We all love those crazy psychologists, right? Sometimes, the only way I can explain how I feel is to point to some of them and use their bizarro thoughts as my own. Plus, a lot of people won't believe you unless you point to some old, dead guy and say he thought of it first. Now, I'm not diagnosed officially because the therapist I go to can't do that. But after reading "The Modern Prometheus" for probably the billionth time, I thought, "Dang, Vic, I love you because you are so bipolar." I understand Victor so well. Enough, of this though. Let's talk science and get all academic.
Erik
Erikson developed simple-to-use psychological Stages of Growth that show us
what ages human beings go through certain stages (seriously, you can google0image search the thing). Mother’s always say, “Oh,
don’t mind him, he’s a teenager.” Erikson provided some answers as to what is
going on behind those children’s eyes as they grow. Using Erkison’s theory, we
can explore the minds and motives behind what literary characters do and say.
Using
Erikson’s scale of growth (point out those smart ones!), we’ll examine Merry Shelley’s title character Victor
Frankenstein. Victor is interesting because he shows signs of having more than
one problem (I love a man with issues...). He is moody, hates socializing, likes to be in control of other
people, and is so driven at some points that he forgets about his family and
friends and drives at education mercilessly. Some of these symptoms, as we will
later discuss, are signs of depression, bipolar disorder, and possibly show him
as a sociopath (a high-function one at that!). What could cause him to be the way he is? Does he have a savior
complex or womb-envy (lol, but seriously, people, this is a thing)? Why is he so driven and seemingly sociopathic? Does he
have feelings or not? Erik Erikson’s theories and stages of growth can be used
to analyze this fictional character’s life and actions to see what could
possibly be troubling him and causing him to reach so far as to create life. Ever get that feeling? "Hmmm, I need a pal, let's make one!" Yeah, me too.
The
first thing that must be examined is that Victor talks very little of growing
up in the book. He doesn’t mention too much in chapter one about his life. Instead he focuses on his parent’s life. He seems to be
intellectualizing his parent’s biography to tell you why he doesn’t wish to
speak about his life. But this is important to understanding Victor; his
parents have a great effect on his development. His father had a friend who
went into debt, bankruptcy, then hid to avoid the consequences of his actions
(Shelley 27). Frankenstein Sr. found out the friend and brought him back and he
died leaving his young daughter to the care of Mr. Frankenstein. Victor says
that his father “is one of the most distinguished of that republic” and that he
had “filled several public stations with honour and reputation” (Shelley 27).
From this, a psychologist could infer that Mr. Frankenstein was a man of high
standing and important in his community. He is used to being looked up to
admired and asked for help. He is perhaps even the savior of others under him. God-like-savior-alert!
An
example of his “savior” behavior can be seen when he marries his friend’s
daughter Caroline. This could be signs of a messiah complex or what is called a
grandiose complex (Diamond). He feels the need to save because that is what he has
been doing for some time in his offices of power. However, that is just the tip
of the iceberg. These feelings of grandeur
can come from and be aggravated by a bipolar complex, which is where the person
has feelings of ups and downs that change at a normally rapid pace. Caroline’s
father probably had developed bipolar disorder after he was saved by Mr.
Frankenstein. Victor says that his grief would rise and fall until he was sick
in bed and eventually it consumed and killed him (Shelley 28). Well, dang.
Now
Mr. Frankenstein feels he must take care of this woman. “Perhaps during former
years he had suffered the late-discovered unworthiness of one beloved, and so
was disposed to set a greater value on tried worth… [Caroline’s] health and
even the tranquility of her hitherto constant spirit, had been shaken by what
she had gone through” (Shelley 28-29). Mr. Frankenstein felt he had to earn her
love. These feelings of worthlessness are common in bipolar disorder and in some
savior complex’s. They feel they must work extra hard to get the approval and
love of those around them. Hmm, sounds familiar. Where a savior complex will puff one up and make
them think themselves a god-like being, bipolar disorder will pull in the other
direction and make him think that he’s not good enough. So he must worship her
and pamper to her. But she is already feeling so depressed. What to do?
Perhaps,
Frankenstein Sr. didn’t have full out bipolar disorder, but he did have a
savior complex and Victor’s mother was now ripe for depression to set in.
Caroline could have easily developed depression too from the trauma of the life
they must have lived while her father was running around avoiding debt and the
law. This could have planted the seeds for her own depression or bipolar
disorder which leads to her own savior complex and saving of Elizabeth (Victor's later wife) later.
These are the people Victor is surrounded by. Notice we haven't even gotten to Vic yet? Yeah, that's how far back scientists and those psychologist like to look.
To
alleviate the utter darkness in the Frankenstein home, Mr. and Mrs.
Frankenstein start to travel (Shelley 29). No, really, it says that they were so down in the dumps they had to go on vacation. Amidst all of this, Victor is born
away from home and is the brunt for all their mixed up emotions as he is an
only child for some time (Shelley 29). He is now of course in Erikson’s stage
of Trust versus Mistrust. During his first years, they still traveled and he
says, “it was in their hands to direct happiness or misery, according as they
fulfilled their duties towards me” (Shelley 29). Bummer! The words that stand out apart
from happiness are the directing of misery he speaks of. Is there a possibility
that his parents were not always as sane as they should have been towards baby
Victor? He may have had reason to mistrust his parents and begin to isolate
himself from them.
With
two bipolar parents now saddled with a child, the chances of Victor being
ignored or even abused are high. This means that during his sensitive stages
all the way through Erikson’s Autonomy versus Shame to Initiative versus Guilt
phase (three to five years of age), he was the only thing around to receive the
brunt of his father and mother’s mood swings and their outlandish behavior. The
evidence later of his own mental disorders could be signs that he has repressed
bad memories of his parents. From here, Victor will inherit his own disorder.
According to the Ohio State University Medical Center, depression and bipolar
disorder can run in the family. From this point on, Victor will begin his own
downward spiral of disorders. He will displace his rage at his parents onto
someone he can own and possess. Controlling others will help him cope, he
thinks. So, like, get a dog or something, right?
Over
and over it says that his parents were good and gave and gave. That is how his
father came to marry his mother Caroline. When they go back to Italy they visit
the houses of the poor all the time: “Their benevolent disposition often made
them enter the cottages of the poor. This to my mother was more than duty; it
was necessity, a passion” (Shelley 29). This shows that they have that guilt complex
also common in bipolar disorders. They feel guilty for what they have so they
visit the poor all the time. Dr. Susan Whitebourne of the University of
Massachusetts links it back to Freud: “The psychodynamic theory of Freud
proposes that we build defense mechanisms to protect us from the guilt we would
experience if we knew just how awful our awful desires really were.
Specifically, Freud linked the feeling of guilt” (Whitebourne). His mother had
suffered her traumatized past and was now displacing her grief onto the poor.
In
this poor neighborhood, Caroline Frankenstein comes across a little English
girl named Elizabeth who she decides to take under her wing while Mr.
Frankenstein is out of town on business. Caroline’s savior complex and guilt
come in again when she sees little Elizabeth in such poverty. “…but it would be
unfair to her to keep her in poverty and want, when Providence afforded her
such powerful protection” (Shelley 30). She's totally Batman.
When
Caroline brings Elizabeth home, she says to Victor “I have a pretty present for
my Victor—tomorrow he shall have it” and he replies, “I, with childish
seriousness, interpreted her words literally, and looked upon Elizabeth as
mine…since till death she was to be mine only.” (Shelly 31). Possessive much, dude? At the end of
chapter one (yeah, still chapter one!), Victor is in full possession of Elizabeth and is being influenced
for Erikson’s next stage of Industry versus Inferiority. His mother gave him
something to possess and he has now started to morph into his controlling-womb-envying-savior-complex
self. He has been given something (Elizabeth) since he was five years old to be
master of and he is used to this high throne of authority, which could lead to
his creation of the monster and his later projection of anger on the creature
when it defies him and makes himself the master putting Victor in a place
inferior to the monster.
Victor
grows up over the next chapter where we can see his lust for control takes on
the guise of knowledge. In Chapter II, he leaves Elizabeth behind when he wants
more intellectual things: “Elizabeth was of a calmer and more concentrated
disposition; but with all my ardour, I was capable of a more intense
application, and was more deeply smitten with the thirst for knowledge”
(Shelley 32). By this point, he would probably be in Erikson’s Stage of
Industry VS. Inferiority and getting to move into Identity versus Role
Confusing. He wants knowledge over Elizabeth’s companionship especially since
he probably can no longer control her every move. She is inferior and he must
now find out who he is.
He
turns to the ultimate complex device for knowledge and dominance over: Nature.
He sees nature as a challenge that must be accepted. It holds secretes and he
must uncover them or he will not be seen as “smart”—as Erikson would say, he
would feel inferior. He is indeed in this stage because his brother is born
“seven years in junior” and his parents become more depressed and give up on
their wondering life, which may have been escapism and now they have to be tied
down (Shelley 32). Things just get worse from there on out. His parent’s live
in seclusion in the country now. And it was in his temper to avoid a crowd. He is
anti-social as we will see in the later chapters when he goes to school.
We
can see examples of his anti-social self in contrast with his best friend Henry
Celrval. Henry is the opposite of Victor in that he loved stories of knights,
tales of enchantment and he also loved danger for danger’s sake (Shelley 32,
33). This could infer that Henry is very outgoing and outspoken. Just the right person to get on Victor's nerves.
On
the other hand, Victor’s temper, he says, was sometimes violent. In a large,
revealing chunk of text, Victor confesses, “My temper was sometimes violent,
and my passions vehement; but by some law in my temperature they were turned,
not towards childish pursuits, but to an eager desire to learn” (Shelley 33). This
could be his reaction to his thoughts and feelings that come with bipolar
disorder. He doesn’t know how to deal with them and all his parents do is spoil
him, which is not what he wants. He says he was violent and vehement and yet
those feelings were turned towards knowledge. This could show where he is angry
that he doesn’t understand himself and his feelings. So he feels the need to
learn about them. But it isn’t simple things like politics and government that
attracted his pursuits, no those things would be too simple for
high-functioning Victor. He wants to learn “the secrets of heaven and earth”
(Shelley 33).
From
a high flying temper and violence, Victor then plummets into what psychologist
say is the depression side of bipolar disorder. “I might have become sullen in
my study, rough through the ardour of my nature, but that she was there to
subdue me to a semblance of her own gentleness”; simply, he raves, is angry,
violent and then falls into sullen moods where he is probably locked away in
his room being moody and only Elizabeth can sooth him and sometimes Henry as
well (Shelley 33).
Another
example of Victor’s strong anti-social behavior can be seen on the next pages
when they go to a party where he also discovers the books that will set him on
fire for his passions of the ultimate knowledge and even a search for the
Elixir of Life and immortality.
When
Victor is thirteen years old and approaching another phase of Erikson’s growth
chart: Identity versus Role Confusion is in full swing as Victor makes contact
with books that will inspire his studies. The family goes to Thonon, a resort
in France, and is confined to an inn there due to the weather. This upsets
Victor no doubt because of his antisocial tendencies and so he does what any
knowledge-craving boy his age would have done: he sits down with a book to read
and avoid the people. Victor reads a book by Cornelius Agrippa and “a new light
seemed to dawn upon my mind” (Shelley 34). Victor runs to his father, excited
about his finding only to be brushed off by his father. When a depressed person
gets brushed aside, they either let go or retaliate with a fierceness that
cannot be guessed (Wexner). Trust me, I know...Victor did the later.
“If
instead of this remark, my father had taken the pains to explain to me that the
principles of Agrippa had been entirely exploded…I should certainly have thrown
Agrippa aside” (Shelley 34). If his
father had explained it, perhaps Victor would not have delved so deeply and
largely into the well of unknown sciences and gone on to other studies. But his
father suffers from the same disorders as Victor and could not be bothered to
give an explanation to his young, energetic son. Perhaps Victor was more
frightening when excited about scientific things his father had no idea how to
handle and thus Frankenstein Sr. had no other defense mechanism but to try to
shut Victor down.
Victor
hits fifteen and is still in Erikson’s Identity Vs. Role Confusion stage while
he eats away at the hunger for knowledge. He is high-functioning and never
satisfied at this point. The quest for knowledge had inflated his head even
more as he pursued higher levels of writings: “they appeared to me treasures
known to few besides myself…Those of his successors in each branch of natural
philosophy with whom I was acquainted appeared, even to me boy’s apprehensions,
as tyros engaged in the same pursuit” (Shelley 35). Here Victor is saying that
he is the only one who knows about this great knowledge. No one else could know,
especially no one else his age. And now, he has studied so long that the
writings of other great scientists are like novices compared to what he knows.
But sadly, he was left to struggle with a child’s blindness (Shelly 35). He has
no one there with him as is often the case with manic depressive people, which
only adds to the aggravation of the condition (Wexner). Victor’s symptoms and
behaviors have gone on too long untreated just as his parents have and which he
has been exposed to while floating in this delusion of grandeur.
He
moves to pursue things greater than this physical life; “the elixir of life;
but soon the latter soon obtained my undivided attention. Wealth was in
inferior object; but what glory would attend the discovery, if I could banish
disease from the human frame” (Shelley 36). This coupled with his next pursuit
of trying to contact ghosts and devils which he eagerly sought shows his
descent into madness. When one begins to rave and delve too deeply into things
usually seen in society’s eyes as odd and not normal, one is normally described
as mad. They begin “reasoning with insufficient data or rigidly defending the
wrong theory” (Daw). Thus, all Victor needs is one more push and he will be
over the proverbial edge.
When the lightning storm strikes at the end of
chapter two, Victor then moves on to school in Ingolstadt. He is about to enter
into the young adult phase for Erikson and Intimacy Vs. Isolation and it is
ironically the last stage of his life. His mother dies no doubt causing a
massive trauma to young Victor. He is delicately on the verge of pure insanity
at this point as he is in need of intimacy more than ever. His mother has died and
he is young and unbalanced according to Erikson. He must mingle with people if
he is to survive. But he does not. When Victor is in the Intimacy Vs Isolation
Stage of Erikson’s theory, he shuts himself away instead of spending time with
Henry and making friends at school with his mates. He has no one “worthy of my
consideration” (Shelley 37). Boy, do I know that feeling.
Henry
sees the signs which are evident when he tries to pursued his own father to
allow him to accompany Victor to school (Shelley 39). Victor’s determination is
seen just before this when he insists that even though his mother is dead, he
still had duties to attend to and perform (Shelley 39). Finally, Victor states,
“I threw myself in to the chaise that was to convey me away… I was now alone”
(Shelley 40). He has reached the height of what he desired: He is alone and in
a realm of smart-things and people where he can run rampant with his
experiments. He is depressed, swinging from manic and back, never learned to
control himself, and suffers from grandeur and a savior complex. There is
nothing left but for him to do the ultimate act and creat life. He met a
professor who would, unknowingly give him all he needed to finish off his mad
desires:
“He then took me into
his laboratory and explained to me the uses of his various machines,
instructing me as to what I ought to procure and promising me the use of his
own when I should have advanced far enough in the science not to derange their
mechanism. He also gave me the list of books which I had requested, and I took
my leave. Thus ended a day memorable to me; it decided my future destiny.”
From
here, Victor goes on to gather dead bodies and try his best to create life.
This last act of his nearly sane mind could have been his ultimate hate: it
would seem the only thing Victor could not do is create life. He tried to call
to the dead, attempted the elixir of life, learned all he could about science
and yet there was nothing that would make him a god. His nature was nurtured
into a high level of savior complex and fed anger by his bipolar disorder
causing him to think he had no other goal than to creat life.
Whatever trauma his
parents may have caused him in his childhood he has shut out, but it has led to
his pursuit of perfection and ultimate control over his and other’s lives. His
youth shows that he sought solitude and projected his anger onto others,
particularly Elizabeth and Henry. Victor sought control and got it but his
high-functioning, nearly sociopathic mind was not satisfied until he had reached so
far that he fell over the edge.
A fun Biblio incase you wanna check it out for yourself:
Daw, Jennifer. "Why
and How Normal People Go Mad." Http://www.apa.org. American
Psychological Association, Nov. 2002. Web. 27 Nov. 2013.
Dr. Daw discusses in a brief essay the reasons
that can cause people, normal and productive, to drop off the edge into
clinical insanity. She describes the descent as one that can be triggered by
many things but mostly as blows to one’s self esteem. She warns against false
madness cues and discusses in brief biological reasons for madness.
Diamond, Stephen, Dr.
"Messiahs of Evil (Part Three)." Psychology Today. Sussex
Publishers,
20
May 2008. Web. 26 Nov. 2013.
Dr. Diamond discusses a theory about how fanatic
religious leaders from all over the globe could possibly have had a messiah
complex. He informs the reader of the definition of a true messaiah complex and
likens it to delusions of grandeur. He also provides research in Jung and
Erikson’s theories.
Erikson, Erik.
"Erikson's Psychosocial Stages Summary Chart." Erikson's
Psychosocial Stages
Summary Chart. Ed.
Kendra Cherry, Dr. About.com, Web. 25 Nov. 2013.
A summary chart of Erikson’s theories with
hyperlined examples and further discussion. For the essay, simple the names and
order were taken from this chart.
Martin, Chris. The
Scientist. Coldplay. Rec. 2001. Ken Nelson, 2002. MP3.
The song about a man who loves but cannot identify the feeling as it
cannot be explained by science so he considers giving up or just going without it.
Title was used as well as the line “pulling the puzzle apart” to symbolize
Victor’s diagnosis as bipolar.
Shelley, Mary
Wollstonecraft. Frankenstein, Or, The Modern Prometheus. New York:
Barnes
and Nobel, 2003. Print. Barnes and Nobel Classics.
An annotated version of the original classic
with essays and historical clips in the back of the book for further study.
Wexner Medical Center.
"Manic Depression / Bipolar Disorder." Wexner Medical Center.
Ohio
State University, Web. 26 Nov. 2013.
The University of Ohio’s medical page for
students who think they may be, or no someone who may be, suffering from
depression or bipolar disorder. It gives symptoms, cures, and therapies. It
also discusses in depth how such illnesses can be passed or spread through
prolonged exposure.
Whitebourne, Susuan, Dr.
"The Definitive Guide to Guilt." Psychology Today. Sussex
Publishers, 11 Aug. 2012. Web. 26 Nov. 2013.
Dr. Whitebourne gives a
different look at guilt in this short essay. Rather than explain how people
manipulate a person, she explains what people plagued with guilt do. She
explains how people afflicted with guilt live their lives and how they see
tasks before them as essential to curing their guilt. She also likens it to the
psychodynamic theory of Freud.
