Monster Culture In Frankenstein

In Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s Monster Culture (Seven Thesis), Cohen analyzes the psychology behind monsters and how, rather than being a monstrous beast for the protagonist of the story to play against, “the monster signifies something other than itself”. Cohen makes the claim that by analyzing monsters in mythology and stories, you can learn much about the culture that gave rise to them. In Thesis 1 of Monster Culture, Cohen proposes that “the monster’s body literally incorporates fear, desire, anxiety, and fantasy”, specifically the fear, desire and anxiety of the cultures that gave rise to it; for example, vampires, undead, represent a fear of death. Monsters are born of an intense fear, desire, or internal conflict, “at this metaphorical

Victor fits Cohen’s formula of monster making precisely. Victor is at a transitional time in his life; between, “[His] mother's death, and [his] speedy departure [to university] p.35”, Victor is leaving behind everything he knows. The comfort and familiarity of his childhood home is being replaced by an unknown university. His mother is removed from him by death and he loses access to the rest of his family and childhood friends because of the physical distance his new school puts between them. Victor is at the crossroads between childhood and adulthood, and this crossroad is the first part of Cohen’s formula in which monsters are born. Without a crossroad, there is no fear to

Victor does not handle his monster, or his fears, well. When Frankenstein first sees his monster, he immediately “escaped, [from the room the monster was in] and rushed down stairs. p50” As the monster is an externalization of Frankenstein’s fears, this escape, this inability to so much as look at the monster, can be interpreted as Frankenstein’s inability to acknowledge his fears and anxieties. Like with anxiety, denying the monster’s existence only causes him to grow more destructive. Victor falls ill with anxiety, and as a result of Victor’s neglect the monster begins to destroy his life. Even when the monster confronts Frankenstein, threatening that he “will glut the maw of death, until it be satiated with the blood of [Frankenstein’s] remaining friends, 102" Victor does not acknowledge the problem he has caused, the literal embodiment of his anxiety. He does not attempt to confront the monster head on or alleviate his loneliness, both a form of acknowledgement and thus a healthy way to respond to his fears. Instead, he once again pretends the monster doesn’t exist which only further enrages and empowers him. Once again, this mirrors the fact that when fears and anxiety go undealt with they will only grow and confirms that the monster is the embodiment of this