Fictional Fatherhood

(Photo source Librarything)

It is said that Frankenstein is about the horror and despair of giving birth.  Mary Shelley wrote it after a dream she had, a dream that occurred after an evening of ghosts in Geneva.  It also occurred after miscarriage and a death of a child.  Upon reading Mary Shelley’s diaries, one cannot help but think of how she viewed pregnancy with a tinge of fear and perhaps despair, not only because of her own experiences but also because of her own birth.  Yet, for all of its focus on the fear of birth, it is absentee fatherhood or even husband hood that seems the focus.

Mary Shelley by Richard Rothwell.  (Source Wikicommons)

                Mary Shelley (hence MS) ran off with Percy Shelley (hence PS) while he was still married to his first wife, Harriet.    Let’s be clear, he abandoned his wife and two children to run off with Mary.  At one point, he seemed to float the idea of some type of threesome (perhaps foursome) with him as center, but Harriet never bit.  Despite the work of some authors and critics, like Mark Twain, Harriet Shelley never had the good press that MS and PS did.  In all fairness to PS, one should note that the marriage with Mary seems in large part to have been an attempt to gain custody of his children by Harriet, after she committed suicide.  PS was not a faithful husband to his second wife any more than he was to his first.  It is possible (and I think it highly likely) that PS had an affair Claire Claremont, MS’s step-sister.

Percy Shelley.  (Source Shelleyblogspot)

                Frankenstein is about a man who creates life without the aid of a woman and flees in horror, who does not take responsibility for what he has created or done.   Considering the men in MS’s circle this portrayal is hardly surprising.  There was love them and leave them Bryon whose relationships included ones with his half-sister and Claire Clairmont, There was Shelley himself, who never seemed to suffer the same way Mary did when she lost a child.

Byron.  (Source Pinterest)

                Reading MS’ journals one is stuck not so much by the sheer number of pages that have been removed, but by the sheer number of times that PS and Claire go off somewhere while MS is suffering though a pregnancy related illness.  How many time Claire burst into the Shelley’s chambers.  At the very least, it must have been a strange relationship, a fleeing couple taking a third wheel with them, the third wheel that had been used as cover for their relationship.  Then MS to be left behind while PS and Claire went rambling.

Claire Clairmont  (Source wikiversity)

                Did Mary feel something of the abandonment that Harriet must have felt?  MS did resent Claire, she confirmed as much in her lifetime, is this part of the reason why?

                And it is those that the absentee father leaves who bear the cost.  While it is true that Victor’s friend and younger brother are murdered by the monster, his wife Elizabeth and maid/companion Justine are murdered simply because of the actions and inactions of both the monster and Victor.  Victor could have saved Justine if he only spoke up, but he doesn’t.  He could have stopped the tragedy if he had taken responsibility for his actions, had ever tried to right his mistake.  He possess an inability to shoulder any part of the blame or to act to stop the unfolding events.

                And that makes him a far different monster than the one he creates.

                And one wonders, one must wonder, if there is a bit of PS and Harriet in Victor and his monster.  PS marrying Harriet in part to “save and educate” her, in part to shove it in his father’s face.  Then losing interest in both wife and children, leaving them for a younger girl.  There is no one cause for suicide, but surely PS’s treatment of Harriet must have contributed something.

                Even as we condemn the monster for his actions, we feel pity for him.

                Perhaps the novel is also a bit of a dig at her father and is remarriage after the death of Mary Wollstonecraft.  Godwin remarried in 1801 (Wollstonecraft died in 1797) and prior to that he had left the young MS and her half-sister Fanny in the care of a friend.  Victor does nothing for his son and yet seeks to have another second family with Elizabeth much like Percy leaving Harriet, or William Godwin marrying a woman with two children.  Is the suicide of her half-sister, Fanny Imlay, also present in the story?  It is unclear.  But one could argue that Imlay was abandoned by her family in an emotional sense at the least.

Fanny Imlay  (Source Who fix)

                Reading this novel, it is hard not see it as anything but condemnation of a men who father children, who marry and then leave, abandoning the women and children but also leaving them with the hard work.  Then perhaps, returning and upset at the way things have turned out.  Even at the beginning of science fiction, even before the genre had a name, Shelley was showing us what it could be.  It puts the Sad and Rabid puppies to shame, doesn’t it?

Frankenstein by Bernie Wrightson (Source tumblr)

Villa Diodati supposed where MS thought of the novel
(Source wikiepedia)