An Unreliable Narrator

Before reading Frankenstein, I had my own idea of what I thought it would be. I was used to the movie version that I had only seen once when I was a kid. I thought it would be short and more comedic—there would Frankenstein’s sidekick Igor and at one point he would yell the line “It’s alive!” Thankfully what I expected was incorrect. Instead, I found Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to be a dark mystery that I kept wanting to read. I wanted to see what would happen next.

When reading Frankenstein, I found the character of Victor Frankenstein to be an unreliable narrator. Although at first he seems to be reliable in that he was raised in a well-to-do family, he was smart, going into college and would soon be well-educated. This idea of him being sane though soon seemed to drift when he goes to school. He starts to work with dead bodies and he explains his learning of death. He says, “I must also observe the natural decay and corruption of the human bod…Darkness has no effect upon my fancy; and a church-yard was to me merely the receptacle of bodies deprived of life…” (33-34.) His study starts this fascination with death and by being surrounded by dead bodies and his new revelation on creating life from dead bodies he seems to start going crazy. He becomes an unreliable narrator. He even says at one point, “Remember, I am not recording the vision of a madman” (34.) His explaining to the audience that he is not a madman for me made me question his sanity. When Frankenstein’s brother died and he believed without a doubt that it was his monster, I questioned him. I believed him to be an unreliable narrator. He was tired all the time, he was always down working. His friend comes and visits him and is worried about his health. So when Frankenstein believed that his brother was murdered by the monster—I didn’t believe it. I didn’t believe it because I saw him as an unreliable narrator.

For me, Frankenstein reminded me of the book One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, in where the characters are in an insane asylum. They are not reliable narrators, but some of the things they are saying make sense and you can see their point of view on situations…but at the same time you have to remind yourself that they are mentally insane. It’s a constant battle with trying to decide whether or not you believe the situations that are going on, you take it very lightly. That is how I felt about Frankenstein’s point of view during the story. I never knew for sure whether or not something was completely true or not.

After talking in class the other day, the theme of education stood out to me. Education was a huge aspect of the book—I believe it also was the turning point in Frankenstein and his sanity. This adds irony to the plot of the book because where Frankenstein goes insane…is when he starts his education. Normally you would think education brings someone to their senses and makes them smarter…this is not the case for Frankenstein. I’m excited to hear more about Frankenstein in class today.

-Rachel