Intro
Remember Mary Shelley's monster? Well, he's back. And this time, he represents all of our deepest and most stubbornly denied desires.
Just as the creature haunts Victor Frankenstein, his creator, our unconscious can haunt us. At least, according to Freud's theory of psychic life. If we don't put in the work to acknowledge what's going on in deep in our heads and souls, we risk falling prey to the monsters within.
Obviously Shelley didn't write her classic novel just so it could be fodder for psychoanalytic theory. But Freudian psychoanalysis can help us to uncover yet another layer of significance in Shelley's endlessly layered and rich text. Her creature represents human nature at its darkest.
Note, though, that the creature is inherently dark. He becomes evil because he's shunned by his father (Oedipal conflict strikes again) and by the broader community. To read Frankenstein psychoanalytically, then, is not merely to hurl insults at the poor creature; it's also to see how the creature's first experiences lead to the formation of his violent character.
We kind of feel bad for the monster-guy.
Victor Frankenstein, for his part, clearly suffers from a massive guilt complex. But psychoanalysis can help us to be just a little easier on him, too. He is, after all, only human. And he's had plenty of his own past letdowns to inspire his present behavior.
Quote
I knew that I was preparing myself for a deadly torture; but I was the slave, not the master of an impulse, which I detested, yet could not disobey.
Analysis
Frankenstein is full of impulses of all kinds. Here, Victor Frankenstein talks about those impulses that lead toward destruction but are nonetheless less irresistible.
And oh, don't us humans know those sorts of impulses all too well.
Dr. Frankenstein is now pursuing his creature, seeking revenge. Once a doctor but now an evildoer, he rushes toward a fate that he knows will ruin him. He really should have let well enough alone.
In this sense he's a bit like Antigone: driven toward death by a desire to honor the dead. In, his case, the dead are his family and friends—those murdered by the creature he created.
But Shelley's take on the death drive is a lot less hopeful than Sophocles's. There is nothing freeing about Victor Frankenstein's obedience to the impulse toward revenge. This impulse turns him into a slave, not a master.
And the fact that the once-good doctor becomes a subordinate to his own unconscious is deeply ironic, of course. Victor was supposed to be the creature's master, but now he's just a walking ball of brutal desires.