Here's my paper. The paper which I have screamed, cursed and cried over. It's not perfect, but I hope you like it anyway....
The Monster; made by whom? How is monstrosity presented in The Tempest and Frankenstein?
The monster: A key element in so many horror stories, and presented in so many different ways. We have the closet-monster whom all were scared when they were younger.
We have the supernatural monster; like a werewolf or a demon that has
become a regular character in an amazing range of movies the past few
decades. But this paper is not about those kinds of monsters, it will
rather deal with something a lot closer to the human frame of mind.
But
what is a monster and what is monstrosity? A definition of these terms
would certainly be a great help when looking into the 2 texts which this
paper will deal with; “The Tempest” by William Shakespeare, written in 1611, and “Frankenstein”, written by Mary Shelley in 1819. It would be impossible to take the whole text and analyze it minutely, but we will look closer at some excerpts and compare the monster or monsterlike creature.
“Monstrosity: something that is very large, ugly and frightening”( pp. 990) This is how the Oxford
Dictionary defines monstrosity, and with a quick glance to our texts we
certainly see the traits in both the characters; Caliban in “The Tempest” and The Monster in “Frankenstein”.
But ‘monstrosity’ does not only count for something aesthetically ugly,
it also applies to what departs greatly from the idea of normality.
Another definition of the word is to be found in Oxford English Dictionary. It defines a monster as “a person of repulsively unnatural character, or exhibiting such extreme cruelty or wickedness as to appear inhuman […] (http://www.oed.com)
It is also apparent in the definition concerning ‘monstrosity’; it is something deviating from the normal, from the acceptable (http://www.oed.com). In both cases there is more beneath the surface than merely
meets the eye, and one can wonder if the term ‘beauty is in the eye of
the beholder’ can be turned around to say that ‘monstrosity is in the
eye of the beholder’; can it? Or is our experience of monstrosity so universal that such statements would be in vain?
But monstrosity is not just about appearance. Behaviour and language also play a
part, and as we will see these traits will make us question our
conviction that both Caliban and ‘The Monster’ are monsters, without any
deeper identity.
Who is Caliban? To present him properly can be quite a task since Shakespeare does not give us many hints about his appearance. Our view of him is almost solely based on how the other characters describe him. The excerpt which best portrays how the others see him is in act 2, scene 2 (pp. 36-41) and act 3, scene 2 (pp. 45-50) These scenes feature the trio Trinculo, Stephano and Caliban, and the word that recurs throughout when Trinculo or Stephano talk to or about Caliban is, not surprisingly, ‘monster’. But it can be fascinating to see who uses it the most in different settings. If one compares the scenes against each other through looking at how the term is being used, one can get a pretty interesting outcome.
Firstly; the language is being used differently by the two characters. In act 2, scene 2 where Caliban is being taunted by Trinculo we can clearly see what kind of language defines his mocking: it is base, and shallow. A good example is line 149-154:
“I
shall laugh myself to death at this puppy-headed monster. A most scurvy
monster. I could find in my heart to beat him – [...] – but that the
poor monster’s in drink. An abominable monster. (pp. 40)
The term monster, as we can see, has been used no less than 4 times. But even if it is Trinculo who uses the word most frequently, it is not him who first describes Caliban to us. It is Caliban’s master; Prospero. And since there is a certain power in a definition, one can say that their relationship, master and slave, manifests through it.
“Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself
Upon thy wicked dam, come forth!”(pp. 18)
Portrayed as a wicked slave, Prospero sets the scene of how Caliban will be defined throughout the play.
No person who is being defined can escape it altogether, but can only try to fight against it. Caliban has certainly has a tough stereotype to fight. He is also being compared with a fish, not only in appearance but also in smell. (pp. 37)
Since the true nature of the relationship between Prospero and Caliban is as master and slave, some have seen it as a kind of criticism from Shakespeare against what was going on in the colonies; how the colonizers treated the colonized. And the colonies under British rule were not only in the Americas, they also had Ireland to deal with. So when the critics, like Barbara Fuchs, discuss “The Tempest” in a colonial context, some of them also include the Irish case. (Fuchs, pp. 266) But it is often easy to overanalyze a text like this, and literally drown it in its own historical context.
But even if it is Trinculo that mocks and perhaps defines Caliban the most, Stephano is not innocent. He keeps calling him a monster even when Caliban has given him his loyalty.
Caliban is indeed an interesting figure, and after observing him for some time one understands that there is more to him than meets the eye. Even if the other characters do not see him as anything other than an abominable creature, merely worthy to be a slave, the readers see him for what he truly is.
Language
seems to be an important clue in how Caliban is being portrayed and how
he presents himself. Here one can see a crucial difference. While the language of Stephano and Trinculo is at its best like everyday talk, and at its worst ugly and vile, the language presented by Caliban himself makes us confront our own prejudices against him. It is the language of the kings, aesthetically beautiful and poetically presented:
"Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open, and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked,
I cried to dream again." (pp. 50)
In this famous monologue he portrays his home, his former kingdom with words that surprises us as readers, since we expected something else, less beautiful perhaps…
So language is what makes him human. And he comes out on top, while the others make fools of themselves. But language can be both a blessing and a curse as Frankenstein’s Monster will give us some evidence of in the next part.
In some aspects one can say that the physical representation of monstrosity
is the first that comes to mind when we hear the term ‘monster’. And in
this category ‘Frankenstein’s Monster’ has become a synonym in itself (Roget’s Thesaurus pp.402)
So how is the monster portrayed? A good example is to be found in chapter 5 where the creature comes alive:
“His
yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath;
his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly
whiteness; […] his
watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white
sockets in which they were set, his shriveled complexion and straight
black lips.” (Shelley pp.60)
But this only describes its appearance, the creature is also often referred to as a wretch; something that invokes sympathy from the reader. The choice of words to describe him is much wider than in Caliban’s case, which is also being called a ‘mooncalf’ (, pp. 39, pp. 46) Words like creature, fiend’, ’devil’ and ‘thing’ are frequently being used throughout the novel, and this enhances the fearful appearance we have created in our own minds. Nonetheless , the monster is not defined by itself. We shape the monster;
and in the case of Frankenstein’s monster we clearly see a conflict
between how the creature is ‘born’ into this world, and how the world
receives him.
The Creature wants to fit into society, wants to be human.
Through listening to the cottagers, he obtains the knowledge of
language, and through language he can define himself and the world
around him. And we would not have heard his story, if he could not tell
it...
In the Creature’s narrative we perceive that he sees himself both as benevolent
and sympathetic, but wherever he turns he is shunned by the humans. So
when his acts of kindness (like helping the De Laceys) (pp. 102) are being met with hostility and hatred, he turns on humanity with the same means (Kitson pp. 388-9). And he strikes where it hurts the most, killing those closest to Victor Frankenstein. He lets himself become the monster he is so anxiously trying not to be, a self-fulfilling prophesy.
As
mentioned earlier language is truly a double-edged sword. Through
language the ‘creature’ can define himself, but also understand what is
being said about him. Would he be better off if he never knew?
The criticism surrounding Frankenstein reflects the discourses of the
time of its creation. And ‘creation’ is a keyword. This is a time when
progress is the sign of success, and several places in the novel one can
witness the dark side of progress and the fight for it. Humanity was being pushed aside when the captain wants to continue against the North Pole at any cost; his worth is measured in his success. As he declared in his letter to his sister:
“What can stop the determined mind and resolved will of man?”
(pp. 34) The search of the unknown or maybe even the forbidden is also a
prominent characteristic of Victor Frankenstein. He wants knowledge, at
any cost. He crosses borders no one else has crossed before him, and he
must pay for it. His hubris causes him to fall; a human can not play God.
Both Caliban and ‘The Monster’ have some similar features, but they are as characters also coloured by their surroundings.
Caliban, as said earlier, comes out on top, through him regaining the control of the island that he once lost to Prospero. To say the same about the Creature can somehow be more difficult, since he just disappears from the story. But he has his revenge over his maker, by living on while Frankenstein dies and in some aspects this can be seen as a victory.
And maybe the monster was not Caliban or ‘The Creature” after all, but those who labelled them as such. The monster is within everyone of us, we just have to let it loose.
Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005
Roget’s Thesaurus, London: Penguin Books, 2004
Fuchs, Barbara, “Conquering Islands: Contextualizing The Tempest”, The Tempest, London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2004, pp.265-285
Kitson, Peter J., “Romantic period, 1780-1832: readings, English Literature in Context edited Paul Poplawski, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, , 2009 pp.386-392,
Shakespeare, William, The Tempest, London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2004
Shelley, Mary, Frankenstein, Boston: Bedford St. Martins, 2000
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