It is no surprise that Mary Shelly’s novel Frankenstein begins with an expedition into a dangerous and unknown place. The concept of the enlightened white man conquering the dangerous wild was a commonplace idea around the turn of the 18th century. The notion that we are to conquer the other is a theme that plays itself out in Shelley’s novel. More specifically, in this colonialist system other nations and cultures outside of the western european culture are deemed inferior and in dire need of colonization. Indeed they want to be colonized. Also prevalent at this time, is the romantic notion of the noble savage, that those cultures that are less civilized and closer to nature represent a higher ideal. The monster represents both the noble savage who should be left on his own and the inferior culture that must be colonized and civilized. Equally the duality of his character is represented as both good and evil. This duality of character makes him more reflective of our own selves than if he had been homogenized.
The novel is constructed of three narratives. Walton the sea captain bookends the majority of the story with a series of letters. Within that bookend are contained the two narratives that I will discuss here. There exists the narrative of Frankenstein who represents the colonizer. Within his narrative is the monster’s narrative who represents the colonized/noble savage. In this way Shelley allows us two perspectives. We hear Victor’s story of the creation of the monster, which is to mirror the colonization of the native people. The monster is initially imagined to be a thing of beauty as the naive European imagines the native culture to be. Only upon life arriving in the body of the creature does Frankenstein see horror in his creation as the European recoils from the harsh realities of difference in the new colonized culture. Victor abandons his creation leaving it in a space that is not efficacious, a space of neither fitting in the world of the living or the dead. This is akin to the european nations colonizing the African Continent and then after creating their monster, abandoning them to govern themselves. Colonization changes the very nature of a culture and creates a dependency on the colonizer. When the colonizer leaves the native culture is left changed from its origin and dependent with no one upon which to depend.
This leads us to the monster’s narrative. When we hear his voice, we are meeting the noble savage. His intentions are pure and his desires are honestly saintly. He tells us of his experiences as he tries to navigate this new world, a world made ever alien by the colonizer’s presence. His experience with the expatriates in the cottage represents a common experience for many colonized nations. The natives see the colonizers as a source of power and attempt to adopt the ways of the colonizer. The monster learns the language, reads the books, and learns to empathize with the french expatriates. He looks up to them, admires them, and decides to be like them and befriend them. In much of post-colonial literature this is called a mimic-man (some could compare it to an Uncle Tom). The monster’s experience turns south and follows the pattern of colonialism when he makes his move to join the cottage family. They reject him, beat him, and abandon him and their home. Mimic-men can never truly join with the colonizers they will always be an other.
The monster cannot go back. He has learned the language, learned the culture, and yet is still an other. He abandons his desires to be like the colonizer and instead adapts the culture to his own use. He uses his language to persuade Frankenstein to serve him and also to get his revenge. Many colonized nations rebel against the colonizer, using their own tactics against them. But this is where the monster transgresses the noble savage. He has abandoned his pure nature and ceases to be good. He murders and pillages. But he is also psychologically destructive and manipulative. His relationship to the colonizer is based upon revenge and destruction, but upon the death of his creator/colonizer he is not jubilant but mournful. The colonized wanted to be colonized all along, and now has nostalgia for his oppression.
The duality of the creature creates an apt mirror for ourselves. Instead of simply showing that we humans are capable of great evil, instead of saying that we are the monster, who the monster is changes. The colonizer is the monster, the destroyer, and we are that monster, not the corrupted noble savage. However, the narrative is ultimately told through the voice of the colonizer. We hear the monster’s story but only as told by the colonizer to the succeeding colonizer (Walton). So ultimately the noble savage is the vilified and the colonizer is exonerated. So we shake our heads and cluck our tongues about the horrors of colonization, but distance ourselves by emphasizing the atrocities of retribution perpetrated by that noble savage and that is the true horror of it all.
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