"Man is the symbol-using (symbol-making,
symbol-misusing) animal, inventor of the negative (or moralized by the
negative), separated from his natural condition by instruments of his own
making, goaded by the spirit of hierarchy (or moved by the sense of order), and
rotten with perfection" [Burke p. 491] Kenneth Burke has defined what it
means to be human in his essay Definition
of Man. This definition, to me at least, uses somewhat confusing language
but was explained in more simple terms in the Wikipedia article on this
subject. “Burke's definition maintains that man is distinct from other
creatures by the virtue of his use of symbols to communicate, his understanding
of negation, his separation from nature by his own techniques, his existence in
differing social structures, and his goal to become better than he presently
is.”[Wikipedia] These five ideas, along with a biological definition of a
human, form a basis by which we can judge if Victor Frankenstein’s monster is
indeed a human.
Clearly, the monster uses language to communicate with Victor
and others that it encounters. When he is living in the hovel by the De Lacey’s
cottage, he hears Felix “utter sounds that were monotonous” [Shelley p.119] which
he later found out was Felix reading aloud. Over many months of observing the
family, he makes a discovery that “these people possessed a method of
communicating their experience and feelings to one another by articulate
sounds.” [Shelley p.121] It is difficult for him to pick up the language at
first with limited access to viewing what they are talking about but soon
learns words such as fire, milk, bread, and wood. He spent more months just
trying to learn how to communicate using their language and as we see when he
confronts Victor on the glacier, it is assumed he has mastered all aspects of
language including reading, speaking, and writing. The important thing to
consider about man being a symbol-using animal is that these symbols define our
reality. “Take away out books, and what little do we know about history,
biography, even something so “down to earth” as the relative position of seas
and continents?” [Burke p. 493] This is important to Frankenstein because I
think that his knowledge of language allowed him to learn more about the world
beyond his immediate surroundings. For example, the monster was able to learn
about South America and its lack of human colonization. He is able to use this
knowledge to, at first, persuade Victor to make him a mate to live with. By
looking at this clause alone of Burke’s definition, the monster could easily be
considered a human.
Understanding negation is an important aspect of being a
human. It is also a derivative of a human’s ability to use symbols (language).
[Burke p. 498] Burke also says that negation does not exist in nature. He uses
the analogy of a table – A table is just that, but we could go on forever
describing what a table is not. [Burke p. 498] I think this is relevant to the
monster because in his learning of language, he is soon able to correlate words
with things. This allows him to say what each thing is and is not. The most
important aspect of the negative as it applies to the monster is that morality
is based off of negative thinking. Burke quotes from Emerson’s Nature which says, “all things shall
hint or thunder to man the laws of right and wrong, and echo the Ten
Commandments.” The Ten Commandments are all generally worded in the same
way: “Thou shall not.” To use an example
applicable to Frankenstein, the sixth
commandment is you shall not kill. Rather than state all the things that a
person can or should do, it lists killing as something which should absolutely
not be done, and other activities are good to do (so long as they don’t
interfere with other commandments). The monster does understand this idea of
negation. A child may disobey their parents and not always follow the “thou
shall not” rule but they still understand the idea of it. [Burke p. 500] In the
same way, the monster commits great atrocities by murdering several of Victor’s
friends and family, however he is able to feel the emotions of regret and
remorse for committing these acts.
“Even the most primitive of tribes are led by inventions to
depart somewhat from the needs of food, shelter, sex as defined by the survival
standards of sheer animality,” [Burke p. 503] and the monster is no exception
to this. When he first leaves after being created he discovers a fire left by
some beggars and uses it to keep warm. He is able to deduce that dry wood was
needed to maintain the fire, and he uses it to cook food. Although it never
mentions that he learns how to create a fire, we can assume that the monster
would have this knowledge after he gains the ability to read and understand
books. Additionally, he lives in a hut for a while which was constructed of
wood, and he uses stones and wood to cover ways which he might be seen as well
as carpets the ground with clean straw. Even
though he did not construct this hut himself, I think it justifies his use of
technology. The important thing to remember when talking about the monster’s
use of technology, however, is that he is prepared to shun all of it to go live
in South America with (hopefully) his mate. He would disconnect completely with
all civilization and technology to go forage for food and not interact with
anyone in the jungle. Although you can argue that language is a form of
technology [Burke p. 505] what would this imply about the mate that Victor
would build for the monster? It would be shown how to do everything only from
the knowledge that the monster currently has. It would now be like the monster
that Victor made is the caretaker of this new monster. Considering his promise
to move to the jungles of South America, I would consider this to be no
different than some sort of mother animal raising their young, and that
certainly can be used as an argument that the monster is not human.
We see that the monster recognizes that there are different
social stratifications. When living in the hut behind the De Lacey’s, he
notices that they are unhappy, and he learns that one of the main causes for
this is their poverty. He understands this social status makes it difficult for
them to provide for themselves as well as their father and so he no longer
takes food from them when they are gone. The monster can also be seen in a
social class of his own or possibly considered outside of the social classes of
humans altogether. Because of his grotesque features, humans will not even talk
to him and immediately assume he has malicious intentions. Despite his attempts
to speak and reason with the De Laceys and William, he is unable to change his
labeling as a monster in the eyes of the humans he interacts with and even his
creator. Another point arguing that the monster is outside of a social class is
that he chooses not to act human. The way he was created was almost super-human
and it can be seen that he has incredible strength, speed, and intelligence. A
quote from a paper discussing the humanness of bionic augmentation struck me as
relevant to the monster’s situation. “In spite of advances in biomechanics that
in many cases far exceed the capabilities of their human prototypes, these
devices are, by design, functionally attenuated in a deliberate attempt to
retain…their humanness.” [Morales p. 4] The details of the creation of the
monster are somewhat ambiguous but one might assume that because the monster
was of such great size, more than just parts of scavenged humans were used in
its creation. The monster could be considered a re-built human like The Six Million Dollar Man Steve Austin
[Morales p. 2] or Adam Jensen from the video game Deus Ex: Human Revolution.
They both had terrible life-threatening injuries and when they were saved,
bionic implants were used to enhance their abilities. I have not seen any of The Six Million Dollar Man, however
using Adam Jensen as an example, I think a big difference can be seen with the
monster. Jensen says throughout the game, to a point of being repetitive, “I
never asked for this.” The game is based around making choices of how to
accomplish your missions, with the ethical, non-violent, and human choices
centered on using timing and distractions to sneak past obstacles. Another ways
of playing the game focuses on enhancing your “augmentations” in order to just
blast away everything in your path. I believe that in this game, you can choose
whether to act like a human and choose not to use your augmentations as an
advantage or you can let them take over and thus let them dictate how you act
in certain situations. The monster’s humanness, or lack thereof, can stem from
the fact that his bionic features are super-human and he chooses to use them as
such.
Finally, we can look at the monsters goals of improving
himself. At first, it seems as though the monster would fit this description.
He lives behind the De Laceys and dedicates his days to learning their language
and learning how to communicate with others. He seeks moral improvement by
helping the De Laceys because they are poor rather than taking their food for
his own well-being. Finally, he makes a plan to try to ease himself into
society by slowly convincing individuals that he is a well-intentioned
creature. I think, however, that he ultimately fails at striving for
self-improvement. At first he basically “gives up” on improving himself by
saying he will move to South Africa. He turns away from technology, and thus
any hope of learning new things. When Victor stops the creation of a mate for
the monster is really when the self-improvement completely stops and even
regresses. The monster becomes wholly focused on getting revenge on Victor and
completely loses all interest in trying to connect with other humans. It
resorts to extreme acts of violence, and although the monster says it is
tormented by having to do this, he still continues because it is something that
it must do for revenge on its creator.
A human is not just one of these things but fits into all of
these definitions at once. By this definition of what is human, I would say
that Victor Frankenstein’s monster is not a human. Although he has many human
qualities, the monster lacks several qualities as well. The monster abandons
technology, avoids the social structure of humans, and has no goals of
self-improvement. Though the monster was made in the human image, it failed to
actually be a human.
Shelley,
Mary. Frankenstein. Mineola, New
York: Dover Publications, Inc. 1934.
Burke,
Kenneth. “Definition of Man.” The Hudson
Review Vol. 16, No. 4 (1963): 491-514. Web. 2 Feb. 2013.
Morales,
J. “Humanity in the Bathwater: Restoration vs. Augmentation in Bionic Design.” Virtualmo. 18 May, 2010. Web. 2 Feb,
2013.
“Definition
of Man.” Wikipedia. 30 Jan, 2013.
Web. 2 Feb, 2013.
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