The Humanness of a Wretch
When it comes to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, an interesting aspect of the story that has stood out among readers has been the monster’s creation, or rather, the steps Victor Frankenstein took to bring his creation to life. In addition to collecting body parts as a means of pasting his creation together, Victor incorporated electricity into the creation process of the monster, with electricity being the main component that gave Frankenstein’s monster life. While seemingly fictional on the outside, the letter “On the Nervous System Which Connects the Voluntary Muscles with the Brain” by Charles Bell, which can be found in Philisopical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, discusses how stimulation can manipulate nerves and muscles into motion, thus allowing readers to see that the birth of Frankenstein’s monster was more human than they once thought.
In his letter to the Royal Society, Bell discusses the research he has conducted on the human nervous system, as well as the findings that came from his experiments. When it comes to Frankenstein, it is these findings that hold significance as they show how stimuli, which in the monster’s case is electricity, can manipulate the human body. When describing his research in his letter, Bell states that he wanted to “…enquire, if it be necessary to the governance of the muscular frame, that there be a consciousness of the state or degree of action of the muscles ” (Bell 167). This “consciousness” that is described by Bell is later expanded upon in the quote “Expose the two nerves of a muscle; irritate one of them, and the muscle will act; irritate the other, and the muscle remains at rest…Both nerves being cut across, we shall still find that by exciting one nerve the muscle is made to act, even days after the nerve has been divided” (Bell 168). Thus, from expanding and researching more on the relationship between muscles, nerves, and stimulation, Bell discovered that nerves, when stimulated, can cause the movement of muscles, even when the connection, or “consciousness,” of the nerves to the rest of the body is cut off. When Bell’s findings are applied to Frankenstein’s monster, it can be seen that through the monster’s body being stimulated by electricity, it produced movement, or life, in the monster. By showing that this reaction between stimuli and nerves is present in humans, Bell’s research ties directly into the idea that Frankenstein’s monster is inherently more human than he seems, as the same stimulation that can produce movement is effective on him and humans alike.
When directly applied to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the stimulation of the body that Bell discusses can be found as Victor is creating his monster. During his preparations to create the monster, Victor stated, “I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet” (Shelley 37). The “spark” that Victor discusses in this claim is most likely electricity, as Victor had always had a fascination with electricity ever since he saw lightning destroy a tree, as seen in the quote, “The catastrophe of the tree excited my extreme astonishment; and I eagerly inquired to my father the nature and origin of thunder and lighting. He replied, ‘Electricity…’” (Shelly 26). From these details, it can be inferred that the stimulation that Victor uses to create the monster is electricity, as a “spark” was used to give the monster life. Thus, Bell’s research on stimuli and the nerves gives further support to the idea that the creature is in some ways human, as just like the evidence concluded from Bell’s research, the monster’s and humans’ nerves both can be stimulated in some way to produce movement, or in the monster’s case, life.
In conclusion, many readers consider Frankenstein’s monster to be just that: a monster. However, through Charles Bell’s research into how stimulation affects nerves and their relationship with muscles, he shows that the stimulation of humans’ nerves can induce movement in their muscles. When this theory is applied to Frankenstein’s creation, it shows that the creature may not be the monster we have considered him to be, as he, too, received stimuli that in turn caused him to come to life, thus showing that there’s possibly some humanness present in the wretch.
Works Cited
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein: The 1818 Text, Contexts, Criticism, Third Edition. Edited by J. Paul Hunter, W. W. Norton & Company, 2022, pp. 7-168.