Sometimes, we might feel like we have different lives sewn into one body.
Before, I described how former friends can become strangers. Now I’d like to discuss how we can become strangers to ourselves.
Because of my stress from college courses and projects, I used the Internet for escape. Consequently, I accumulated a lot of brain rot and lost energy for hobbies. To combat this, I have been trying to read more frequently again. At the beginning of this year, I decided to reread Frankenstein. I first read this book in sophomore year of high school without understanding it. Now that I am about the same age as Victor Frankenstein (in the book), from this reading, I have an actual analysis. Obviously, I am going to discuss Frankenstein‘s plot, so this post will contain spoilers.
The characters in Frankenstein go through so many tribulations that who they were before feels like lifetimes ago.
The Creature
Victor robbed an unsettling number of graves to create the Creature. “Who shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil as I dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the grave… I collected bones from charnel-houses and disturbed, with profane fingers, the tremendous secrets of the human frame” (Shelley 33). Victor creates the Creature from different dismembered parts of people who had had their own lives.
We never learn who these people were. But we can assume that they endured their own tribulations that made them feel like they had different lives, too. It’s a repeating cycle and an impressive metaphor for growing up. When we look back at our past selves, the experience can feel almost like reincarnation. We might remember who we once were, yet we’ve moved on for so long that the memories feel like glimpses from another lifetime.
From this lens, the Creature was indeed very human in the sense that he (or his parts) had lived distinct different lives.
Victor
Victor tells Robert Walton how his life is completely unrecognizable from before his escapades. “I feel exquisite pleasure in dwelling on the recollections of childhood, before misfortune had tainted my mind, and changed its bright visions of extensive usefulness into gloomy and narrow reflections upon self” (Shelley 20). Victor’s experiences—including making the Creature—make him feel as if he is living a different life compared to his childhood. When the Creature murders Victor’s family, Victor feels as if he’s died, too.
William
After the Creature murders Victor’s brother, William, Victor grieves over how the world seems exactly the same. “I passed through scenes familiar to my youth, but which I had not seen for nearly six years. How altered every thing might be during that time!” (Shelley 48). It’s infuriating when the loss of a loved one occurs and everything else seems exactly the same. It makes you feel as if they didn’t matter. Victor even exclaims this himself after William’s murder. “‘How do you welcome your wanderer? Your summits are clear; the sky and lake are blue and placid. Is this to prognosticate peace, or to mock at my unhappiness?'” (Shelley 49). Victor feels this indignation because he is not the same. Victor’s little brother is dead, and nature has the audacity to act as if nothing has happened? Yes, because it’s Victor who is living a different life now. His life as William’s older brother is gone forever. All that he’ll ever have now is the memory of William, which is a fragmented part in comparison to what he had before.
Justine
After Justine’s wrongful execution for William’s murder, Victor feels as if he’s also dead because of his guilt. “Sleep fled from my eyes; I wandered like an evil spirit, for I had committed deeds of mischief beyond description horrible, and more, much more (I persuaded myself) was yet behind” (Shelley 61). Victor feels as if he is a dead man walking among the living. “I saw an insurmountable barrier placed between me and my fellow-men; this barrier was sealed with the blood of William and Justine, and to reflect on the events connected with those names filled my soul with anguish” (Shelley 115). These deaths alienate Victor from the rest of humanity, as if he is dead, too. He can only remember William and Justine from now on. Unfortunately, the memories are only fractions compared to Victor’s life before their deaths.
Clerval
Later, when the Creature murders his best friend, Henry Clerval, Victor feels as if he has died yet again. “The human frame could no longer support the agonies that I endured, and I was carried out of the room in strong convulsions. A fever succeeded to this. I lay for two months on the point of death: my ravings, as I afterward heard, were frightful; I called myself the murderer of William, of Justine, and of Clerval” (Shelley 129-130). It would have been horrid enough if the Creature had stopped with murdering William and Justine. Victor’s life had already been permanently altered. Now he has to repeat the grieving process, again. Clerval is another important life to Victor that is gone forever. His life has Clerval’s friend is now a memory, which again, feels like a dismembered part in comparison to before.
Elizabeth
It would have been bad enough if the Creature had murdered one of Victor’s loved ones. Unfortunately, the Creature doesn’t even stop at three. The Creature kills Elizabeth immediately after she marries Victor. “She was there, lifeless and inanimate, thrown across the bed, her head hanging down, and her pale and distorted features half covered by her hair. Every where I turn I see the same figure—her bloodless arms and relaxed form flung by the murderer on its bridal bier. Could I behold this, and live?… For a moment only did I lose recollection; I fell senseless to the ground” (Shelley 144). Weddings are supposed to be the start of a new life together with the person you love. Instead, Victor’s wedding became an unequivocal symbol of another life of his that’s gone forever. All he will ever have now are the fractured parts in the form of memories.
Different Lives Sewn Together
Victor feels as if he’d died with each of his loved ones who were murdered by the Creature. After the Creature murders William and frames Justine, Victor’s internalized guilt makes him feel like a demon. After the Creature murders Clerval and Elizabeth, Victor collapses from the agony and shock. These relationships became distinct lifetimes that are now gone forever. “If I looked up, I saw scenes which were familiar to me in my happier time, and which I had contemplated but the day before in the company of her who now but a shadow and a recollection” (Shelley 146). After rejecting the Creature, all Victor had was his family. Now, all he will ever have are the memories of his loved ones that feel like eviscerated parts.
The memories of his lost loved ones make Victor feel as if he has different lives sewn into one body.
We’ve All Lived Different Lives
Who we were before is not who we are now. We are not the same people that we were 20 years ago, 10 years ago, or even 5 years ago. I loved eating bacon-covered pizzas and cheeseburgers, yet now I’ve been a vegetarian for 10 years. I loved playing basketball in middle school and high school, and now I much prefer watching on the bleachers. Heck, I had a mom five years ago.
We are not going to stay the exact same way for our entire lives. Sometimes, events out of our control happen to us and there’s nothing that we can do to stop them. Sometimes, we just don’t like to do the same things that we used to. Regardless, when we remember who we used to be, the memories may feel too distant to be real. But simultaneously, we know that they are real. Hence, like Victor and the Creature, we are not the same people now as we were then; we have different lives whose parts are sewn together.
Works Cited
Shelley, M. (1994). Frankenstein. Dover Publications.