Magnum Opus Pt. 2, Frankenstein Edition

to suggest that victor’s fainting spells (which contrary to popular belief only occurred twice, but i digress) and by extension his emotional demonstrativeness are the result of mary’s gender is not only lazy criticism, it’s grossly sexist. you’re reducing a groundbreaking literary figure to a stereotype, as though shelley just couldn’t help but feminize her male characters because of her “womanly emotions.” that line of thinking doesn’t just erase her intellect—it erases the entire literary culture that she was a part of. 

mary was a romantic! she was working within and expanding a movement that was already deeply invested in emotional vulnerability and internal conflict and tragedy and the sublime. victor doesn’t “faint” because he was written by a woman, he does so because he’s a romantic protagonist, written into a tradition where pain was profound and poetic and central to the narrative. he’s a product of a literary movement that valued this emotional extremity, especially in men. it framed their suffering as noble, even divine. 

not that it really matters, but many prominent romantic figures who are similar to victor or even mentioned within the text were male-authored, from byronic tortured heroes to coleridge’s mariner to goethe’s werther and so on. but no, shelley didn’t “make victor a sissy.” she wrote him exactly as the literary tradition demanded.

Reading classical literature, especially from the 1800s, has made me very aware of the fact how toxically masculine the world is now compared to that.

For example in Dracula, the men involved are so affected by the tragedy that they all write several heartbreaking passages in their respective diaries and openly cry at Lucy's funeral. Of course, this tragedy is Pretty Woman Dead, but still, the emotions these characters are capable of expressing! Incredible! I feel like these days men are only allowed to scream and cry in horror, not in grief.

Another example is Moby Dick and oh boy, Moby Dick is a whole other caliber. I read the first few chapters and thought I was seeing things, but no. Nowadays you could not publish that book without an uproar from the manosphere. You have Ishmael, an experienced sailor, wandering through the streets alone looking for lodgings, and the first thing he does is share a blanket with a shirtless, tattooed New Zealander because there is only one bed. It's literally the There Is Only One Bed fanfic trope. Later, Queequeg calls him his "wife" repeatedly and there's a chapter where Ishmael is dissolving lumps of oil in a vat with a few other sailors and every time he accidentally grabs one of their hands instead of an oil lump, he looks deep into their eyes and fantasizes about hugging everyone because he feels so spiritually connected to them. While talking about squeezing all the sperm lumps. You couldn't. You just couldn't.

Mary Shelley’s Mathilda

summer semester art project, acrylic on canvas

more pictures and text under the cut

Short novelette Mathilda written by Mary Shelley, the mother of Frankenstein herself, touched me in a certain way since the very moment I read it. Is it the authors writing style? The autobiographical elements snuck into it? The book not being shy portraying taboo elements and feminist ideas, unlike great majority of other books written in the early 19th century? Perhaps all of it.

I really wanted to pay homage to this piece of literature, moments in the plot that struck with me, and to Mary Shelley herself. Correct me if i’m mistaken, but to this day I don’t think there’s any collection of illustrations nor paintings inspired by this written piece, and I’m very proud and honoured to be the first one!

Here! Despite disagreements on my vision between me and my art professors, initial frustration with the poses (incredible thanks to my friend @the-gay-sailor for helping and mental support), months of work when i felt like what I’m doing is pointless, I am ready and satisfied with the result.

I hope you enjoy it as equally as I do :]

they call me the responsibility ignorer. for no discernible reason.

i can be your angle...or yuor devil

some headshots I did for a Frankenstein assignment

go vicube go!! go vicube go!!

New Frankenstein origin story just dropped

i've noticed that some frankenstein adaptions that include walton (the only good ones ☝️🤓) choose to depict him as a naval officer (aesthetically, at the very least — one of my favourite examples is in the 2018 manchester royal exchange theatre production because well. LOOK AT HIM)

this phenomena is so interesting to me because he is explicitly Not that, textually

on one hand i get it because the correlation between polar exploration and the navy especially during the 18th and 19th centuries is there and makes sense; it’s an easy connection to make if you just want walton “on screen” and a visual short hand for the reason behind the type of journey he’s making (i.e. discovery service expedition to the arctic sent by the admiralty) without any real exploration of his character and the inner thoughts that he communicates to margaret (and ultimately the reader) through his letters

but walton himself makes the claim very early in his narrative that his voyage is entirely independent, and that he basically funded the entire thing himself (with a little help from his cousin, whoever they are/were). most importantly, because he was prohibited from going to sea as a boy by his father, he served on whaling ships for years to train himself mentally and physically:

Six years have passed since I resolved on my present undertaking. I can, even now, remember the hour from which I dedicated myself to this great enterprise. I commenced by inuring my body to hardship. I accompanied the whale-fishers on several expeditions to the North Sea; I voluntarily endured cold, famine, thirst, and want of sleep; I often worked harder than the common sailors during the day and devoted my nights to the study of mathematics, the theory of medicine, and those branches of physical science from which a naval adventurer might derive the greatest practical advantage. Twice I actually hired myself as an under-mate in a Greenland whaler, and acquitted myself to admiration. I must own I felt a little proud when my captain offered me the second dignity in the vessel and entreated me to remain with the greatest earnestness, so valuable did he consider my services.

his voyage is motivated not by any sort of command from above by lifelong ambition and self-interest. he considers what he can contribute to science and maritime navigation, which, granted, serves his country as much as it serves him; but to me it is primarily his passion for the sublime beauty that the arctic represents, even if the reality is much more dangerous than he could have predicted, that drives him forward. he needs to see it for himself, to know that he can do it, no matter the cost (sound like someone else we know?)

if i had to draw a comparison between walton and any real-life polar explorer from around the time frankenstein was written it would be william scoresby, an english scientist who began his own career on whaling ships (ironically he thought the open polar sea theory that walton espouses was complete bs — and he was right, lmao)

janice cavell’s article ‘The Sea of Ice and the Icy Sea: The Arctic Frame of Frankenstein’ has a lot more to say on this topic and i’d highly recommend it but i just have to include this extract here because i was so delighted to learn about some of the real people who likely inspired walton in shelley’s mind:

Here, then, was material for both the Creature's journey and Walton's doomed mission. Moreover, here Mary found a surname for her Arctic captain in the list of officers who served under Vitus Bering in 1733-41: Peter Lassenius, William Walton, Dmitri Laptiew, Jego Jendauro, Dmitri Owzin, Swen Waxel, Wasili Prontischischtschew, Michailo Plautin, and Alexander Scheltinga. Walton, the sole Englishman on this list of exotically named foreigners, was in command of the Hope (Müller, 1761:15, 26; on William Walton, see Cross, 2007:177-178). The ship's name reflects the most prominent characteristic of the fictional Walton, whose first name, Robert, may have been taken from Robert Thorne, the 16th-century originator of the open polar sea theory. Even though Walton's theories about the Arctic are opposed to Scoresby's, Mary may have intended to acknowledge Scoresby's status as both a whaler and a man of science when she had Walton train himself for his chosen career through whaling voyages.

like! the Real Walton’s ship being named the Hope and “the ship’s name reflects the most prominent characteristic of the fictional Walton” ohhhh i am NOT going to cry don’t LOOK at me

anyway this post doesn’t really have much of a point. i guess tl;dr i just think it’s more interesting that walton is canonically just some overly ambitious guy with big dreams and more money than he knows what to do with who is willing to hang out on gross whaling ships for half a decade rather than pursue the more respectable maritime profession because he wants what he wants on his own terms and no one else’s

i keep seeing everyone poking fun at the stark difference in victor’s impressions of m. krempe and m. waldman and i wanted to say that these reactions were deliberately setting up victor’s vanity. which makes his later reaction to the creature more significant, more visceral - despite tragedies in his life victor was this relatively joyous, happy person until he created something ugly (creature), and the notion of unleashing something ugly into the world, done by his own hands, was so terrible to him it ruined him

finger prints