Frankenstein, Death, and Freud: A Psychoanalysis of Victor Frankenstein

 In most analysis, the character Victor Frankenstein is either shown to be a mad scientist driven mad by his pursuit of scientific advancement, a tragic genius who’s sloppy scientific misadventure eventually led to his downfall, or in some more absurd analysts, a contemptible “monster” who basically damned himself and those around him because of his selfish pursuits. All of these analysis is in this author’s opinion rather weak, as they either paint Frankenstein as a bland stereotype, a completely blameless individual in the carnage of the story, or a cartoonish version of villainy devoid of any sort of redeeming values.  These interpretations do not offer an entirely holistic approach to analyzing the character as they all ignore a very important area of everyone’s psychological, that being our childhood. From what we can glean from the text, Victor in his youth seemed to be a kind, wide-eyed, and curious kid. His initial interest in science also started around this time, however, his interest in specifically necrology didn’t emerge at this point. So what caused this obsessive work with the dead?

  The origin of this infatuation occurs most likely in the first tragedy of Frankenstein’s life, that being the death of his mother when he was seventeen. This is actually more important to note when we take into account Victor’s father’s profession. It is stated that Victor’s father Alphonse is a man of high status in Swiss society, possibly being a government member. So by the situation of his work, this would leave Victor to be raised by his mother primarily throughout his youth. This would make her death significantly impact him since at seventeen one’s self would still be developing. So seeing the one parental figure that he had to die must have been incredibly traumatic. This death also must’ve affected Victor’s relationships with the other two prominent female characters in the novel those being Elizabeth and Justine.

  Keep in mind that the reason that Mrs. Frankenstein got ill in the first place was that she was nursing Elizabeth who was affected by the same disease that ended up killing Mrs. Frankenstein. There’s also the fact that Justine was the maid of the house at that time, and was most likely nursing Mrs. Frankenstein when she passed. It is possible, therefore, that Victor unconsciously or subconsciously blames these two for his mother’s death, Elizabeth for giving it to her and Justine for not being able to save her. This could explain Victor’s neglect of Elizabeth early in the story and his unwillingness to want to defend Justine when she is accused of William’s murder. Now, this is not an attempt to justify either of these two actions, but it does make them way more understandable in the context of the story and gives us an interesting look into Victor’s mind and his reason for creating the monster in the first place. This desire Victor seemingly has for his mother may also be evidence of another psychological issue he has, that being the possibility that he has an Oedipus complex.

 Now before we continue it is important to note what the Oedipus complex means in the context of this paper. What the author means by it is that while building the creature and earlier in his studies, Victor had an unconscious desire to resurrect his mother to in a way regain the maternal figure he lost. This desire, while not necessarily sexual in nature as Freud described the Oedipus complex, still shows itself in Victor’s action and description of friends, specifically Henry Clerval. In Freud’s view, the Oedipus complex works itself out of a child with a father who works to balance out the potentially inappropriate obsession with the mother. As already stated, Victor’s father was seemingly not involved much with his upbringing thus making this situation unbalanced. This unbalances, in Freud’s opinion, could lead to unfortunate behaviors such as neurosis, pedophilia, and homosexuality. Although Victor doesn’t exhibit the middle characteristic, the other two do exist in him to some degree.

  For example, neurosis is defined as a condition in which one experiences a state of chronic distress. Distress, as defined by Merriam-Webster, is “pain or suffering affecting the body, a bodily part, or the mind”. This is evident in Victor as, possibly due to his overworked state while making the creature, responds in fear of it when it is brought to life, experiences at least two instances of fainting throughout the story, reacts with a violent outburst when the monster appears despite there being no direct threat and is also chronically ill though this may be mental. There’s also his descriptions of his friend Clerval. We see Victor describe him with words that may indicate some amount of attraction such as calling him “beautiful”. This may be evidence of some homosexual desire for Clerval, though Victor is shown to also be attracted to women, as his marriage to Elizabeth shows, though it may represent that Victor is a straight leaning bisexual. There’s also another interesting factor, the fact that Victor decided to marry his adoptive sister Elizabeth. Elizabeth was also primarily raised by Mrs. Frankenstein which also means that she probably gained some of her traits. This is probably why Victor was attracted to her, but mostly in a non sexual, platonic way, because he had begun to associate her with a mother figure.

 But if this obsession with the dead and desire for a lost mother had existed in Victor, then would it not be clear that he would try to resurrect her in a way? Perhaps he would try to use a part of her in this pursuit. A brain, or perhaps a heart? Maybe through this knowledge of being able to wake the dead, Victor could in a way bring his mother back to life. If this is true then Victor’s reason for him creating the creature becomes more clear. He was just a sad, lost boy who wanted his mother. Now we can certainly criticize him for how he handled the creation and his occasionally selfishness, but those things only make him human. There have been many moments in each of our lives when we’ve been sloppy or selfish to a degree, but we learn from it and we grow. Unfortunately for Victor, the way he learned this lesson was through tragedy upon tragedy.