Frankenstein and the monster: Two independent characters or two souls in one body? The attempt of a psychoanalytical interpretation

Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,3, RWTH Aachen University (Institut für Anglistik), course: Gothic Novel, language: English, abstract: This essay deals with Mary Shelley s "Frankenstein". People who do not know the book but only its title often associate the name Frankenstein with the monster. Why do many people think that Frankenstein is the monster?

The question to be discussed in this essay is if Victor and the monster are both single and independent characters or if the monster can be described as Victor Frankenstein s double.

This essay is the attempt to interpret the book from a psychoanalytical point of view. The analysis refers to the major works of Sigmund Freud.

At first I describe and explain some basic knowledge of Sigmund Freud, such as his model of personality or rather the mental apparatus with its three organisational units ID, EGO and SUPEREGO. After that I name some tools the EGO can use, called Ego Defence Mechanisms, but this is only done very generally. The human drives have to be mentioned and explained because they are very important for the question to be discussed. Because Victor Frankenstein s life is analysed chronologically the psychosexual development has to be referred to, too. Last but not least Freud s conception of the human psyche is mentioned and explained. It is important to say that I always refer to Freud when speaking about psychoanalytical expressions in this essay, even when they are not always named as those.

After the explanation of the psychoanalytical basic knowledge which is important for this essay I start the analysis of Victor Frankenstein s life. As mentioned before, this is done chronologically: from the time of his birth to his death. The different stations in his life are shortly summarized and afterwards analysed and psychoanalytically interpreted in a very detailed way. There are many quotes from the text because it is not possible to prove some claims without referring to the text.

At the end of the analysis I summarize the most important results. After that I shortly discuss these results critically and give possible alternatives.