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Frankenstein: Enlightenment’s Dusk, Romanticism’s Dawn

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein marks a shift from an Enlightenment worldview to that of Romanticism. Both Robert Walton and Victor Frankenstein seek to expand the realm of human knowledge in their respective quests to chart the arctic and discover the secrets of life and death for the good of mankind. However, when one pries back the curtain of these characters’ subconscious, one sees that a vain quest for sublime glory is really what motivates them. Excavating below the surface of the events depicted in Frankenstein dusts off the veneer of an Enlightenment work and exhumes an artifact of supremely Romantic themes. An analysis of the novel’s narrative structure, tragic conflicts, and treatments of identity reveals that Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein can be read as a transition between Enlightenment values to those of Romanticism.

Background

In his book The Roots of Romanticism, historian of ideas Isaiah Berlin outlines the shifting ideas of European thought at the tail end of the Enlightenment and its transition into what would become Romanticism in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The Enlightenment was an era of stultifying scientific optimism. Its tenets, outlined by Berlin, are as follows:

1.	All questions can be answered
2.	All answers are knowable
3.	All answers must be compatible with one another (Berlin 21, 22)

The adherents of enlightenment values looked to figures like Isaac Newton as models for emulation. What advances Newton made in the field of physics, enlightenment thinkers looked to do to government, to religion, and even to art (Berlin 23). In their view, all fields could be solved.

Later, Berlin goes on to define the forefathers of Romanticism. The wellspring of this thinking was France, with England close behind. These two kingdoms underwent immense centralization over the course of the 17th and 18th centuries, a current running parallel with the unifying efforts of the Enlightenment to solve ignorance. In the wake of such devastation it suffered during the Thirty Years War, Germany (that is, the many divided states of the Holy Roman Empire at the time) failed to keep pace with its neighbors. It remained heavily decentralized, and in turn its inhabitants embraced individualistic tendencies before its more centralized neighbors. It was here where Romanticism was born (Berlin 36).
	
Romanticism, by contrast to the Enlightenment, shifted the focus from universals to the specific. If the Enlightenment asks, “What should man do?” then Romanticism asks, “What should this man do?” If the Enlightenment says that there are universal truths, then Romanticism says there are truths, they are just not universal. Rather than having man seek a universal progress for all of humanity, man should seek to progress himself to loftier heights of being. In short, Romanticism was a socio-political-aesthetic shift away from the universal to that which is individual (Berlin 42).
	
Romanticism in Frankenstein

In Frankenstein, the place of Victor’s birth can be interpreted as a crucible of Enlightenment ideas alloyed with those of an emerging Romanticism. Geneva, Victor’s native canton, is French speaking. His father, also a Geneva native, is a typical enlightenment figure. He does everything with a sense of propriety, with care to the health of his family first, then community. He privileges business and the hard sciences over all else in the realm of ideas. Victor, however, is drawn to the arcane. Like other romantics who embraced medievalism, a young Victor Frankenstein finds himself more drawn to the alchemy practiced of yore over the hard natural philosophy of modernity.
	
Later on, Victor attends college in Germany. Here we see him leaving Enlightenment French territory and settling into German Romanticism. At the University, Victor turns away from public life and focuses his efforts at creation in isolation. He neglects his family’s letters and his studies in order to create the monster, in order to create himself. Victor turns away from the outside world and turns toward the world in his laboratory, the ideal inside his mind. From this moment onward, Victor struggles against the demands of his station and his own personal goals. But always, Victor’s personal drives trump those imposed on him by society.

Romantic Tragedy

One of the major indicators of a shift from Enlightenment ideology to Romantic can be found in Frankenstein’s drama. According to Berlin, Enlightenment proponents claim that tragedy arises from an error, a lack of knowledge in a certain area that leads to misunderstanding (Berlin 10). Consider the tragedy of Justine under this lens. Justine is wrongfully convicted because the judge and jury have no evidence that the true culprit, the monster, committed the crime. In fact, not a soul in Geneva even knows of the existence of the monster at this point. For the Enlightenment tragedy comes from a lack of light.
	
Contrast the Enlightenment view of tragedy with the Romantic view. For Romantics, tragedy arises from incompatible goals of individuals (Berlin 12). Think of all the tragedy that the monster endures throughout the story. He is denied family and companionship, at first by the De Lacy family because of their lack of knowledge of his pure intentions. Again, this follows an Enlightenment view of tragedy. Later, the monster makes himself known to Victor in all earnestness. Victor created the monster, and now he has his history as well. Victor cannot be said to be ignorant of the monster as the rest of humanity is; all of the facts are known. When the monster is denied a wife by Victor, are either Victor or the monster in the wrong for what they do? Victor knows what the monster is capable of, that the monster has stolen and murdered in the past. Thus, Victor’s sabotaging of the female monster’s creation is true to the furtherance of his own goals, those of preventing the monster from proliferating perceived tyranny. Conversely, the monster is not wrong in the transgressions he commits to force Victor to create him a spouse. The monster knows he has a soft nature and that love and family will dispel the evil within him. So here we have it: the goals of Victor and the goals of the monster are incompatible, and they inevitably lead to tragedy in the Romantic sense.
	
Sincerity and Authenticity and Frankenstein

In his 1972 book based on his lectures delivered in 1970 as Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry, Sincerity and Authenticity, cultural critique Lionel Trilling details theories of identity known as Sincerity and Authenticity. Trilling posits that historically people created their identities based on adherence to proscribed roles. A person’s function in society was set in stone at birth, and one built up an identity based on performing the roles that one was cast in with all sincerity, hence the term Sincerity being used to describe the phenomenon. The Sincere person cares about being respected, that their actions and appearance correspond to their class, gender, and profession proscribed by society.
	
The tenets of Sincerity have historically been tied to theater. Theater in the mode of Sincerity portrays the heroes of a story as virtuous and true unto their roles depicted. Villains, by contrast, seek to rise above their station, to confuse the societal order by their irony of appearance. Trilling details a fine example of this brand of villainy by Iago’s saying in Othello: “I am not who I am” (Trilling 16). When Iago says this, he is saying that his appearance and actions do not correspond to his identity; Iago is not being sincere—he is someone else entirely.
	
What happens when one is not in accordance with their roles? Shakespeare played with this quandary and advanced the dialectic of identity further in Hamlet, Trilling writes, during a scene in which Polonius talks to Laertes before the latter leaves for Paris. Polonius’ (oft unwarranted) advice to Laertes is such:

This above all: to thine own self be true
And it doth follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
(Trilling 3)

Should one be true to one’s role, or true to oneself? This is a central dilemma of Hamlet indeed, and this problem led to the development of Authenticity.
	
Authenticity is a competing philosophy of identity to Sincerity. The central tenet of Authenticity is as previously described: to be true to oneself. One is not defined by outward roles and appearances, but by one’s inward thoughts. One does not adhere to their roles, but rather continuously creates their role, their selfhood, through self-development. If Sincerity is preoccupied with one being constant and staying themself, Authenticity is concerned with becoming someone new; if Sincerity is preoccupied with performing one’s role within society, Authenticity is preoccupied with moving away from society to find one’s self.
	
The rise of Authenticity parallels the rise of the novel, which itself parallels the rise of Romanticism. Trilling writes of how the novel’s early development’s teleological ends were the education and development of individuals. Whether through the numerous heroines of Jane Austen’s novels or Cervantes bumbling protagonist in Don Quixote, early novels showcased the authentic development of their protagonists by showing the interiority of their characters thoughts. The protagonists in these stories develop themselves either through inward reflection or revealing their private thoughts to close friends, those of authentic relationships (Trilling 81-92). Thus, followers of Authenticity cultivate friendships with other authentic individuals in which both parties could mutually develop. Rather than following the antiquated Sincere relationship of teacher over student, Authentics served both as teacher and student to their authentic peers.

Authenticity in Frankenstein

With these aforesaid themes of Authenticity in mind, one can see many of their components throughout the narrative of Frankenstein. Robert, someone disillusioned with society’s expectations, leaves the comforts of civilization to explore the unknowns of the arctic. He wants to discover the hyperborean land of everlasting summer light, or perhaps he wants to discover the light within himself? Here he chances upon Victor, who is a sort of manifestation of the authentic friendship Robert has been looking for. Robert’s and Victor’s chance meeting in the arctic parallels the many times Victor met with the monster in storms, snowcapped mountains, or at the edge of the world on the isle of Orkney. Able to find not but types in society, one must look for godlike men in sublime locales. Robert is able to connect with Victor, where he cannot with honest men, men that harbor no inward contradictions. Victor is like Iago—he is not what he appears to be. Robert feels an sympathy due to his own inner turmoil as to his assigned station in life. In Victor revealing to Robert his interiority and history, Robert can learn from Victor what he cannot from others. It is in Victor’s story that the reader can see the hatching of Authenticity out of societies oppressive Sincerity shell.
	
Victor’s life was preordained at birth. He was to marry Elizabeth and become an enlightened pillar of his community, like his father, and likely his father’s father as well. Yet, Victor rebels against his father’s plan like Milton’s Satan against God. His internal existence is in turmoil with his outer. Victor isolates himself from his family and creates the monster in the shadows. He creates a superior being against the template that was impressed upon him—he creates himself. He is scared by what he sees, however, and tries to abandon self-creation in favor of returning to life’s preordained path. Unfortunately, the monster, the icon of Authenticity itself, will not let him return. From its creation onward, Victor’s thoughts never leave the monster. In Fact, Victor is only ever able to truly reveal himself to the monster and later Robert; they are the only other Authentics that he encounters. In the end, when Victor has no family left, he is finally free from the shackles of expectation to pursue the monster, to pursue himself.
	
Though the monster can be interpreted as Victor’s shadow, he also represents the conundrum of an Authentic man trying to fit into a Sincere world. The monster too is neither in correspondence with his grisly appearance nor his gruesome acts. All attempts to help and to make himself understood to strangers are harshly spurned. Against his will, the monster rages at human rejection, causing him to commit all manner of crimes from thievery to murder. The monster’s confessions to Victor and later Robert reveal the inner turmoil that he suffers each time he commits a crime. He is a pacifist by nature, unwilling even to kill animals and subsisting on nuts and berries. The monster wants society with others, but society needs him to be a monster.

Conclusion

By the end of Frankenstein, Robert has turned his ship around after heeding the warning of Ancyent Marinere-like Victor’s ramblings. This can be interpreted as England (Robert is English), or Europe as a whole, turning away from the radicalism of the Romantic era back towards one of conformity that would correspond with the Victorian era that succeeded it. Shelley herself can be viewed as a sort of Robert, as she would later release a bowdlerized edition of Frankenstein toning down some of its radicalism. But though the fires of the Romantic era extinguished themselves, their ashes were the soil from which the tree of Authenticity grew. Be they the pre-Raphaelites in England, the Symbolist poets of fin du siecle France, or the Rock stars of the 1960s, Romanticism’s atavistic scions never cease to spring back up. With the endless imperatives to “be present” and an unhealthily strong self-help industry, the roots of Romanticism are alive and well at present. Today, at least in the cultural West, we are thoroughly romantic in temperament.

Works Cited

Berlin, Isaiah. The Roots of Romanticism. Edited by Henry Hardy, Princeton Univ. Pr, 1999.

Shelley, M. (2003). Frankenstein (G. Stade, Ed.; revised) [Review of Frankenstein]. Barnes & Noble Books. (Original work published 1818)

Trilling, Lionel. Sincerity and Authenticity. Harvard University Press, 1972.