Psychoanalytical

Approaches to
Frankenstein
Classical Psychoanalysis
based on Sigmund Freud

circa

El sueo de la razn produce

monstruos (Goya)
Etching by the Spanish painter Goya
(1746-1828): The Sleep of Reason
Produces Monsters
What kind of monsters?
Everything controlled or repressed by reason
The darker/unconscious parts of the psyche
Fantasies and imagination
Emotions
Drives and instincts

Dimensions of the Gothic Monster

Psychological dimension
Emotional dimension
Creative/imaginative dimension
Subversive dimension (revolution,
anarchy, chaos)
Escapist dimension

Freudian Psychoanalysis
Sigmund Freud (18561939)
Founder of classical
psychoanalysis
The Interpretation of
Dreams (1899)
Famous essay The
Uncanny (1919)

Freuds Concept of the Human

Psyche
Iceberg
metaphor: the
human psyche as
an iceberg, whose
top only represents
the conscious part
of the mind, while
the greater
unconscious part is
under water

Where is the
connection between
Psychoanalysis and
literature/gothic
fiction?

Literature as a Key to Psychology

Literature and art as imagined or
fantasized fulfillments of wishes that
are:
Denied by reality or forbidden according to
the social standards of morality and
propriety
Repressed into the unconscious mind
Satisfied in distorted forms through
imagination and fantasies
Disguised from the conscious mind

A Further Note on
Repression
According to Freud, psychological
problems and neuroses are the result of
permanently repressing problematic
wishes and desires into the unconscious,
thus forgetting them.
In this respect, Freud considers it most
important to start with an individuals
early childhood to reveal disturbances
and traumata mainly in the sexual
development.

Connection with Gothic

Literature
Extreme emotional responses:
especially thrill, terror, horror
Shades of darkness (the gloomy
atmosphere of the uncanny): e.g. dark
medieval castles and monasteries,
subterranean passages
Preoccupation with dream-like images,
nightmares, feverish visions etc.

The Uncanny
Basic distinction (writing in German,
Freud plays with the words, pointing
out their ambivalent meanings)
Unheimlich: unfamiliar, unknown,
unhomely
Heimlich: (1) familiar, belonging to the
home, domestic, private or: (2) hidden,
secret

Where can we find

the opposition of
heimlich and
unheimlich in
Frankenstein?

The Monster
as a personification of the uncanny
and of all that is terrible (Freud,
Uncanny 368)
represents the unknown, the
unfamiliar everything opposed to
our conscious understanding of life
and knowledge

Mechanisms of Disguise
1) Condensation: omission and fusion
of unconscious elements into one
single entity
2) Displacement: substitution of an
unconscious object of desire by
something acceptable to the
conscious mind
3) Symbolism: representation of
repressed, mainly sexual objects by
nonsexual ones on the basis of

Freuds Model of the Mind

Id: sexual/libidinal and other desires
(pleasure principle seeking as much
pleasure as possible)
Superego: internalization of social
standards of morality and propriety
(morality principle representing social
norms and standards)
Ego: negotiates between the id and the
superego (reality principle controlling/
mediating/ negotiating)

super
-ego

confli
ct
id

ego

mediat

In what ways do the

conscious and
unconscious id,
superego, and ego
play a role in
Frankenstein?
What are Frankensteins
secret desires?

The Oedipus Complex

Named after Sophocles King
Oedipus, who unknowingly kills his
father and marries his mother
The repressed but continuing
presence in the adults conscious of
the male infants desire to possess
his mother and to get rid of the rival,
the father

Further Information on the Sexual

Development and the Oedipal Phase

Is there any evidence that

Victor Frankenstein
suffers from an Oedipus
complex?
How would you interpret
his relationship to his
mother or Elizabeth?
How would you interpret
his wild dream in chapter

Important Aspects of Psychoanalysis

Infancy as a basis for psychological development
Sexuality as a root of human behaviour
The relationship between parents and children
(Oedipus complex)
The psychologically divided self/the split psyche:
conflicts between id (appetite/emotions), ego
(conscious), and superego (moral standards) (cf.
Doppelgnger motif)
The death-wish as return to the darkness and
security of the mothers womb

Can you find any aspects of

the divided self, the split
psyche, or the Doppelgner
motif in Frankenstein?
How would you interpret
the opposition of life
(creation) and death from a
psychoanylitical
perspective?

Important Aspects of Psychoanalysis

Infancy as a basis for psychological development
Sexuality as a root of human behaviour
The relationship between parents and children
(Oedipus complex)
The psychologically divided self/the split psyche:
conflicts between id (appetite/emotions), ego
(conscious), and superego (moral standards) (cf.
Doppelgnger motif)
The death-wish as return to the darkness and
security of the mothers womb

The Monster
as Victor Frankensteins unlawful but
burning desire for the forbidden and
long-repressed knowledge, which,
when we look closely, is rather of an
incestuous than a scientific kind.

The Creation of the Monster

His striving for the reanimation of lifeless matter should,
therefore first, be read as Victors latent desire to react
against the death of his beloved mother and, this way, to
approach her again (sexually) and, second, as his
externalized unconscious guilt of being in love with his
mother but transferred onto his adopted sister, Elizabeth
the mother imago. In combining these two approaches, the
Monster becomes the incarnation of love and hate, which
both are associated with the good mother. Thus, Victors
turbulent inner world finds reflection in the Monster, who is
part of the external one. No matter how we exactly read the
Monster, it will always reflect Victors lack for the respect of
limits and his consequential suffering from a trauma of which
the young scientist has been his sole author. (Reuber 98)

Oedipus Complex:
Frankenstein and His Mother
His mothers death (an omen [] of my future
misery) signifies the loss of (1) the target for his libido
(2) the source of the strength of his ego (narcissism)
=> his loneliness.
"Frankensteins real affections: his mother in
combination with the scientists own narcissist Self. In
choosing his science over Elizabeth, Victor spurns the
social realm in favor of the bodily mother, whom he
attempts to recover by creating the monster (Collings
281). The Creature which he later defines as his Angel
of Destruction (Shelley 31) has to be read as the
manifest form of Victors illegitimate scientific and
sexual longings.

Frankensteins Dream
I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive
motion agitated its limbs. [] 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 slept, indeed, but I was disturbed by the
wildest dreams. I thought I saw Elizabeth, in the bloom of health, walking in the
streets of Ingolstadt. Delighted and surprised, I embraced her; but as I imprinted
the first kiss on her lips, they became livid with the hue of death; her features
appeared to change, and I thought that I held the corpse of my dead mother in
my arms; a shroud enveloped her form, and I saw the grave-worms crawling in
the folds of the flannel. I started from my sleep with horror; a cold dew covered
my forehead, my teeth chattered, and every limb became convulsed: when [] I
beheld the wretch -- the miserable monster whom I had created. He held up the
curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they may be called, were fixed on me.
[] Oh! No mortal could support the horror of that countenance. A mummy
again endued with animation could not be so hideous as that wretch. (Chapter 5)

 Multilayered incest-dream standing for Frankensteins Oedipal complex,

the unprocessed trauma of the (sexually) lost mother;
This dream-condensation actually creates a composite person out of
sister and mother who, upon awakening, takes the distorted and
regressed form of the Monster, symbolizing the loathsomeness of
Victors latent incestuous longings.
The linguistic pun of mummy (mommy) supports our Oedipal reading
of this wishful dream and shows that for Victor, feminine sexuality can
never be separated from the mother he has lost (Collings 282). As he
projected his Self onto his mother, he now transfers his libidinous
energy onto Elizabeth who is Victors surrogate for freeing his uncanny
desires.
Crawling grave-worms => phallic symbol,
convulsive motions / the convulsion of his limbs => sexual allusion
The Monsters watery eyes => Frankensteins nightly erection and
ejaculation.