YALL BETTER STOP BEING FUNNIER THAN ME ON MY OWN POST /j @sammypog @lemonavocado

henry !

herbert west comes with one of those drink labels that say “shake well”

its so interesting to see the variety of ways in which people can interpret the same characters in the same story based on their own variety of life experiences and values and influences!! ive seen quite a few posts going around lately about transfem frankenstein which gave me a moment of pause to realize "huh I literally never thought about that before" and how fascinating it is to see the same things interpreted in opposite ways

ive always been in the "victor is a trans man whose struggles come in part from being incompatible with the female roles that are constantly imposed on him" school and viewed the story and character under that lens and i dont think I've ever actually listed what stands out to me to influence that reading. meandering list under cut:

from childhood, he accepts unquestioningly his mother's declaration that Elizabeth is a present for him, an object that can be transferred to his possession. iirc she's the only character besides the creature that Victor affords any significant physical description at all. he compares her in his descriptions to animals (a summer insect, a bird), and states that he "loved to tend on her, as [he] should on a favourite animal." in the 1831 edition, he refers to her as something otherwordly, a "distinct species," "saintly," "a being heaven-sent, and bearing a celestial stamp in all her features." (ironically, Victor himself later is on the receiving end of this objectification by Walton, described as being like a "celestial spirit, that has a halo around him," "divine wanderer," "godlike," etc.) despite how close Victor and Elizabeth seem based on Victor's tenderness toward and admiration of her, he definitely "others" her as a female peer and keeps her clearly separated in ways that he doesn't quite do with his male peers. to me this comes across as his having negative feelings of connections to women and relies on his parents' assurance that women are something altogether different; and how could he have a feminine role if he accepted that Elizabeth was the one put in his possession to defer to him?

he was put in the role of nurturer/caretaker as a child, a "constant nurse" alongside Elizabeth to Ernest

his nightmare on the night of the creation involved only women: the affection he demonstrated to Elizabeth made her rot into the worm-eaten corpse of his mother, both a punishment of displaying passion towards a woman as well as tying his relationship to Elizabeth back to the presence and wishes of his mother

the most obvious one is the metaphor of childbirth/giving life, which Victor devotes himself to circumventing. it's not the fact that Victor is desperate to find a way to create life that's significant to the transmasc interpretation, but the fact that he dedicates himself to finding a way to create life that's completely separate from one's own body. he still suffers in his extreme labors over the project, but he does succeed in physically externalizing the process. (there's also his preoccupation with masculine ideals in building his creation)

though he divorced himself from the traditional way of giving life, he still in a way tried to compromise between his own strong feelings and the expectations of gender pushed on him. relenting to a "female" role of giving life, no matter how intelligently and miraculously he compromised to meet the expectation in his own way, locked him into an unfortunate reality in which his maleness would not be taken seriously by those around him:

though he had never been previously inclined to anxiety or paranoia and thus couldn't really have known how his friends or family would react if he told the truth of his creation, he was completely confident that if he were to tell anyone he would be dismissed as insane and delirious. he was already aware that his overwhelming emotion and nervous fevers would disqualify him from being taken seriously, even by his family (another obvious one, very strong parallels to the historical view of "female hysteria" that placed the blame of all a woman's troubles on the fact of, simply, being a woman)

over the course of Victor's struggles with guilt and anxiety, he loses virtually all his independence. in his illness he is rendered unable to do anything on his own and is forced to rely fully on men for survival (Clerval and Walton). he also is resigned to the reliance on men to speak for him: Clerval to intervene with the professors, to steer conversations away from the topic of science to less offensive academia; Walton to command his crew of curious sailors to stop harassing Victor with persistent questions.

the creature could have killed Elizabeth at any time, but instead, he promised it would be the specific date of Victor's wedding-night. this was also, significantly, the last straw for Victor: a punishment for publicly taking on a new distinctly male role of husband

even in his last days, deathly ill and devastated by all the tragedies in his life, he was objectified by a man. to Walton, he was something beautiful and captivating and mysterious, whose secrets must be dug out and conquered, much like Walton thought of the North Pole. despite the fact that Victor himself was in such dire need of help, Walton focused less on how he could meet Victor's needs, and more on how Victor could fulfill Walton's own desires and fill a vacancy in his life, thus relating Victor back to himself. (similar to what Victor had expected of Elizabeth: that she would be his comfort and provide happiness and repose from everything he had gone through, focusing more on how she could "fix" everything when she became his wife and relating her existence to propping up his own)

his deathbed—essentially his coffin—was a ship; at his last, he was walled up by an object historically referred to as female and symbolic of a mother figure

the story of Victor's life itself is relayed to readers not directly, but through the record of Walton. everything he had to say was filtered for the rest of the world through a man. his entire life and legacy was more or less passed into the hands of a man to control how or if it would be shared

imo. my perspective is that this smacks of the experience of a man who isn't respected or recognized as a man by the rest of the world. no matter how he tried to separate himself from connotations of femininity and sought to define himself, he is repeatedly forced back into female roles and viewed through a female lens. at the same time, he both isn't allowed by others and doesn't allow himself genuine connection with female figures in his life, with all the female presences slowly chipped away (losses of his mother, Justine, Elizabeth). in the end, the only woman who finally saw his mind and heart laid bare was Margaret—a woman who Victor never even met

the discomfort and horror aspects come not from the pervading presence of and emphasis on femininity, but from the depiction of how women have faced being pushed into such rigid roles, their emotions and wishes dismissed, or derided and how uncomfortable it is to directly face that reality in witnessing a man be treated that way and how he experiences it for the smothering, draining misery it is. more specifically: the smothering, draining misery of a man whose personal reality of being male seems to be invisible to those around him as he's constantly placed under constraints and expectations ascribed to women. femininity and feminine qualities themselves aren't horrors in the story, but the social response to them and the forcible assignment of them on someone who sees them from the outside as separate from himself are

and thats just my interpretation, which I ofc don't think is the "right" one or even a primary one or incompatible with any other readings

for my 100th post (!) i thought i would, at long last, make a catch-all analysis on victor and elizabeth’s relationship, their marriage, and why specifically it was incestuous. throughout i may mention my interpretations of caroline’s past and her pseudo-incestuous relationship with alphonse, which you can read here. it’s not necessary to understand this post, but you’ll miss some of the nuance of the relationships between the frankensteins without it

in the 1818 version of the novel, elizabeth is the paternal first cousin of victor. she is, like caroline, similarly upper-class but falls into misfortune when her mother dies and she is left under the care of her father. these parallels become important later. after elizabeth’s mother dies, her father writes to alphonse “….requesting [Alphonse] to take charge of the infant Elizabeth” and that it was his wish “…that [Alphonse] should consider her as [his] own daughter, and educate her thus” (1818). that is, it was explicitly intended for elizabeth to be reared as a daughter to the frankensteins (and thus victor’s sister). 

in the 1831 edition, caroline specifically has an interest in elizabeth because she sees herself and her own situation in her, a background that mirrors her own. i’ll directly quote a post of mine instead of reiterating the same point. essentially: from the beginning caroline deliberately sets up parallels between herself and elizabeth. she wants a daughter, and adopts elizabeth specifically because elizabeth reminds her of herself, but grander: like she was, elizabeth is also a beggar and an orphan and homeless, but her story is more tragic, she is more beautiful, her debt to her caretakers more extreme, and her romantic relationship will go on to be more explicitly incestuous. through elizabeth and victor, caroline will perpetuate her own abuse. the difference is, unlike her own, this is a situation caroline can control.

from the beginning, at six years old, victor and elizabeth are raised with the expectation that they are going to be wed when they are older. as an adult, elizabeth reflects “that our union had been the favourite plan of [their] parents ever since our infancy” and that “we were told this when young, and taught to look forward to it as an event that would certainly take place” (1831). this is because of caroline’s “desire to bind as closely as possible the ties of domestic love” (1818), and so she is raised as victor’s “more than sister” (1831). they are encouraged to play at the role of mother and father/husband and wife together via raising and educating their younger siblings, particularly ernest. ernest is described as being victor’s “principal pupil” and, during his illness in infancy, elizabeth and victor were “his constant nurses” despite caroline, alphonse and maids/servants/caretakers being available

simultaneously, caroline grooms elizabeth into being a mini-me, calling her her “favorite” and encouraging her to embody the same values as her. caroline does all she can to have elizabeth be what is, essentially, a second version of her, while all the while dictating a marriage to her son

this becomes even more significant, when, on her deathbed, caroline reinforces her wish for victor and elizabeth to marry: “My children... my firmest hopes of future happiness were placed on the prospect of your union. This expectation will now be the consolation of your father. Elizabeth, my love you must supply my place” (1831). by attempting to replace herself with elizabeth via telling her to “supply her place” (of mother/wife) to the rest of the family, caroline is not only dictating a marriage between brother and sister but now mother and son, as elizabeth shifts from a sister-figure to victor into a maternal substitute, and simultaneously is his bride-to-be. as a result the roles of mother, sister and wife become conflated in victor’s mind—to some degree, there is no one without the other.

there’s deeper things at play here too, namely that it creates victor’s later emotional obligation in honoring his mother’s dying wish to go through with the marriage (furthered because it is the “consolation” of his father… alphonse also says something to this effect after victor gets out of prison), but i have enough to say on how victor is relied on as a pillar of emotional support by all of his family that it warrants its own post

this subconscious shift between the role of sister figure to mother figure is further emphasized when, during his dream at ingolstadt after the creation of the creature, elizabeth morphs into caroline in victors arms: “I slept, indeed, but I was disturbed by the wildest dreams. I thought I saw Elizabeth…Delighted and surprised, I embraced her; but as I imprinted the first kiss on her lips, they became livid with the hue of death; her features appeared to change, and I thought that I held the corpse of my dead mother in my arms” (1831). that is, she literally changes from sister into mother. this is also the only kiss in the entire book, and the only instance victor and elizabeth display any affection for each other that is explicitly non-platonic (and elizabeth’s affections towards victor generally feel more motherly then amorous, particularly in contrast to the romance of felix and safie), and during it, she turns into victor’s mother and decays in his arms.

but why make the creature in the first place? well, as the common misconception goes, it wasn’t about reanimation (which was only mentioned once in a throwaway line) it was about creating new life. what victor wound up doing what was not reversing death, but what was, essentially, an alternate method of childbirth. this is a significant detail when considered in the context of victor and elizabeth’s relationship: victor’s goal was to create life, and he, at great lengths, intentionally circumvented women (elizabeth) in this process. why? so that he could dodge an act of incest—marrying elizabeth and providing the frankenstein heirs and carrying on the family legacy, which is what his family expected him to do.

there’s evidence to suggest elizabeth views victor as a brother. elizabeth indirectly acknowledges this relationship during justine’s trial, when she stands up for her defense: "I am," said she, "the cousin of the unhappy child who was murdered, or rather his sister, for I was educated by, and have lived with his parents ever since and even long before, his birth…” (1831). here, elizabeth calls herself the cousin of william (which is notably what she refers to victor as, both when they are literally cousins and when they have no blood relation—either way, a familial term) and then corrects herself, that she is actually william’s sister. her reasoning for this? she was raised and educated by the frankensteins alongside him ever since she was young. if you follow this logic, by extension she also considers herself ernest’s—and more relevantly—victor’s sister.

there is an egregious amount of subtext that suggests victor also views elizabeth as a sibling as well. before victor leaves for his vacation with henry, alphonse tells him that he has “always looked forward to [victor’s] marriage with [his] cousin as the tie of our domestic comfort” because they were “attached to each other from earliest infancy” and “entirely suited to one another in dispositions and tastes.” however, he acknowledges that because of this, victor may, perhaps, “regard [elizabeth] as his sister, without any wish that she might become your wife. Nay, you may have met with another whom you may love; and, considering yourself bound in honour to your cousin, this struggle may occasion the poignant misery which you appear to feel” to which victor replies: “My dear father, re-assure yourself. I love my cousin tenderly and sincerely. I never saw any woman who excited, as Elizabeth does, my warmest admiration and affection. My future hopes and prospects are entirely bound up in the expectation of our union” (1831). that is, he answers, no, he has not met any other woman he would rather marry, yet skirts around the former half of alphonse’s question and doesn’t acknowledge whether or not he views her as a sister or not.

this occurs again after victor is released from prison in ireland when, elizabeth, in a letter, does eventually ask him if he wants to back down from the marriage (this same letter features elizabeth literally hitting the nail on the head when asking if victor was going through with the marriage because he felt honor-bound to their parents). however, she poses this by asking: “But as brother and sister often entertain a lively affection towards each other, without desiring a more intimate union, may not such also be our case?...Do you not love another?” to which victor honestly answers no, he has not met any other woman. however, it’s not addressed whether he’s in love with elizabeth herself, nor does he address whether or not their affection towards each other is akin to that of siblings–again he entirely ignores it.

when victor and alphonse return to geneva after his release from prison, alphonse proposes victor’s immediate marriage to elizabeth, to which victor remains silent. alphonse then confronts victor once more: “Have you, then, some other attachment?” victor responds: “None on earth. I love Elizabeth, and look forward to our union with delight. Let the day therefore be fixed; and on it I will consecrate myself, in life or death, to the happiness of my cousin" (1831). yet the “hopes and prospects” that victor saw bound in their marriage earlier was, in fact, his own death–which was “no evil to [him]...and I therefore, with a contented and even cheerful countenance, agreed with my father, that if my cousin would consent, the ceremony should take place in ten days, and thus put, as I imagined, the seal to my fate” (1831). victor sees going through with a marriage to elizabeth as suicide, and embraces this.

they are both mutually hesitant and describe feelings of dread and melancholy on their wedding day itself. at the very least this indicates a lack of romantic interest in each other. after the ceremony, when they row out on the boat together, victor has a thought that is perhaps the most blatant example of his romantic disinterest in elizabeth: “Then gazing on the beloved face of Elizabeth, on her graceful form and languid eyes, instead of feeling the exultation of a—lover—a husband—a sudden gush of tears blinded my sight, & as I turned away to hide the involuntary emotion fast drops fell in the wave below. Reason again awoke, and shaking off all unmanly—or more properly all natural thoughts of mischance, I smiled” (Frankenstein 1823). victor also makes it clear to the narrator (walton) that they did not consummate their marriage before elizabeth’s death, which suggests there was hesitance or disgust around the concept. 

this is a neat little aside and more circumstantial evidence then anything else, but it is pretty well known that mary shelley's works tend to be somewhat autobiographical, and that her characters are influenced by people in her own life. this is most obvious in the last man, but its also present to a lesser extent in frankenstein, wherein victor's character is inspired by (among others) percy shelley. percy wrote under the pseudonym victor, which is believed to be where victor's name may have come from—and elizabeth was the name of percy shelley's sister.

"oh i love frankenstein! my favorite quote from the novel is i have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine-" grabs you by the throat and chokes you violently

proposition: boy valentine

”finally got my degree so now i can say im smarter/better than college dropout victor frankenstein” no you arent. victor went from being the equivalent of an aspiring astronaut studying astronomy to having the 1790s version of two PHDs in chemistry and biology and was well on his way to a third in oriental languages when he HAD to stop - literally because his brother was murdered. all during a time period where going to university was widely considered optional and/or extracurricular!

unstoppable force (i want to see this tragic character survive and heal) vs immovable object (their death was the most thematic and narratively satisfying resolution possible for their character arc and anything less than death just feels cheap)

classic literature’s gone WOKE…

- FREAKenstein, or; the modern PRONOUNS

- IARCHMYBACULA

- strange case of dr QUEERKYLL and mr PRYDE

- the picture of dorian GAY

- phantom of the DRAG SHOW

- PRIDE MONTH and prejudice

- WLW heights

- the stranger

- the CLOSETED man

- TESTOSTERONE island

- CUNT and PUSSY

“match my freak” how about you match my poetic misery instead