The difficulty about determining who precisely is the narrator in the complex narrative structure of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is only a superficial one. Once the importance of the sublime is established, together with the fact that the story is in essence a frame story, everything becomes much clearer. The letters Captain Walton writes to his sister are framing letters in that they contain crucial aspects of the entire sequence of events which have been told to Captain Walton by the true narrator of the tale: Victor Frankenstein. Walton’s letters to his sister are a frame around the main narrative. Walton figures as a kind of channel through which the reader learns the story of Victor and his monster and is given the opportunity to see the central characters from several perspectives.

        Frankenstein became famous for the most part because of its after-effects and the many spin-offs of the story in twentieth century movies. Especially Frankenstein’s Monster became famous, more famous even than the person who the novel is truly about, Victor Frankenstein, and often this name is synonymous with the Monster rather than its creator to those who are not acquainted with the story in its original form.

        Indeed, considering that point of view, the more obvious choice for the true narrator of the novel would be the Monster, since it is the be-all and end-all of all the narratives. It is the Monster who Victor creates and in the end hunts, it is the Monster that makes him realise his mistake, and who manages to ruin everything in his life he holds dear. It is the Monster who piles responsibility for its deeds onto his creator and indirectly brings about his death.

        But at the same time, the Monster is the result of Victor Frankenstein’s scientific urge to create, the answer to Victor’s question about what the secret of life is. The Monster might be the one who is doing all the damage, but it was created by Victor. It is as much part of Victor Frankenstein as Frankenstein’s friends and family are, and the Monster’s narrative is therefore rightfully imbedded into the narrative of its creator. By disassociating himself from the Monster and allowing it to roam wild, Victor Frankenstein has brought about his own tragedy. And the bitterness which consumes him by the time he meets Walton can only be ascribed to the fact that he is well aware of this.

        Like the Monster, Walton wishes for a friend, a companion to talk to and to hear the opinions and judgements of, someone to be accepted by, and the fact that he finds this person in Victor Frankenstein creates both a link between the two men as well as between Walton and the monster, as the supporting beams of the main narrator. Strangely enough Walton and the Monster grow to be the more human characters in the novel, far more so than Victor Frankenstein, who instead becomes entangled in his trepidation of dangerous knowledge and his intense hate for his creation.

        The desire for a contrast in reality and fantasy in this period of literature is also behind the frame narrative of the novel. By using the frames Mary Shelley creates the sense of a story inside a story, also called mise-en-abyme, which not only provides more layers for interpretation, but also helps establish the sense of reality even further.

        In Lessen in Literatuur¹, Dr. F.W. Korsten explains the narrative frames of the novel and explains that at the heart of it is the family history which the Monster narrates. Dr Korsten compares this to how the reader, through all narrative frames, like the Monster, is looking at the story, the image, in the centre. Through mise-en-abyme, the reader, like the Monster, recognises reworked but familiar ideas in the context of the novel.

        Captain Walton becomes a filter for both Victor Frankenstein’s story as well as, though Victor, that of the Monster; the introduction of the novel, set up in letters to Walton’s sister, give a very vivid and real report of his travelling to a Russian port, and the planning of his trip into arctic territory to reach the North Pole. By setting up Captain Walton as the apparent narrator, the reader has him as a judge, a filter between Frankenstein, his Monster, and the reader. More than one narrator provides more than one perspective, and thus the true narrative is difficult to establish.

        Just as Frankenstein’s character and motives can be interpreted in different ways over the course of the story, so the Monster can be interpreted as both a purely evil creature (possibly with good PR skills), and as someone who finds himself outside a society he so desperately wishes to be a part of, despised and misunderstood with all the consequences which could be expected.

        Captain Walton’s narrative is a device to tell Victor Frankenstein’s narrative and provide it with realism. The Monster’s narrative is present to confirm Victor’s story as well, as well as acquitting Frankenstein of his own moral accusation that he has created something purely evil, alive and yet not so, a creature that only deserves nothing short of hatred.

        All narrators are present as support beams for the central narrative, and even though they also provide different points of view as a result of the magnificent ability of the author, there is only one true goal for them to achieve: to tell the story of Victor Frankenstein, and guide the reader on a quest to find the genuine story, providing the opportunity to decide on what truly ensued, allowing all sides to it to be revealed.

        Even if Victor Frankenstein does not live to learn the truth of it all, the reader does, and is given ultimate power to judge over it all, good and bad, prejudiced and unprejudiced. Whatever the reader decides to think of Victor Frankenstein, whether to condemn him due to his misuse of dangerous knowledge in his overconfident experiment, or to admire him and his attempt to find the secret of life as the ultimate expression of scientific ambition, there can be no doubt as to whose story this is. His narrative lies at the core of it all, teaching a valuable lesson as well as providing an entertaining chronicle of the horror careless science and experimenting can turn into.

 

 

¹ F.W. Korsten, Lessen in Literatuur, Nijmegen and Utrecht: Uitgeverij Vantilt, 2002.