It’s gone midnight and I’m reading Frankenstein and blubbing. I’m at the bit when the creature, brought to life by Frankenstein, weeps after being rejected by people he had come to love. They are horrified and disgusted by him. It made me think about loneliness; the ‘monster’ shows a desperation for love, a profoundly human need, and is inhumanely reviled. Though we are pack animals, particularly in the Western world we have allowed materialism to take over and engender a culture of individualism and by extension solitude; and this the same loneliness Shelley was talking about. In the media at the moment isolation is being treated like a new and mysterious disease of “modern life” (Rebecca Harris for The Independent), as it is referred to as the ‘loneliness epidemic’, and claimed to be a millennial problem linked to social media. This stance, while it seems to be partially true, dismisses the aforementioned long bred Western culture of loneliness. It isn’t just millennials and iPhones; as Frankenstein proves we’ve been lonely since at least 1818.
Shelley’s characters are fundamentally lonely. Firstly, the mariner Robert Walton - at sea, isolated from his loved ones - remains outside of, and by extension, distanced from, the unfolding narrative. Victor pursues his scientific goals in frenzied solitude, while the creature itself craves a companion. Finally Victor is left alone, his friends and family murdered by his own creation. These examples, only a few of the many narrative threads centred on loneliness, highlight it as a recurrent human predicament, a part of the weight of existence. Shelley lays bare the physical and figurative loneliness that haunts us, blaming “the egoism of male scientific thought”(Josie Billington), and subsequently the individualistic society in which we live.
The ‘loneliness epidemic’, caused by this societal focus, was even commented on by former PM Theresa May as a “sad reality of modern life” when she appointed the first ‘minister for loneliness’. What she mistakenly implies here is that loneliness hasn’t always been an aspect of the human condition - Shelley presented us with this same issue of loneliness at the beginning of the 19th Century, so it can’t have too much to do with Snapchat. The digital age has made us no more lonely than the age of industrialisation which was the perfect backdrop to Frankenstein. Both eras glorify technological change and economic growth, without anticipating the dislocation of people from one another. With this in mind, in order to really conquer this endemic loneliness - even Adam, God’s perfect creation felt like he was on his ones - we must value relationships over individualistic material goals. Victor Frankenstein failed to do so, as he desired domination over “the wisest men” by discovering the secret to creation, and for “a new species [to] bless [him] as its creator and source”. Shelley intimates that the story is a cautionary tale of the dangers of individualism, through the disastrous outcome of Victor’s pursuits; our society hasn’t changed, so as time passes Frankenstein continues to be read allegorically, the monster becoming a metaphor for everything we create and lose control of. As Clayton comments, “virtually every catastrophe of the last two centuries...has been symbolized [sic] by Shelley’s monster”. This brings to mind Brexit and the climate breakdown to name a few. However, to compare these issues themselves to Shelley’s monster is to insult her crafting of its character. If the story is to be read allegorically, the monster represents not the consequences of human failing (such as the climate breakdown) but the catalyst for it (the catalyst for climate change being individualism and avarice) . The creature is human suffering personified - for what other reason has any “catastrophe of the last two centuries” occurred? This is made obvious as he is referred to as everything from “monster” or “fiend” to the more generous, “being”; he is far too emotionally and morally complex to symbolise any monstrous result, or “catastrophe” itself, but rather symbolises the human root or motivation for hideous consequences. There is a sense of human beauty in him that cannot be compared to something as inorganic and hideous as any havoc wreaked by humanity, but can be compared only to humanity itself.
If we are to analyse Frankenstein’s monster with the so-called ‘loneliness epidemic’ in mind, then we are left with the notion that it is individualism that Frankenstein’s monster represents, while isolation is a disastrous result. Individualism, while it has the capacity to corrupt, is in itself no bad thing, being only another way for us to give meaning to otherwise seemingly trivial human existence, this time focusing on independence. Within this allegorical reading, we are the creators of individualism; we are Victor, allowing this impartial creature, individualism, to grow into something detrimental as we lose control of it and it envelops our whole culture, thus creating this ‘loneliness epidemic’. Essentially, literature has once again set off a wake-up call that we continue to ignore: society needs more emphasis on relationships and wider success, and less focus on the individual, before it is too late. Otherwise we’ve got a “devil” of a problem on our hands.
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