CR Post #2 Frankenstein
Frankenstein Chapter 5:
“How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.”
I find it noteworthy that the “monster,” at first, is not so monstrous at all. Of course Frankenstein couldn’t predict the atrocities the monster would soon commit. However, there is a high level of affection in Frankenstein’s description of his creation. It is as if, although the monster is considerably other, Frankenstein cannot help but acknowledge the beauty and precision of the monster. He uses very romantic diction describing his hair as, “lustrous,” his white teeth, and “straight” lips. This contrasts the fact that the monster has yellow eyes and a, “shriveled,” complexion. However, the monster clearly needed some features that could be perceived as scary for the plot later.
I agree there is something very interesting about the fact that Frankenstein had at least thought of the creature as beautiful as he was creating him. I think there is something very important going on in the text between beauty and ugliness and monstrosity and kindred soul (biological kin, romantic partners,, and friends). I see you doing a little bit of an archaeological dig here.
I wish you could have said more about the horrified sarcasm of “Beautiful! Great God!” I think you are totally correct in saying Frankenstein had some affection for the creature he imagined as he was creating it (I think some of the earlier passages also reveal that affinity), but a key part of this passage seems to be that Frankenstein is mocking that notion. That he could find or imagine anything beautiful in the creature seems completely hopeless once he he sees the creature animated.
So the mention of “lustrous” and “straight white teeth” all seem to be ironically horrifying now, right?