Frankenstein and Womb Envy
To analyze Victor Frankenstein’s obsession over his project of creating life, one must look into the psychoanalytic theory of womb envy. The theory, proposed by Karen Horney, states that men, envious of the female reproductive system are driven to create in other ways. These ways of creation are often mechanical, Professional, or financial, with these men often claiming to be the best in these fields. (Encyclopaedia Britannica).
The creation of anything has a slightly obsessional quality to it. From truly creating life in a womb, to building a career or high financial standing. Humans express these things through their identity, While one might not bat an eye towards one Listing “Mother” or “Entrepreneur” as attributes to themselves, this shows how much our creations and accumulations impact us, as we list them directly after the Words “I Am” therefore attributing them as a part of the self-concept. Frankenstein is a story of a man stepping outside of his gendered territory of creation and thusly being punished for it.
While the Natural mode of reproduction inside of the womb requires the expansion of cells one by one, similar to that of a seed sprouting out of the ground, with life being created and imbued within it through the breakdown of other molecules. Frankenstein’s attempt at life creation is in effect, a reversal of this process. Rather than a growing process he takes parts which are already in the process of decay, rather than growing, breaking down. The life he imbues within these pieces is not the natural byproduct of the being’s own existence but an outside force, pushed upon the being as if its neurons were wiring in a car needing to be jumpstarted, Or circuits in a building needing to be jumpstarted. Frankenstein brings about life in the way one constructs a building or fixes a car, which are all acceptable cessations for need to create when one has no womb to create life in. However, Victor’s drive to create is so strong that he does not want to settle for the mediocre task of constructing or inventing. He sacrifices himself for the one thing nature tells him that he cannot do, create life.
The other human endeavors of enslaving and colonization mentioned in the quote “If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your affections, and to destroy your taste for those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind. If this rule were always observed; if no man allowed any pursuit whatsoever to interfere with the tranquility of this domestic affections, Greece had not been enslaved; Caesar would have spared his country; America would have been discovered more gradually; and the empires of Mexico and Peru had not been destroyed” (59).These projects require the same insatiable hunger for creation, if not that of life, that of empires, and as all creation, Requires sacrifice. Mothers sacrifice their health, comfort and much else in the creation of life, Victor Frankenstein sacrifices his sanity and his health. Others with this hunger may sacrifice other people, such as all of those leaders mentioned in the quote on page 59. What Shelley is condemning is the womb envy driven hunger in men to sacrifice whatever they must in the name of expansion and creation. To be able to create the unnatural
Works Cited
WOLLSTONECRAFT, MARY. FRANKENSTEIN. ALE MAR, 2020.
“Womb Envy.” Encyclopaedia Brittanica, www.britannica.com/science/womb-envy.