Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus asks readers to wrestle with perplexing questions about the nature of monstrosity and justice. These are ethical concerns. Who gets to say that the monster is more or less monstrous than the man who made him? Is it Frankenstein or his creation that is the novel’s true hero? Shelley does more than dramatize poor judgment. She asks her readers to examine their judgment, which is unavoidably theological.
The novel’s title character, Frankenstein, displays a shocking lack of self-awareness. He tells Walton, “I possessed a coolness of judgment that fitted me for illustrious achievements. This sentiment of the worth of my nature supported me when others would have been oppressed.” This self-perception contrasts starkly with his poor judgment throughout the novel. He indulges his selfish desires, succumbs to intense mood swings, and shirks from the responsibilities of caring for the creature he has made. His inability to make a selfless sacrifice or display genuine repentance lays bare the ironic dissonance between his self-judgment and reality.
Curiously, Frankenstein’s skewed self-perception finds a receptive audience in the story’s narrator Walton who evaluates Frankenstein this way: “an intuitive discernment, a quick but never-failing power of judgment, a penetration into the causes of things, unequalled for clearness and precision.” This admiration may be reflective of Walton’s flawed judgment. As the narrator of the novel’s frame, Walton identifies with Frankenstein, seeing a peer in him—another adventurer chasing fame through a perilous journey into the unknown.
In stark contrast to the tragic duo of Walton and Frankenstein, the monster’s pleas for understanding illuminate a different aspect of judgment—compassion. He asks his creator, “Listen to my tale; when you have heard that, abandon or commiserate me, as you shall judge that I deserve,” hinting at his yearning for justice and humanity. This longing is further exemplified in the monster’s interaction with the blind man, whose acceptance of him, based solely on his words, serves as a poignant reminder of judgment devoid of visual bias. Regrettably, such compassionate judgment eludes Frankenstein..
Through diverse characters and circumstances, Shelley underscores judgment’s necessity and profound consequences. It is something Walton, Frankenstein, and the monster cannot avoid. Neither, too, can the reader, who must ethically judge the characters in the novel by some standard. The monster reads history (Plutarch) and poetry (Milton) but never scripture. Frankenstein likewise submits himself to the moral judgment of the universe rather than the revealed scripture of the Bible. This is shocking in a novel that continually alludes to Paradise Lost, an epic version of the fall. Shelley is not pointing us back to God, but without the God of the Bible, we can’t render the judgments that make her novel powerful.
Experiments in Criticism 