Storytelling: Fictional Narratives, Imaginary People, and the Reader's Real Life

A Parent's License

"How can anyone reject their own flesh and blood?" is the ultimate question many of my students ask as they become more comfortable with viewing Victor and the Creature not as "creator" and "created", but more personally as "parent" and "child". We begin to answer this question with less of the "how" and more of the "why" parents would reject their children. In a perfect world, of course parents would earn an "A+" on a parent report card. Parents would always know what to say and what to do in every possible situation when it comes to their child. As students' frustration with Victor's neglect begins to build, some of my students express the need for people to apply for having a child, much as individuals apply for a driver's license. My students' rationale for this application is that people should meet the basic requirements in order to have children, nurture their children, and love their children as opposed to being the careless, irresponsible Victor who leaves an innocent to fend for itself. As some of my students may point out, even interested pet owners must fill out forms, participate in orientations, and prove to the animal shelter that they can care for and maintain a pet in a loving, safe home. Why is there less screening when it comes to parents? This question might also be especially topical when students consider teen pregnancies and teen parents.

While my students have almost daily moments of immaturity, which sometimes drives my patience to a breaking point, I am always amazed and proud of the kind of insight they have when it comes to relevant concepts that they are honest enough to discuss. A prime example is our discussion about the responsibilities of a parent to a child and of a child to a parent. After listing the expected duties of parent to child (shelter, safety, food, guidance, and most importantly love) we shift to how this list compares to Victor's desire to create life. It doesn't take too long for my students to see that Victor should have never gotten his "parent's license" given his motivation for becoming a creator. After all, Victor "expects that "a new species would bless me as its creator and source...no father would claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs." ¹⁹ Victor is not shy about stating his need to be praised, adored, placed on a pedestal of acclaim, all the while forgetting to acknowledge his duty to this new, delicate, vulnerable being. This parent's license to have a child echoes Mary Shelley's own views that "a right always includes a duty, and I think it may likewise fairly be inferred that they forfeit the right who do not fulfill the duty." ²⁰

From this idea of parental duty, my students will move into the discussion of expectation versus reality when it comes to children. Victor, in a sense, customizes his child in that he chooses every body part, every physical characteristic, and every physical detail of the creature. He is able to purposefully and knowingly make his child, and has literal control over this process. Students will usually be dumfounded by the confusion of Victor's revulsion at his creation. He did know exactly what his creature would look like throughout the entire process, so why is he horrified at something he's looked at every day for a year? At this point, I have them keep track of the verbal exchanges between Victor and the Creature, noting especially the various labels Victor assigns the Creature: "demoniacal corpse", "mummy", "hideous", "wretch", "a thing such as even Dante could not have conceived." Pointing back to the impact on the psyche of the child, we discuss the impact these words would have (and do have) on a child, especially coming from the parent.

While it is important for students to follow Victor's irresponsible and cruel treatment of the Creature, I find it even more important for students to find examples of Victor's possible compassion for the Creature. It is through these few instances that students need to realize that it is very possible for Victor to take ownership of his actions. He has the ability, the will, and the capacity to reverse his decisions. In a fleeting moment Victor does emit a tinge of compassion to his child as he recalls looking at the Creature's face and stating, "his countenance bespoke bitter anguish but its unearthly ugliness rendered it almost too horrible for human eyes." ²¹ Another brief moment of responsibility comes when he encounters the Creature and hears the details of his existence. Victor realizes, "I ought to [have rendered] him happy before I complained of his wickedness" and also notes, "his tale and the feelings he now expressed proved him to be a creature of fine sensations; and did I not as his maker, owe him, all the position of happiness that it was in my power to bestow him?" ²² "Yes" would be the resounding answer, but unfortunately for the Creature, Victor never fully allows himself to develop this responsibility.