Displacement and Doppelgänger in Frankenstein

 Displacement in Frankenstein
Walton / Victor Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein/
 Specular Frankenstein

Source for photo: click here

 A boat adrift, and a Turner foggy landscape of shadows in the white, turbulent matter acquires human-like shape through the camera lens of Walton’s eyes. Walton struggles to overcome his own fears, and test his courage through the daunting challenges accross unknown human and geographical territory. Walton’s frame narrative encompasses Victor’s narrative, and Victor’s narrative unweaves his creature’s narrative. Displacement in territory (fictional and real: Polar artic regions, Geneva, Ingolstadt, England), displacement in the account of the tale to be told (letters, concentric circles of plot lines) unhinge the reader from the closeness of the gruesome secrets to be unveiled.

A bang in the universe (commented by Maria E) flaps the wings of tragedy, and the subliminal landscape of the narrative will be shelter and menace for the string of events to unravel. An ominous pathetic fallacy,  storms, blooming nature, blasted trees, and the pristine and serene water of the lake in Geneva will run apace with the emotions of Victor and his creative process (commented and read by Begoña, Salomé, Margarida, María T)

Infused with the terror of the deranged mind (terror, and nightmarish concoctions commented by Cándido), Victor isolates himself to set in motion the machinery of his God-challenging project in the obscure recesses of his laboratory (social isolation commented and read by Mila and Salomé), by assembling the spoils of charnel houses through his unhallowed arts. The creature is delivered through spasmodic galvanization and wakes to the horrors of deformity: the isolated parts of inanimate matter distort the metaphors of elated beauty: the “pearl-like teeth” are deprived of the lustre of pearls in favour of a more stony nature; the careful culling of parts and tissue will not cover the muscles… Horrified by this gruesome creation, Victor shuns the pandora’s box of his own creation. Soothing nature, Clerval’s friendship ( a eulogy of friendship, Marián commented) will appease his spirits, and lead him into transitory forgetfulness of the crime committed (parallelism with the killing of the albatross: see Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner")

Ghostly matter becomes tangible (Margarida commented on ghosts becoming real as part of the Gothic imagery). Fleeting moments of entangled brandings ensue: Frankenstein “creator,” Frankenstein “monster,” Frankisstein (see article on Jeannete Winterson’s book --courtesy of Belén Tizón-- click here) (Marcial jigged), the transference is served as the ghostly doppelgänger looms. The vim of the creative process wanes, and the outcast Adam, compelled to ostracism, tramples the world of initial beauty and benevolence through a series of crimes (commented by Servando). The arcadian loss of childhood innocence ( commented by Marta) materializes in the curtailed hopes of Victor Frankenstein’s creative process and in the crimes committed by the monster

Participants in the comments:

Mila Prol

Salomé Tejo

María Angeles Machado

Margarida Pereira

Marta Ares

Servando Barreiro

María Estevez

Marcial Sobrino

Cándido Pintos

Begoña Rodríguez

María Touza

Special guest: Manuel