Fantasy/SF Micro-essay #4: Frankenstein
Tuesday, August 21st, 2012 09:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robinturner[Another essay for the Fantasy/SF course. This was the hardest to keep within the word limit, and I expect to get complaints from my peer graders that I didn't explain Senecan tragedy or the plot of Medea.]
Frankenstein is not only science fiction and horror; it is also a Senecan tragedy. As its subtitle, The Modern Prometheus suggests, the work rests on the idea of hubris leading to destruction, which is the stuff of classical tragedy. However, there are two tragic tales here. Frankenstein's tragedy is his hubristic "endeavour to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world" (Shelley x). But the monster has his own tragedy. He does not suffer from hubris; his flaw is his all-too-human passions, which is why, despite its modernity, we can compare Shelley's work to Seneca's.
As a Stoic, Seneca seems remote from a near-romantic like Shelley, but they share a common preoccuption with emotion; Seneca's tragic characters are brought down by their passions. Seneca's Medea, like Frankenstein's monster, is in the grip of uncontrollable passions and confronted by intolerable circumstances (Frankenstein's destruction of the monster's bride, Jason's rejecting Medea for Creusa). Medea poisons Creusa (interestingly with a fiery substance given to her by Prometheus) with little regret, but hesitates before murdering her children (Seneca 895). Immediately, though, she steels herself: "now thus prepare thyself: let all right give way; let honour begone, defeated" (926). She knows what she is about to do is wrong, but embraces the evil, just as the monster (echoing Milton) says "Evil thenceforth became my good" (Shelley 312) and in killing Elizabeth subjugates all other emotions "to riot in the excess of my despair." But Medea still falters, torn between conflicting passions: "Horror has smit my heart! ... my heart with terror flutters. Wrath has given place" (926). Nevertheless, she does the deed; like the monster, she could say she was "the slave, not the master of an impulse I detested" (Shelley 312). In this way, both authors create tragic characters who both horrify us and arouse our sympathies.
Frankenstein is not only science fiction and horror; it is also a Senecan tragedy. As its subtitle, The Modern Prometheus suggests, the work rests on the idea of hubris leading to destruction, which is the stuff of classical tragedy. However, there are two tragic tales here. Frankenstein's tragedy is his hubristic "endeavour to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world" (Shelley x). But the monster has his own tragedy. He does not suffer from hubris; his flaw is his all-too-human passions, which is why, despite its modernity, we can compare Shelley's work to Seneca's.
As a Stoic, Seneca seems remote from a near-romantic like Shelley, but they share a common preoccuption with emotion; Seneca's tragic characters are brought down by their passions. Seneca's Medea, like Frankenstein's monster, is in the grip of uncontrollable passions and confronted by intolerable circumstances (Frankenstein's destruction of the monster's bride, Jason's rejecting Medea for Creusa). Medea poisons Creusa (interestingly with a fiery substance given to her by Prometheus) with little regret, but hesitates before murdering her children (Seneca 895). Immediately, though, she steels herself: "now thus prepare thyself: let all right give way; let honour begone, defeated" (926). She knows what she is about to do is wrong, but embraces the evil, just as the monster (echoing Milton) says "Evil thenceforth became my good" (Shelley 312) and in killing Elizabeth subjugates all other emotions "to riot in the excess of my despair." But Medea still falters, torn between conflicting passions: "Horror has smit my heart! ... my heart with terror flutters. Wrath has given place" (926). Nevertheless, she does the deed; like the monster, she could say she was "the slave, not the master of an impulse I detested" (Shelley 312). In this way, both authors create tragic characters who both horrify us and arouse our sympathies.
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