What does Frankenstein posit about the intelligibility of nature, especially human nature? “I at once gave up my former occupations, set down natural history and all its progeny as a deformed and abortive creation, and entertained the greatest disdain for a would-be science which could never even step within the threshold of real knowledge.” Awed by a lightning bolt’s utter demolition of a tree, at age fifteen Frankenstein temporarily abandons the idea that human investigations can reduce the chaos of nature into anything comprehensible, only to retrospectively attribute his eventual return to science to a nebulous, mystical fate while at the same time claiming to be entirely averse to superstitions of any kind, at least aside from a certain affinity for the likes of Agrippa. Frankenstein’s desire to create an improved human is a reversal of the Greek notion of an expired Golden Age inhabited by a race of superior men and a ‘modern’ reenactment of Prometheus’ strivings.
In the beginning, superior men are distinguishable at a glance. Elizabeth’s natural beauty that makes her upper class heritage blatantly apparent in her crude surroundings. Krempe, a professor who is mocking and derisive is described as ugly whereas the more gentlemanly Waldman is more pleasant to behold. Wholesome characters such as Henry Clerval and Frankenstein’s mother are conventionally attractive. Frankenstein himself is handsome until his quest for greatness leads him to start digging up the dead, at which point he acquires a corpse-like emaciation. When the story reaches the monster, this neat alignment of beauty to beatitude grows muddled. The monster is beautiful until he opens his eyes and gains the ability to reflect upon the world. Before Frankenstein awakens the monster, his eyes grow strained and he loses the ability to appreciate natural beauty. Frankenstein sacrifices clarity and aesthetic sensitivities to grant the monster vision, only to see for himself that the monster is ugly.
Is Frankenstein arguing that rather than putting questions to nature by means of science, humans should content themselves with that which can be immediately felt through intuition or the senses? For Shelley, does being blinded by a flash of lightning illuminate the futility of demanding reason or respite from the fury of the heavens or the fallibility of human flesh?
