assistance, and forwardedl etters, to some French
Emigrantsa; ndi t is moret hanp robablet, hat even this sentencew as
obtainedb y the influencea nd intrigueso f the FrenchR esident.23
The murdered females of Frankenstein, to the extent that they
represent revolutionary executions of women, point to French rather
than Genevese political history. Yet Geneva does not escape respon-
sibility since its native son, Rousseau, hovers over French as well as
Genevese practice, as the monster's involvement with Justine's death
Fred V Randel 473