The monster studies for his Generals?
The weirdest thing in Frankenstein? In chapter 3 of volume II the monster takes refuge in a hovel – like a ‘kennel’ – at the back of a neat little cottage. In the cottage live the nice old man and his children, Felix and Agatha, and Safie – the Arabian girl Felix loves, who is receiving language instruction from Felix. The monster learns language by listening in.
Now, this is the stuff of comedy. A gentle hulking monster is living behind your tiny cottage, in a kennel that for some reason none of you ever go into, and is observing everything you do, listening in while you read Volney’s Ruins of Empire (of all things!), and thereby acquiring human speech – and no one notices. Shelley doesn’t play this for laughs, but there is just no way to picture a monster under the bench, while the lovebirds are reading Volney, that isn’t funny. The monster’s reading list is great:
One night, during my accustomed visit to the neighbouring wood, where I collected my own food, and brought home firing for my protectors, I found on the ground a leathern portmanteau, containing several articles of dress and some books. I eagerly seized the prize, and returned with it to my hovel. Fortunately the books were written in the language the elements of which I had acquired at the cottage; they consisted of Paradise Lost, a volume of Plutarch’s Lives, and the Sorrows of Werter. The possession of these treasures gave me extreme delight; I now continually studied and exercised my mind upon these histories, whilst my friends were employed in their ordinary occupations.
To repeat, you live in a tiny cottage, behind which there’s a kennel containing a giant monster you don’t know about. And the monster sits in that kennel all day reading … Plutarch?
Well, that’s gothic literature for you. It’s unintentionally hilarious. I’m not the first one to notice. But I think it’s interesting the way in which Shelley hereby invents a horror-comedy sub-genre. The monster-in-plain-sight-people-don’t-notice-even-though-he-sings-show-tunes. Or something similarly culturally specific. And then they notice him, and run in terror.
My daughters both love A Monster In Paris [amazon], which didn’t do well in general release, and only just got released on disc. But it’s got a lot of good stuff in it. There’s a scientific accident and this flea gets turned into a giant monster – with an angelic singing voice (Sean Lennon). Here’s the monster’s lonely, confused lament, in the alley behind the theater. And here’s his catchy onstage performance, in his zoot suit Phantom of the Opera disguise. (His dancing is particularly well animated, even if his guitar fretting is a bit approximate). The film would be better if it were all Frankenstein melancholy-but-absurd, like these two numbers. It goes off in other directions that are kinda so-so. An uncultured jerk (like Gaston, from Beauty and the Beast) wants to kill the flea, and our heroes – a couple of misfits themselves – have to save him.
[amazon], which didn’t do well in general release, and only just got released on disc. But it’s got a lot of good stuff in it. There’s a scientific accident and this flea gets turned into a giant monster – with an angelic singing voice (Sean Lennon). Here’s the monster’s If you think about it, the Monster with the humorously specific cultural-artistic fixation or enthusiasm is kind of a standard trope. Mostly in animated comedies. And Shelley got there first.
Select comments
05.20.13 at 7:09 pm
I wonder if the humor (e.g. in the alligator cartoon) is due to a switch between different models for the monster:
- The monster as animal
- The monster as discriminated-against ethnic minority
- The monster as psychopath (not in the alligator cartoon, but see later)
The cultural accomplishment precludes the monster being an animal, and so puts us into the monster as ethnic minority (e.g. the jazz playing alligator as allegory for an African-American jazz musician who is excluded from working as a classical musician due to racial discrimination) … until the story pulls the rug out from under our suspension of disbelief by reminding us that he’s an alligator.
In a different version of this trope – the monster as psychopath – the monster’s cultural accomplishment does not serve as evidence against his monstrousness, but rather confirms it. For example, in The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal Lecter reveals his monstrousness by continuing to treat as an cultured/aesthetic experience things most people would consider horrifying: “I ate his liver with aduki beans and a nice Chianti” (which is a funny line, in a way).
05.20.13 at 9:10 pm
“I ate his liver with aduki beans and a nice Chianti” (which is a funny line, in a way).
It’s fava beans, aka broad beans, which sounds much less fancy and cultured. Mind you, the reference to Chianti as a by-word for sophistication has aged a bit too.
05.21.13 at 6:32 am
@ Katherine #16: yes, but the reference to fava beans evokes the Pythagorean doctrine that one should not eat them because of the possibility that a human soul might have transmigrated therein, i.e. this is (potentially) double cannibalism. Honestly; I can provide bibliographical references if required. Whether this is deliberate on the part of the author I have no idea.
05.21.13 at 8:55 am
In the novel, Hannibal ate his liver with some fava beans and a big Amarone, not a nice Chianti. Sophistication intact.
