Limited Self Realisation

As much as Walton mourns what has happened to Frankenstein, he is still willing to repeat the pattern that resulted in so much death and destruction. He is willing to turn back albeit very reluctantly and forced to do so by his mutinous crew. Victor is on the verge of regret when he warns Walton but his consciousness is quickly snatched back when he encourages Robert and his crew to live as he did. It wasn’t the wrongness of the task, the inability to accept human limitation. No, Frankenstein believed, it was a lack of willfulness in himself. He says maybe someone else will be able to achieve what he couldn’t. The shame from past Promethean endeavours propels us into a new cycle of inflation-deflation. Still believing it is just a matter of will or more effort, we pick up and try again. “This time it will work, I know it!” We try again, with the same spirit, the same character but a slightly different set of circumstances. We practice serial monogamy with our projects, forever trying to “steal” fire. We honestly feel we can light up our world by our will and know how.

Watershed for anyone is a place of decision making rooted in consciousness. Doesn’t that suggest that it is a place were we have learned from our past? But it is so easy to be tricked into repeating the pattern. Do we have to succeed? Do we have to stand out, be different and exceptional or is it ok to be the limited people we are, standing together and content to learn from our differences and the inadequacies of our lives? Do you love monsters, be they projects that aren’t up to our expections, children and parents who are not perfect, friends with irritating foibles, and leaders who tilt us toward Prometheus. These are the questions that will allow us to check whether we are still infected with the fire-stealing disease.

Relational Narcissism

We have seen how there is no holding back for men with a dream. The novel also reveals how Creature and Creator unbridle each other in the literal sense of killing each other's mates. Nothing can come between them in their relationship, least of all a woman. This could lead to the idea that the "sameness: shared between the Prometheans, like Walton - Victor, Victor - Clerval, Monster - Victor is homosexual. They are attracted to other men but not relationally. Prometheans merely use others as a means of loving themselves and becoming entirely self sufficient. They do not love another but love themselves through another. Herein lies the root of many men's relational problems. The way that they love is often selfish.

If anyone, especially women, try to reality check our dreams they are considered the Enemy. In reality, they are merely an enemy of our isolationism and inflation. Other men are a threat because we have turned them into competitors. We hate having a so-called friend stand over us and correct our mistakes, making what we find so hard, look easy. On the other hand, we love to play the peacock with the skills we have. We consider the less skilled, less than ourselves. Walton and Frankenstein are both elitist and prefer only the company of Prometheans of the same refinement.

It is difficult to find a friend in the midst of elitism. Only those exactly like us, (or the way we would like to see ourselves) or fondly wanting to be like us, are worthy of our company. We barely see the weakness in ourselves and yet are finely attuned to the inadequacy of others. Imagine being married to, or even to be the sister of, a Promethean male, to be taken in by the dreamscape of idealistic fantasies. To be considered a possession or reflection of them. In short to be used. To watch as their high-minded projects end in ruin. To be beguiled by sympathy of such a noble creature who is doomed to a cycle of inflation and deflation. And yet, to love so selfish a creature. Would a Margaret, or a Mary be able to contain a man’s desire for stolen fire?

Mary Shelley didn’t provide healing for her modern Prometheus, even though she alluded to a perspective which would ameliorate the effects of “fire intoxication.” Her subtle message is that an appreciation of the moral guidance of the feminine, is a significant part of the answer. The qualities of earth relatedness versus heavenly preoccupations, the acceptance of death and limitations versus immortality through a project, and the ability to look past outward appearances are necessary for sympathy and community. Most of all, the solution is rooted in the willingness to love each other in the context of community or family. She warned us that this was the purpose of her book, back in the preface, exhibition of amiableness of domestic affection, and the excellence of universal virtue.

Erotic Love is Selfish

If love is the cure, what kind of love is it? Surely, Prometheans have love and passion - apparently to destructive excess. What Prometheans need is to allow themselves to be loved and guided by a complementary Other. I didn’t say “Mother” I said “Other”. That would imply that there is a sense of separation and equality in the relationship. Fusion will not cure; in fact, it is part of the problem….

There are two basic kinds of love that we bring into marriage and relationships: Eros and Agape. Erotic love is the passion for possession of another or abandonment of the self to another. In Erotic love inequality is assumed; one or the other partner collapses into the psyche of the other…

If you are contained by another, you are expressing the abandoning aspects Erotic love. If you desire control over another you are expressing the possessing aspect of Erotic love. It is interesting that Erotic love is usually expressed in dialectic way, where one time you are wanting to possess; and another time, you are wanting to be possessed. The first stance leads to a wilfulness and violent aggression whereas the second expression of Erotic love tends toward passivity and weakness. Erotic love in both its extremes is an expression of Prometheanism.

Imagine the Possibilities

Remember, however, that this sort of love can be applied to either our tasks or another person in our life but in the end is purely self centered. This is the love Mary saw modelled by Percy Shelley. It is the kind of love where very virile men declare how they possess their women and their projects when things are going well, and yet, when abandoned they become whimpering children in need of a mother.

Mary Shelley advocated another model of love . . . “agapic” . . . the love between two equal but complementary partners, dedicated to working out their psychological growth through an appreciation of difference. This is the model that she hoped for, never experienced, and eventually, saw as not possible as long as we are Promethean in attitude. Her final statement on a lifetime battle with Prometheus is her 1826 novel, The Last Man which reveals that she is pessimistic about the possibility of Agape challenging Eros as a form of love that will sustain our families and the human family at large.

Imagine the possibilities, if agapic love dominated in Frankenstein: or The Modern Prometheus, or in our relationships for that matter. What if the Creator and the Creature had a separate existence of mutual respect, if we treated our children as equals who were Other than us, if women and men supported, corrected, and most of all, respected one another. Would our projects really lose their quality or become better? Would we become domestic drones or valued parts of a community? All we need to give up is our wilfulness and our weaknesses, our obsession with self sufficiency, and the belief that we have been cheated by our Creator. Perhaps then we could come to terms with our monsters, with our failures, and our limits. The one word completely missing in Frankenstein, and unfortunately also in our lives as well, is the word - forgiveness. Forgiveness is only a reality when there is the acknowledgement of having wronged another. Our task, therefore, is to differentiate from each other, so that we can truly love each other. The nasty part of agapic love is the horrible decree that we must love and take responsibility for our monsters. We must learn to love our children and our projects.