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Frankensteins Singular Events: Inductive

Reasoning, Narrative Technique, and Generic


Classification
Monique R. Morgan
McGill University
Abstract
In this essay, I suggest that the central section of Mary Shelleys
Frankenstein the creatures description of his first experiences
echoes Humes and Bacons discussions of inductive reasoning.
Because the creature must learn the causes of phenomena the reader
takes for granted, his story defamiliarizes both the readers world and
the process of induction itself. The creatures tale thus functions as a
travel narrative, and produces the cognitive estrangement associated
with science fiction. I then examine the prominence of inductive
reasoning in the novel as a whole, and discuss Victors and the
creatures singular situations as resistant to inductive understanding. I
argue that Shelley uses various narrative techniques (such as
embedded narratives and character doubling) to invite and frustrate
readers attempts to use induction to solve the novels central moral
questions. The readers inability to form coherent inductive patterns in
part accounts for the novels radical ambiguity. Finally, I suggest some
consequences for Frankensteins relation to the gothic: the novel
departs from gothic conventions in its unusual use of the doppelgnger,
and its rhetorical goals in invoking induction.

1
This essay examines the central section of Mary Shelleys
Frankenstein the creatures narrative, which describes his
initial awakening to consciousness and his earliest attempts
to process sensory data.[1] In so doing, I hope to supplement
the reasons we relate Frankenstein to science fiction, travel
narrative, and gothic literature, and to connect frustrated
patterns of induction to the underlying narrative structure and
moral ambiguity of Shelleys novel.

2
A striking feature of the creatures narrative is his need to
learn the causes of what seem to us the most obvious
phenomena. He tells Victor, I was delighted when I first
discovered that a pleasant sound, which often saluted my
ears, proceeded from the throats of the little winged
animals (68-69). Soon after, he can distinguish among types
of little winged animals: I found that the sparrow uttered none
but harsh notes, whilst those of the blackbird and thrush were
sweet and enticing (69). He acquires his earliest knowledge
not through formal education, nor from innate ideas, but
rather through the process of induction. The creature notes,
[P]erpetual attention, and time, explained to me many
appearances which were at first enigmatic (74), emphasizing
the repeated empirical observations necessary for induction.

3
In fact, the creatures method closely resembles David
Humes description of how we all infer causation through our
sensory experience of the constant conjunction of two things.
In Humes Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, he
proposes the following thought experiment:

Suppose a person, though endowed with the strongest faculties of


reason and reflection, to be brought on a sudden into this world; he
would, indeed, immediately observe a continual succession of
objects, and one event following another; but he would not be able
to discover anything farther. He would not, at first, by any reasoning,
be able to reach the idea of cause and effect; ... nor is it reasonable
to conclude, merely because one event, in one instance, precedes
another, that therefore the one is the cause, the other the effect.
Their conjunction may be arbitrary and casual... .

Suppose, again, that he has acquired more experience, and has


lived so long in the world as to have observed similar objects or
events to be constantly joined together; what is the consequence of
this experience? He immediately infers the existence of one object
from the appearance of the other.[2]

Enquiry 42

Humes hypothetical situation aptly describes how


Frankensteins creature is brought on a sudden into this
world, endowed from the start with the strongest faculties of
reason and reflection, and yet devoid of experience. As
Hume predicts, the creature is eventually able to infer cause
and effect once he has acquired more experience.

4
In some cases, the creatures particular inferences echo
specific examples used by Hume. In A Treatise of Human
Nature, Hume states, We remember to have seen that
species of object we call flame, and to have felt that species
of sensation we call heat. We likewise call to mind their
constant conjunction in all past instances. Without any farther
ceremony, we call the one the cause and the other the effect,
and infer the existence of one from that of the other (135). In
contrast, the newborn creature has no previous encounters
with flame to remember; when he finds a fire, he thrust [his]
hand into the live embers, but quickly drew it out again with a
cry of pain (69). Both the creature and Hume are drawn
repeatedly to fire as an example.[3] Hume remarks, When I
throw a piece of dry wood into a fire, my mind is immediately
carried to conceive, that it augments, not extinguishes the
flame. This transition of thought from the cause to the effect ...
. derives its origin altogether from custom and
experience (Enquiry 54). After unsuccessfully trying to ignite
wet wood, the creature notices, The wet wood which I had
placed near the heat dried, and itself became inflamed... . By
touching the various branches, I discovered the cause (69).
In both Hume and Shelley, these mundane examples are
made strange and fascinating by exposing the underlying
inductive process we take for granted.

5
Hume and Shelleys preoccupation with fire may have a
common source in Francis Bacons Novum Organum, which
laid the foundations for inductive scientific methods. In Book II
Bacon lists twenty-seven Instances Agreeing in the Nature of
Heat, and then provides lengthy analysis of similar
substances which lack heat, differing degrees of heat, and
qualities which are not invariably associated with heat, before
hypothesizing that heat is associated with motion (144-80). In
the course of the discussion he asserts, Flames are always
either more or less hot, and there is no negative to be
subjoined at all (152). Bacons work has additional resonance
with Frankenstein when he warns against scientists who
become so preoccupied with a particular subject that it
distorts their conceptions of other areas of inquiry.
Significantly, Bacon provides as negative examples the race
of alchemists [who] have built up from a few experiments with
a furnace a fantastic philosophy having regard to few things.
Gilbert, likewise, after the most painstaking studies of the
loadstone, immediately erected a philosophy that suited his
own favourite subject (61-62). Walton shares Gilberts
fascination with magnetic phenomena, while Victor spends his
youth obsessed with alchemy. The failure of Victors
experiments does not diminish his belief in the alchemists he
studied. Victor remarks, [I]f my incantations were always
unsuccessful, I attributed the failure rather to my own
inexperience and mistake, than to a want of skill or fidelity in
my instructors (22). Bacon anticipated such a reaction: [T]he
alchemist nurses eternal hope, and when the thing does not
succeed, he blames some error of his own, and in self-
condemnation thinks he has not properly understood the
words of his art or of its authors (94-95)[4].

6
The creature applies his inductive skills to many more
phenomena than fire, though, as he explores the forest
outside Ingolstadt, stays in the de Laceys hovel, and travels
to Geneva to find Victor. He spends his time near the de
Laceys watching, and endeavoring to discover the motives
which influenced their actions (73). Eventually he learns
enough to contrast Agatha with the areas other inhabitants:
The girl was young and of gentle demeanour, unlike what I
have since found cottagers and farm-house servants to
be (71). The creature also describes the flora and fauna, and
notes the local weather: I found my feet chilled by the cold
damp substance that covered the ground (70). Because he
comments upon the local customs, scenery, wildlife, and
weather he encounters during his wanderings, the creatures
narrative functions, in part, as a travel narrative.

7
The creatures bewilderment with snow brings into focus what
is unusual about his travel narrative: he is describing a
location that is unfamiliar to him, but is already very familiar to
his narratee, Victor, and is likely familiar (or at least, not
exotic) to Mary Shelleys readers.[5] Typically in travel
narratives of discovery,

[t]he traveler to unknown places returns to ... a narrative audience


contemporary with readers, inhabiting the same part of the world
and sharing information about the travelers culture and values.
Readers and narrative audience are equally ignorant of the [world
the traveler has explored]; both groups need detailed information
about distant manners, customs, and geography.

Slusser and Chatelain 161

Here, the creatures audience and Shelleys readers share


the same part of the world that is explored, and are already
acquainted with its manners, customs, and geography. From
the readers perspective, it is not the narrated world that is
strange, but rather the narrator himself. Yet by hearing this
tale, the reader must reexamine associations usually taken for
granted, and Europes manners, customs, and geography
become defamiliarized. In the words of Slusser and Chatelain,
The familiar world of the reader ... is rendered uncanny when
presented through the eyes of [a] conventional narrator turned
alien (175).[6]

8
This defamiliarization is closely related to the cognitive
estrangement central to discussions of science fiction since
Darko Suvins influential definition of the genre: SF is, then, a
literary genre whose necessary and sufficient conditions are
the presence and interaction of estrangement and cognition,
and whose main formal device is an imaginative framework
alternative to the authors empirical environment (7-8). For
Suvin, estrangement involves confronting a set normative
system ... with a point of view or look implying a new set of
norms (6). In addition, SF sees the norms of any age,
including emphatically its own, as unique, changeable, and
therefore subject to a cognitive view (7). In the case of
Frankenstein, Paul Alkon notes the significan[ce] as a
science fictional technique [of] the cognitive estrangement
achieved by inviting readers to see their own world as it
appears to an intelligent alien, as it appears, that is, to the
creature (Science Fiction 34). The creatures narrative
certainly confront[s] a set normative system that we usually
take for granted, and incites us to take a cognitive view of
those norms, to imagine that the world could have operated
on different principles. This effect supports Darko Suvins
suggestive but underexplained comment that the creatures
story is both the compositional core and the real SF novum
of Frankenstein (129). By paying more attention to the
inductive techniques and the estranging effects of the
creatures tale, we can arrive at a new understanding of
Frankensteins relation to generic criteria frequently applied to
it. Thus, the most important and extended travel narrative in
the novel occurs, not in Waltons letters describing his
attempted arctic exploration, but rather in the creatures tale of
his wanderings in the year following his creation.[7] And if we
define science fiction primarily based on the cognitive
estrangement it induces, then the creatures narrative is the
section most exemplary of science fiction, rather than Victors
description of how he animated the creature.[8]

9
An examination of induction and estrangement in Victors
narrative reveals that, although the creature is remarkably
skilled at induction, his creator is not.[9] When the creature
ominously promises Victor, I shall be with you on your
wedding night (116), Victor mistakenly assumes that he
himself is the monsters target, not realizing that his fiance,
Elizabeth, is the true object of the monsters threat. Many
critics note with astonishment Victors obtuseness in this
instance,[10] a reaction based on the readers ability to use
induction successfully when Victor does not. We notice a
pattern in which the creature murders those close to Victor
(William, Justine, Henry), but not Victor himself. Frankenstein
fails to understand and extend this pattern, despite the
creatures previous assertion, My enemy is not impregnable;
this death [Williams] will carry despair to him, and a thousand
other miseries shall torment and destroy him (97), implying a
future sequence of similar acts of vengeance. Victor tries to
explain his oversight by claiming, As if possessed of magic
powers, the monster had blinded me to his real
intentions (133). The invocation of magic here is apt; Victor
projects his own failure in scientific analysis onto the creature,
who is given a supernatural, irrational influence.

10
In several other crucial plot lines and thematic concerns, the
novel emphasizes but foils the process of induction. Shelleys
novel defamiliarizes causation, and since causation is the
principle on which all but the most experimental narratives are
built, Frankenstein highlights and makes strange the
underlying premise of its own narrative structure. The largest
challenge to induction (for both the characters and the reader)
is posed by the status of both Victor and his creature as
aberrant, isolated cases.[11] The singularity of the creatures
unnatural birth, and his extreme isolation, are obvious to
readers and to the creature himself, who states, Increase of
knowledge only discovered to me more clearly what a
wretched outcast I was (88). As Peter Brooks phrases it,
The Monster... . is a unique creation, without precedence or
replication (600). When Victor discovers the mechanism of
creating life, he stresses his own isolation and singularity: I
was surprised that ... I alone should be reserved to discover
so astonishing a secret (30). And after Elizabeths murder,
Victor emphasizes the uniqueness of his suffering: no
creature had ever been so miserable as I was; so frightful an
event is single in the history of man (137).

11
The aberrance of both Victors actions and the creatures
existence poses a problem to inductive reasoning, in that they
cannot be placed in a series of similar events. As Hume
admits, Were an effect presented, which was entirely
singular, and could not be comprehended under any known
species, I do not see, that we could form any conjecture or
inference at all concerning its cause (Enquiry 148). Neither
the creature himself, nor his peculiarly obsessive thirst for
vengeance, could be comprehended under any known
species. If we wish to form a conjecture regarding the origin
of the creatures murderous disposition, we are inevitably left
frustrated, and the question left unresolved. This failure
results from Victors carelessness in framing his experiment
and his indifference to tracing its immediate consequences. If
he had been more exact, Victor may have been able to form
inductive inferences, despite having only one example. For as
Hume argues, Tis certain, that ... we may attain the
knowledge of a particular cause merely by one experiment,
provided it be made with judgement, and after a careful
removal of all foreign and superfluous
circumstances (Treatise 154). As a consequence of Victors
lack of judgment, both he and the reader are unable to
determine which circumstances are superfluous and which
are not.

12
In theory, Victor could rectify this and acquire surer knowledge
of the creatures character, by repeating his experiment; he is
encouraged to do so when the creature requests a
companion. Victors description of his decision to abort the
female creature both focuses and distorts the relationship
between inductive series and the creatures malevolence:
[A] train of reflection occurred to me, which led me to consider the
effects of what I was now doing. Three years before I was engaged
in the same manner, and had created a fiend whose unparalleled
barbarity had desolated my heart ... . I was now about to form
another being, of whose dispositions I was alike ignorant; she might
become ten thousand times more malignant than her mate, and
delight, for its own sake, in murder and wretchedness... .

Even if they were to leave Europe, and inhabit the deserts of the
new world, yet one of the first results of those sympathies for which
the daemon thirsted would be children, and a race of devils would
be propagated upon the earth, who might make the very existence
of the species of man a condition precarious and full of terror.

114

Victor stresses the singularity of his previous creation by


mentioning its unparalleled barbarity. He also emphasizes
that his current act of creation is a repetition of the previous
one three years before I was engaged in the same manner
and hence would establish a series from which Victor (and
the reader) could make inductive inferences. Victor considers
the possible effects of this second experiment, and even in
what should be the best case scenario the two creatures
provide companionship to each other and leave Europe
Victor imagines the possible extermination of the human race.
This scenario is noteworthy, and not just for the hyperbolic
consequence of human extinction. Most debates about the
cause of the creatures destructive behavior attribute it either
to his isolation and maltreatment, or to his unnatural origin.
Here Victor imagines his creature happily paired with a mate
and surrounded by offspring, and imagines them naturally
procreating without Victors further intervention. The two
obvious causes of the creatures violence are eliminated, and
yet Victor still imagines that they will be a race of devils.
Characterizing them as a race, which may multiply so much
that they overrun the planet, suggests that he fears losing
direct control over their propagation, or even that he fears
propagation itself.[12] That is, Victors alarmist rhetoric may
derive from his anxiety that the creature will become an
endless series, rather than a singular instance.

13
Of course, Victors fears are not entirely without foundation.
Because he cannot yet determine the source of the creatures
evil (and because the stakes are so high if Victor fails to
eliminate that factor), it is dangerous to perform a second
experiment. But because he refuses to create a second
member of this species and start an inductive series, he
cannot isolate the variables involved in the first instance. He
therefore cannot decide with any assurance whether the
creature is inherently evil, or is the product of his neglectful
upbringing. Victor is thus caught in a catch-22 that precludes
successful induction. The impossibility of determining the
source of the creatures malevolence, is both the cause, and
the result, of the impossibility of creating a female companion.

14
I am suggesting that it is impossible to answer confidently the
novels central ethical question, yet many of Frankensteins
readers, starting with Percy Shelley, have claimed the novel
has a clear moral. Gayatri Spivak, for example, describes it as
an overly didactic text (256), and Franco Moretti claims the
novel wants to get the readers assent to the philosophical
arguments expounded in black and white (106). Other critics,
such as Susan Winnett and Lawrence Lipking, claim the novel
leaves its major questions wholly unresolved (Winnett 508,
Lipking 319). How to explain these diametrically opposed
responses? Shelley invites the reader to use induction to
judge characters behavior, because the minor characters
repeat key traits, situations, and actions. While it initially
seems they should coalesce into clear patterns, in the end
they dont, and attempts at induction are frustrated. In
addition, Shelley uses methods of characterization and
embedded narratives to render the implied authors views
radically ambiguous, adding to the readers interpretive
difficulties. Frankenstein both invites inductive judgments, and
makes such judgments uncertain, or even impossible.

15
The doublings of characters and situations which are a
frequent feature of gothic fiction are certainly present in
Frankenstein, and they seem to offer the repetition and
patterning required for inductive reasoning. Such character
groupings are often noted, and include Victor and Walton who
share an ambition for discovery, and who both share their
autodidacticism with the creature; Elizabeth and Justine who
are both adopted into the Frankenstein family and imitate
aspects of Caroline Frankenstein; and a plethora of parent-
child relationships. But despite the promise held out by these
abundant pairings, the reader ultimately cannot find patterns
which would answer the central moral questions of the novel.
Any seemingly straightforward links between Victor and
Walton, which might provide evidence of the relative value
and danger of scientific discovery, are disrupted, for reasons
which I will discuss later. The parent-child relationships
similarly fail to demonstrate the influence of upbringing on
character. I agree with George Levine that [d]espite the
potentially easy patterning, there is no simple way to define
the relationship between parents and offspring in this novel...
[W]hat is consistent is only the focal concern on the
relationship itself (20-21). As one example of how parental
influence is rendered ambiguous, I offer the case of Justine
Moritz.

16
Justine seems promising as a comparison case for the
creature because she is convicted of his murder of William
Frankenstein, and because Justine is also hated by her
parent. Her background story appears in one of Elizabeths
letters to Victor:

And now I must tell you a little story that will please, and perhaps
amuse you. Do you not remember Justine Moritz? Probably you do
not; I will relate her history, therefore, in a few words. Madame
Moritz, her mother, was a widow with four children, of whom Justine
was the third. This girl had always been the favourite of her father;
but, through a strange perversity, her mother could not endure her,
and, after the death of M. Moritz, treated her very ill. My aunt
observed this; and, when Justine was twelve years of age, prevailed
on her mother to allow her to live at her house. The republican
institutions of our country have produced simpler and happier
manners than those which prevail in the great monarchies that
surround it... . A servant in Geneva does not mean the same thing
as a servant in France and England. Justine, thus received in our
family, learned the duties of a servant; a condition which, in our
fortunate country, does not include the idea of ignorance, and a
sacrifice of the dignity of a human being.

After what I have said, I dare say you well remember the heroine of
my little tale: for Justine was a great favourite of yours [sic].

39-40

Elizabeth goes on to say that Justines siblings died, and


Justine was called home by her repentant mother... . The
poor woman was very vacillating in her repentance. She
sometimes begged Justine to forgive her unkindness, but
much oftener accused her of having caused the deaths of her
brothers and sister (40-41). Elizabeth then informs Victor that
Madame Moritz died last winter and Justine returned to the
Frankenstein household (41) presumably this is the
information that will please, and perhaps amuse, Victor. A
readers first reaction to Justines story might be to note that
Justine faced a neglectful parent, yet she grew up to be
virtuous and admirable: she is described as frank-hearted
and grateful (40), she selflessly nurses Victors mother
during her fatal illness (54), and she shows great courage
during her trial. Justines example might be used to argue that
ones upbringing does not determine ones moral character,
thus undermining the creatures assertion that he became
vicious because he was mistreated. But Justines example is
not nearly so straightforward. Her mother may have hated
her, but she was her fathers favourite, and she entered the
Frankenstein household at the still impressionable age of
twelve. Her dual upbringing, experiencing both hatred and
benevolence, is emphasized by her oscillation between her
familys home and the Frankenstein household, and suggests
that she serves as a straightforward example of neither a
neglectful upbringing nor a nurturing one, since she goes
through both twice.

17
At least as strange as the content of Justines story, is the
manner in which it is narrated. Elizabeth begins her letter by
asking Victor, Do you not remember Justine Moritz? Probably
you do not. Victors presumed lapse in memory provides the
rationale for Elizabeth reminding him of Justines history. Yet
Elizabeth ends her narrative by writing, Justine was a great
favourite of yours, and we later learn that Victor and Justine
lived in the same household for five years before Victor left for
university (54), which suggests that Victor needs no reminder
of who Justine is. Of course, the person who does need to be
told Justines history is Shelleys reader, who has not
encountered Justine before. Elizabeths letter thus serves
what James Phelan labels the synthetic function in narrative.
Phelan distinguishes three functions operating within
characters and texts: the mimetic, the thematic, and the
synthetic. The mimetic function refers to the component of
fictional narrative concerned with imitating the world through
a set of conventions, which change over time, by which
imitations are judged to be adequate (Narrative 218). The
thematic component of a narrative text [is] concerned with
making statements, taking ideological positions, teaching
readers truths (220). And the synthetic function deals with
the constructedness of a text as an object (220).[13] Justines
story is included not because it is mimetically necessary in the
circuit of communication between Elizabeth and Victor, but
rather because it is synthetically necessary in the circuit of
communication between Shelley and her reader.

18
One might be tempted to judge this an awkward way for
Shelley to fulfill this synthetic function, and attribute it to her
inexperience as an author. But precisely this awkwardness,
this break from mimesis, draws the readers attention to this
material, and provides further evidence for Justines conflicted
status within the Frankenstein household and within the
novel. She is torn between a marginal position as a servant,
and a more central one as an adopted member of the family.
This blurred boundary is further emphasized by Elizabeths
comment, A servant in Geneva does not mean the same
thing as a servant in France and England. Again, this is
information which Victor does not need to be told, but here
there is an even greater disruption of mimesis in that
Elizabeth has never traveled to the great monarchies that
surround her native country and so has no direct experience
on which to make such a comparison. Justines equivocal
position is also, in part, due to the manner in which the novel
introduces her. She is not mentioned earlier in the narrative,
when Victor describes other members of the household,
which suggests Justines status as an outsider, and her
minorness as a character. Yet Elizabeth devotes half of the
letter to describing Justine, spending twice as many lines on
her as on Victors two brothers, which grants Justine greater
significance in the text. As a result, we have trouble using
Justine as an example of any one clear trait or position: she is
both neglected and nurtured, both a marginalized outcast and
an important character in the extended Frankenstein family.
Justine disrupts any inductive pattern in which she is placed.

19
Another illusory promise of stable moral judgments is offered
by the novels technique of embedded narratives. We might
be tempted to use the lessons learned by the narratees as
models for how we should process the story. Victor initially
responds to the creatures tale with curiosity and compassion,
but that compassion is short-lived. And for months Victor feels
conflicted about granting the creatures request for a mate,
almost completing the task before violently destroying it.
Victors reaction to the creatures story is itself ambivalent,
and hence fails to offer the reader a clear model.

20
Waltons reception of Victors story may seem more useful.
Walton does follow Victors advice to avoid ambition, but does
not follow his advice to destroy the creature.[14] Any
straightforward moral of the story is disrupted, though,
because Victor himself hedges on both pieces of advice.
Victor qualifies his last request to Walton to kill the creature:
The task of his destruction was mine, but I have failed... . Yet
I cannot ask you to renounce your country and friends, to fulfil
this task (151). Victors last words are a remarkable
renunciation of the moral of his story: Walton! Seek
happiness in tranquillity, and avoid ambition, even if it be only
the apparently innocent one of distinguishing yourself in
science and discoveries. Yet why do I say this? I have myself
been blasted in these hopes, yet another may succeed (152).
Victors advice to Walton is further undermined by the fact that
the two courses of action Victor urges are incompatible to
follow and destroy the creature Walton must travel further
north, but to forgo his ambition and rescue his crew he must
head south. In the end, the creature gives him the opportunity
to destroy him without a chase north, by entering the ship, but
Walton takes pity on the creature and lets him go. Walton
himself heads back to England without reaching the pole.
Taken together, Waltons actions seem to suggest that he
sympathises with the creature, and judges Victor to have
been in error in ignoring the consequences of his
overreaching ambition. But even this inference is uncertain.
Walton may let him go because the creature claims he is
about to commit suicide (156), and will do Waltons dirty work
for him. Waltons other decision may not be based on Victors
advice at all: the captain abandons his journey to the Pole at
least in part because his crew is threatening mutiny (148-49).
[15] And Walton has imperfectly heeded Victors warning

against ambition, since Walton mentions to his sister, I


endeavored to gain from Frankenstein the particulars of his
creatures formation; but on this point he was
impenetrable (146).

21
Given these frustrated patterns, contradictions and
ambiguities, is there any stable ground left in Shelleys novel,
any framework we can use to guide our judgments? We might
be inclined to turn to the texts opening framework. Peter
Rabinowitz views epigraphs and descriptive subtitles as
privileged positions in a text which demand particular
attention from the reader (58). In Frankenstein their
importance is even greater since they are among the few
parts of the text originating from an authorial voice, rather
than from one or more potentially flawed character-narrators.
The subtitle is The Modern Prometheus, and the epigraph
from Paradise Lost is Adams post-fall lamentation to God,
Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay / To mould me man?
Did I solicit thee / From darkness to promote me? In some
versions of the myth Prometheus created man from clay, so
both the subtitle and epigraph emphasize Victors act of
creation. They might also suggest the benevolent intentions of
God and Prometheus, and hence invite a sympathetic reading
of Victor. Yet Prometheuss reputation as an overreacher who
violates divine boundaries, and the epigraphs implication that
Victor usurps Gods role as creator, both invite readings of
Victor as misguided or worse.[16] The specific quotation from
Paradise Lost aligns with the creatures viewpoint, not
Victors; it thus demonstrates a sympathetic understanding of
the creatures plight. The quotation also raises the issue of
free will: neither Adam, nor the creature has any choice in his
own origin. But one of Miltons chief preoccupations in
justifying the ways of God to man, is reconciling Gods
foreknowledge with mans free will.[17] The broader context of
Paradise Lost might then suggest that the creature is
responsible for freely choosing his murderous actions. The
opposite inference would be made, however, from the novels
dedication to William Godwin, author of Political Justice,
Caleb Williams, &c. In his Enquiry Concerning Political
Justice, Godwin argues for the doctrine of necessity, in which
our actions are the necessary consequences of political
structures and social conditions. He goes so far as to say of a
murderer and the knife he uses, that the one is no more free
than the other as to its employment (170).[18] This prefatory
material thus suggests both Victors benevolence and his
pride-driven transgression, and suggests the creature both
exercises free will and is socially predetermined. It invokes
many of the novels central preoccupations but offers
contradictory answers to the questions it raises.[19]

22
Frankensteins narrative techniques and strategies of
ambiguity have another curious effect: they may modify our
understanding of the novels relation to the gothic. One of the
results of the embedded narratives is that the creature is able
to tell his own story; he is given a voice, and we are given
access to his thoughts and feelings. As many have noted, this
invites the reader to sympathise with the creature, disrupts an
unproblematic labelling of the creature as villain, and renders
our moral judgments more difficult. According to Darko Suvin,
this also makes the novel less gothic. He argues that most of
the novel

is in the tradition of the Gothic story, in which the universal horror


and disgust at [Victors] creature would simply prefigure its behavior
and its hideous looks testify to its corrupt essence. Yet the
Creatures pathetic story of awakening to sentience and
consciousness of his untenable position as a subject... provides an
almost diametrically opposed point of view. His theme is both the
compositional core and the real SF novum that lifts Frankenstein
above the level of a grippingly mindless Gothic thriller.
129-30

Suvin sees gothic literature and science fiction as antithetical,


because the gothic is anti-cognitive (8), and because it
aligns the physical laws governing the world with a simplistic
ethical framework to create a universe hostile to the
protagonist (19). I infer, then, that Suvin believes the
creatures narrative moves Frankenstein away from the gothic
and toward true science fiction precisely because it renders
our moral judgments more difficult, and treats the creature as
something more complex than a standard gothic villain.

23
I would argue that the creatures narrative disrupts gothic
expectations for structural, as well as for ethical, reasons.
Readers who approach Frankenstein through gothic
conventions often see the creature as Victors doppelgnger,
his gothic double. Alex Woloch points out an important, but
underrecognized, narrative dimension of the doppelgnger in
nineteenth-century fiction, whose purely exterior configuration
(are the thoughts of a double ever narratively articulated?)
forces the protagonist to confront or conceptualize himself as
an object rather than a subject, as a social rather than merely
psychological being (and thus as a minor rather than central
character) (238). The doubles very exteriority is what
distinguishes him from the original, whose interiority is
presented in the discourse; but the doubles existence raises
the possibility that the original himself could have been a
minor character, defined by his exteriority (238). The answer
to Wolochs question are the thoughts of a double ever
narratively articulated? is yes; they are articulated in
Frankenstein. By allowing the creature to tell his own story,
Shelley grants him the interiority that is typically denied to the
doppelgnger.[20] The peculiar importance of exteriority and
interiority for the creature, becomes clear in the conversation
with Victor leading up to the creatures narration of his tale.
Victor yells, Begone! relieve me from the sight of your
detested form (67). The creature responds by placing his
hands over Victors eyes, saying, Thus I relieve thee, my
creator... thus I take from thee a sight which you abhor. Still
thou canst listen to me, and grant me thy compassion (67).
At the very moment the creature struggles to reveal his inner
thoughts, he also prevents Victor from reducing him to his
exterior appearance. By telling his story, the creature claims
the status of protagonist, of original rather than doppelgnger.
The creature does not so much expose Victors potential
minorness, but rather asserts his own potential majorness,
and disrupts the asymmetrical doubling associated with the
gothic.[21]

24
In addition, Frankenstein deviates from gothic conventions in
its particular invitations to use induction, and strategies to
frustrate such reasoning. My analysis of Frankenstein bears
some resemblance to Margaret Russetts analysis of gothic
conventions in The Mysteries of Udolpho. Russett argues that
Radcliffes heroine and Radcliffes readers adopt models of
knowledge derived from British empiricism (specifically
Humes model of inference or induction) to assign causes for
the mysterious circumstances depicted in the novel (170). For
both the gothic heroine and the reader of gothic fiction,
applying such real-world standards of probability and
causation is both unavoidable, and unproductive (177). There
are some important differences, though, between her
treatment of Udolpho and my treatment of Frankenstein,
differences which may clarify what I find peculiar about
Shelleys text. Russett focuses on suspense in The Mysteries
of Udolpho, which is used here in a way that consciously
aligns the readers experience with the heroines inescapable,
equivocal anxiety (159), and the reader grasps at clues in
the attempt to resolve her uncertainty (164). Frankenstein
differs in that suspense is not the dominant response of its
readers, and Shelley does not align the readers anxiety with
the protagonists. In that respect, I agree with Franco Morettis
claim that a description of fear and a frightening description
are by no means the same thing. Frankenstein ... does not
want to scare readers... . The person who is frightened is not
the reader, but the protagonist (106). Suspense is much less
important during the process of reading Frankenstein than it is
while reading Udolpho; but my argument further differs from
Russetts in that I am most interested in how readers process
Frankenstein after they have reached the end of the text, in
the security of their retrospective understanding of the novel
as a whole. In that case, the readers rational, probabilistic
judgements are not to hypothesize solutions to mysteries
while having insufficient information, but rather to assign
causes retrospectively to determine characters responsibility
for various ethical mistakes. On the issue of what (if any)
moral judgments we can make confidently, Moretti and I part
ways. He argues, [Frankenstein] appeals to [readers]
reason. It wants to make them reflect on a number of
important problems ... [and] it wants to get the readers assent
to the philosophical arguments expounded in black and white
by the author in the course of the narration (106). I am
suggesting that very little is expounded by the author, and
none of it in black and white.

25
When readers attempt to apply inductive reasoning to
Shelleys novel, we find that there is an overabundance of
information, which cant be made to fit a clear, definitive
pattern. The problem does not lie in confusing what is
probable in real experience with what is probable in gothic
fiction, as Russett diagnoses the case in gothic literature
(177). Nor does it lie in Russetts claim that fictional
probability... is rigged (176), that the needs of the discourse
trump the probability of the story (although there are any
number of implausibilities in Shelleys text). Rather, when
readers attempt to decide the key ethical questions of
Frankenstein, we are invited to think rationally and apply real-
world standards of causation, but we find the data set too
messy and contradictory for induction to provide any answers.
In order to make such judgments, we must resort to deduction
instead. Since we are not given sufficiently reliable guidance
within the novel itself, we are forced to import our own starting
premises from outside of the novel. In that case, Frankenstein
either teaches its readers nothing that they didnt know
before, or it encourages readers to confront and question their
own inherent assumptions about the origins of evil and the
benefits and dangers of science.

Remerciements

I would like to thank Maggie Kilgour, Michael Eberle-Sinatra,


Robert Philmus, Jonathan Sachs, Mary Esteve, and Jonathan
Sadow, and all the other participants at Concordia Universitys
Works in Progress Colloquium Series (2006), the International
Conference on Narrative (Carleton University, 2006), and the
NASSR conference (Universit de Montral, 2005), for their
helpful comments on earlier versions of this essay. I am
grateful to Zoe Beenstock for her assistance with the
preliminary research.

Notes

[1]
In the published 3-volume edition of 1818, the creatures
narrative literally occupies the center of the novel, occupying
chapters 3-8 of the nine chapters which comprise volume 2.
The original draft of the novel is composed of two, rather than
three, volumes, and though the creatures narrative is not so
symmetrically placed at the center of the draft, it is given
structural prominence since the creatures narrative begins
the second volume (Robinson 271).
[2]
Although I have found no direct evidence that Mary Shelley
read Humes Enquiry or his Treatise of Human Nature, David
Womersley finds an echo of Humes Treatise in the creatures
reading of Paradise Lost as a true history, and suggests that
Percy Shelley likely read the Treatise (164-65). Frank B.
Evans, III shows one of Percys prose notes to Queen Mab
paraphrases Humes Enquiry on the doctrine of necessity and
the constant conjunction of similar events (636). Mary did
read Humes Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects from
November 29, 1817 to January 13, 1818 (Shelley, Journals,
185-90), and read Humes Four Dissertations in January,
1818 (Shelley, Journals, 190). As I suggest later in this essay,
Frankensteins representation of induction may also be
influenced by Francis Bacons Novum Organum, which Percy
read in 1815 (Shelley, Journals, 92). Critics have suggested
additional sources for the creatures description of his earliest
experiences, including Rousseaus Emile (Richardson 150;
Lipking 322-25), Lockes Essay Concerning Human
Understanding (Pollin 107), and Adams awakening in
Paradise Lost (ORourke 549).
[3]
Anne Mellor finds interesting thematic resonance in the
novels references to fire (78-79).
[4]
Other Baconian elements of Frankenstein are discussed by
Callahan (39-48), Svilpis (65-66), Kilgour (194, 204), and
Mellor (89, 111).
[5]
The familiarity of the setting described within the creatures
tale contrasts with the sublimity of the setting in which the
creature tells the tale. Paul Alkon says of the Alpine
backdrop of Victors conversation with creature, Shelleys
description of this scenery evokes an estranging view of our
world as though it were a different planet inhabited by
another race of beings... . Shelley has it both ways. Her
characters stay on earth, but we are told to imagine our world
as another planet (Science Fiction 31).
[6]
In context, this quotation refers to Frederick Pohls Day
Million.
[7]
Carl Freedman argues that when Frankenstein begins his
tale, and usurps Waltons place as the apparent protagonist,
the novel shifts from a traditional travel narrative to a
predominantly science fictional work (Critical 49). My claims
are not meant to contradict his, but rather to add another layer
of complexity.
[8]
Paul Alkon makes a similar claim about Gullivers Travels,
arguing that Book 3 appears closest to science fiction when
defined by plausible technology, but Book 4 is more
successful as science fiction defined by cognitive
estrangement (Gulliver 175). In the case of Frankenstein,
Alkon notes the cognitive estrangement produced by the
creatures tale, yet emphasizes the importance of science and
technology: Mary Shelleys careful delineation of Victor
Frankensteins progress from Geneva to Ingolstadt, from
childhood dabblings in alchemy and magic to adult use and
misuse of science, takes ... her book over the border from
fantasy to science fiction (Science Fiction 30). He
nonetheless sees the two elements as related, suggesting
that invoking science allows the novel to induce cognitive
estrangement (Science Fiction 11). Other critics have not
been so generous toward Victors use of science. James
Rieger objects, [T]he technological plausibility that is
essential to science fiction is not even pretended at here. The
science-fiction writer says ... since x has been experimentally
proven or theoretically postulated, y can be achieved by the
following, carefully documented operation. Mary Shelley skips
to the outcome and asks, if y had been achieved, by whatever
means, what would be the moral consequences? ... [S]he
skips the science (xxvii). By defining science fiction based on
cognitive estrangement rather than technological plausibility,
such an objection is overcome, and Shelleys novel more
firmly placed within the genre. In addition, my emphasis on
the creatures use of the inductive scientific method highlights
the experiments and postulates that are carefully
documented in the novel.
[9]
Alan Rauch discusses Victors failings in other aspects of the
scientific method, such as the incremental development of
knowledge, communication of results, and beneficial
applications, in the context of actual medical practice and
galvanic experiments.
[10]
Maggie Kilgour, for instance, remarks, We have reasons... to
mistrust Victors interpretive skills, and his ability to read the
most basic facts of his own life... . Victor is unable to interpret
even the most obvious clues given to him: he misreads the
monsters words concerning his wedding night (210).
[11]
Carl Freedman notes that the novel paints a brilliant double
portrait of the outsider since in his essential solitude Victor is
at one with his creature (Hail Mary 262). Franco Moretti
also notes Victor and the creatures aberrance, in the course
of arguing that Frankenstein rejects industrial capitalism:
Frankenstein and the monster are relegated to the status of
mere historical accidents; theirs is only an episode, a
case... . By this means Mary Shelley wants to convince us
that capitalism has no future (89).
[12]
Franco Moretti provides a similar reading of race of devils
while arguing that the monster cant be allowed to reproduce
because Victor fears losing control of the proletariat, and
because Mary Shelley doesnt want capitalism to have a
future (86).
[13]
These definitions are taken from the glossary in Phelans
Narrative as Rhetoric. In Reading People, Reading Plots,
Phelan discusses the interplay of these three functions at
much greater length, in the context of the progressive
development of literary characters within narrative texts. See
especially pages 2-3 and 11-14 of Reading People for fuller
definitions.
[14]
George Levine reads Walton as making the proper decision
on both counts: [T]he lesson he learns is not merely the
explicit one, that he must sacrifice his ambition to others, but
that he must also reject the vengeance that Frankenstein
wishes upon him... . though this is not stated, in rejecting the
vengeance which consumed Frankenstein, he is finally freed
into a better (and perhaps a lesser) life (19). Yet later Levine
questions Waltons assessment of Victors story: Walton
would seem the ultimate judge of the experience, as the
outsider: yet he explicitly accepts Frankensteins judgment of
it, and largely exculpates him. The monsters own defense
a n d e x p l a n a t i o n . . . i s , h o w e v e r, b y f a r t h e m o s t
convincing (22). Paul Alkon emphasizes Waltons sympathy
for Victor but shares my skepticism toward Waltons reception
of his story, remarking [h]is sympathetic interpretation may
not be a model for subsequent readers (Science Fiction 28).
Both Levine and Alkon note the ambivalence in Victors final
words (Levine 26; Alkon, Science Fiction, 30-31).
[15]
James ORourke also notes that Walton unwillingly returns
south under duress from his crew, and comments on the
equivocation in Victors dying advice (553).
[16]
Paul Alkon also observes the ambivalence in the Prometheus
reference, which could be read as a compliment to Victors
benevolent intentions, or an ironic condemnation of the
dangers unleashed by them (Science Fiction 28). Paul Cantor
and I agree that the prefatory material points to an underlying
moral ambiguity (106), but we have differing reasons for
drawing this conclusion. Cantor argues that both Victor and
the creature could be aligned with Prometheus (103-04), and
that Victor and the creature each share traits with Satan (and
hence share his guilt) (105). Michael Eberle-Sinatra argues
that Shelley rewrites the creation myths of Prometheus and
Paradise Lost to deemphasize women further, but does so
because the very conspicuousness of this absence
constitutes a critique of things as they are (100). By
defamiliarizing gender norms, this critique could be another
source of cognitive estrangement in the text.
[17]
In Book 3 of Paradise Lost, God declares that man is
Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall (3.99) and that
Gods own foreknowledge does not preclude mans (and
Satans) free will (3.111-28).
[18]
The relation of the novel as a whole to Godwins thought is
much more complex. Robert Philmus suggests the creatures
explanation of his behavior is an absurd extension of
Godwins connection between ethical action and sociability
(87).
[19]
The 1831 edition of Frankenstein is less radically ambiguous,
both because it omits the epigraph and dedication, and
because it contains more references to Victors destiny,
possibly diminishing his free will. While I agree with Nora
Crook that both versions express contradictory views on fate
and free will, I do not think that the additional subtle
questioning of destiny she finds in the 1831 edition fully
compensates for its more overt assertions of destinys power
(10-15). The creatures narrative is largely unchanged in the
1831 text (except for a fuller explanation of his motive in
framing Justine).
[20]
As Woloch notes, A first-person narrative necessarily makes
a qualitative distinction between the human figure who
narrates the story (and is thus presented as an agent or
subject of perception) and the characters he writes about
(mere objects of perception) (178), but framed narratives and
multiple narrators are among the different strategies... to
compensate ... for the structural imbalance that is compelled
by first-person narrative (179).
[21]
Paul Cantor suggests that Victor and the creature are
reciprocal doubles of each other, and provocatively claims
that Frankenstein can be regarded as a projection of the
monsters psyche (127). Another example of more
symmetrical gothic doubles can be found in Caleb Williams,
where Caleb and Falkland are given more equal shares of
narrative attention than is usual in gothic fiction. Nonetheless,
Falkland is not granted the privilege of telling his own story;
his steward tells Falklands story to Caleb.

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Auteu Monique R. Morgan
r:
Titre : Frankensteins Singular Events: Inductive Reasoning, Narrative
Technique, and Generic Classification
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