I've been re-reading Frankenstein lately, and I've been noticing a lot of comparisons that the creature makes between himself and Adam & Eve and - by extension - the Garden of Eden. (I feel like I should note that I don't want to use appellations like "the creature" or "the monster," but that character never gets a proper name, so....)
The creature wants a companion. In Chapter 20, he rhetorically asks, "Shall each man find a wife for his bosom, and each beast have his mate, and I be alone?" The creature casts himself as Adam in Genesis or - more appropriately - Milton's Paradise Lost, which, in earlier chapters, he mentions that he's read.
But what's more interesting than just the creature's wanting a companion with whom he can live is how that wish parallels Victor Frankenstein's wish. At the beginning of Chapter 17, the creature explains to Frankenstein that if he consents to make him a companion, "neither you nor any other human being shall ever see us again; I will go to the vast wilds of South America." He also says, "It is true, we shall be monsters, cut off from all the world; but on that account we shall be more attached to one another. Our lives will not be happy, but they will be harmless and free from the misery I now feel." The creature sees having a companion as a sort of escape from the miserable situation that he is now in, and Victor Frankenstein views his impending marriage to Elizabeth in the same way. In Chapter 18, he narrates, "For myself, there was one reward I promised myself from my detested toils - one consolation for my unparalleled sufferings; it was the prospect of that day when, enfranchised from my miserable slavery, I might claim Elizabeth and forget the past in my union with her." Both Frankenstein and his creature seek a solace from their misery (both use inflections of the word) in companionship. Both of these are akin, if not exactly parallel, to Adam's companionship with Eve.
What I'm still a bit confused by is the creature's self-imposed exile. I can understand it as it is, but if the creature's meeting a companion is reminiscent of Adam's meeting Eve, then the creature's exile is similar to their banishment from the Garden of Eden. If the Garden of Eden is a paradise, it doesn't make sense for the creature willingly to "quit the neighbourhood of man," as Frankenstein calls it in Chapter 20. Maybe I'm just extending the similarities too far.
Frankenstein never actually makes the companion for his creature, so maybe it doesn't matter that the Adam & Eve/Garden of Eden parallels don't quite match up, but it is really interesting how Shelley mixes up some of the elements in Genesis and Paradise Lost.
"Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough / Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades / For ever and for ever when I move."
Thursday, March 27, 2014
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
The Titular Salesman
I recently read Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. By the end of the play, I couldn't really figure out who the salesman in the title was. While it might seem more obvious that the salesman in Willy Loman, I would actually argue that the titular salesman is Biff. The rest of this post contains spoilers.
Near the beginning of the play, we learn that Biff has been out west doing mostly odd jobs and things that don't at all resemble the more business-attuned job that his father has. Through Willy's memories of the past, we can see Biff's ambition, at least part of which has the aim to impress his father. While Biff is trying to get something going with Bill Oliver, Willy ends up losing his job. Later, they have an argument about Biff's failure to get any business started, after which Willy crashes the car and dies. The play ends with his funeral.
Since Willy is the character who dies and is the only main character in the play who is a salesman, it would seem that he is the title character. And while that can be true, Biff could also be the title character. Where Willy the salesman dies after working for decades, Biff the salesman dies before he can even get started. In the argument that Willy and Biff have shortly before Willy's death, Biff says, "I am not a leader of men, Willy, and neither are you. You were never anything but a hard-working drummer who landed in the ash can like all the rest of them! I'm one dollar an hour, Willy! I tried seven states and couldn't raise it. A buck an hour! Do you gather my meaning? I'm not bringing home any prizes any more, and you're going to stop waiting for me to bring them home!" Biff doesn't die, but his ambition does.
Near the beginning of the play, we learn that Biff has been out west doing mostly odd jobs and things that don't at all resemble the more business-attuned job that his father has. Through Willy's memories of the past, we can see Biff's ambition, at least part of which has the aim to impress his father. While Biff is trying to get something going with Bill Oliver, Willy ends up losing his job. Later, they have an argument about Biff's failure to get any business started, after which Willy crashes the car and dies. The play ends with his funeral.
Since Willy is the character who dies and is the only main character in the play who is a salesman, it would seem that he is the title character. And while that can be true, Biff could also be the title character. Where Willy the salesman dies after working for decades, Biff the salesman dies before he can even get started. In the argument that Willy and Biff have shortly before Willy's death, Biff says, "I am not a leader of men, Willy, and neither are you. You were never anything but a hard-working drummer who landed in the ash can like all the rest of them! I'm one dollar an hour, Willy! I tried seven states and couldn't raise it. A buck an hour! Do you gather my meaning? I'm not bringing home any prizes any more, and you're going to stop waiting for me to bring them home!" Biff doesn't die, but his ambition does.
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