Earlier in the semester, we focused quite a bit on the character of Victor Frankenstein, the titular character in Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein. We discussed how Victor could represent a character with depression, schizophrenia, or a number of other possible invisible disabilities. We touched on his ‘creation’ from time to time as well, in associate with Rosemary Garland Thompson’s Introduction: From Wonder to Error—A Genealogy of Discourse in Modernity” from Freakery: Cultural Spectacles of the Extraordinary Body, among other theories. But I think that we should circle back and revisit Dr. Frankenstein and his creation now that we have learned more about autism. By analyzing the passage in which Victor Frankenstein experiences the ‘birth’ of his ‘creation’ it is impossible to ignore the way in which his experience coincides with the depiction of the experience of an ableist parent, such as Jenny McCarthy, discovering their child’s autism diagnosis, outlined in Julia Miele Rodas, “Introduction” rather succinctly, which shows us just how far we have left to go in deconstructing the rampant ableism in our own society.
Shelley begins Dr. Frankenstein’s experience, at the moment the creature opens his eyes, “How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful!” (Shelley 37). It is clear that up until this moment, throughout the two years he had been working on his ‘creation’, he never once thought of him as anything less than his own beautiful summation of his blood sweat and tears. His ‘creation’ was exactly as he was intended to be, with, “limbs […] in proportion” and “beautiful” features (37). This mirrors what a parent typically sees in their child(ren): the most beautiful thing(s) they have ever created. We see similarities in Jenny McCarthy’s depiction of her son in the doctor’s office just before his diagnosis, as written in her book Louder Than Words, “Evan ‘had taken those ear cones the doctors use to look inside your ears and had made the most perfect row lined up across the room’”. McCarthy goes on to detail that she found this behavior ‘”cute”’ (Rodas 15). McCarthy’s choice of the words “perfect” and “cute” illustrate that prior to her son’s diagnosis, she, like Dr. Frankenstein and his ‘creation’, saw no problem with her child. The similarities do not stop here.
Within the first line of this passage, the reader is aware of Dr. Frankenstein’s flurry of emotions upon witnessing the birth of his ‘creation’. His use of the words “catastrophe” and “wretch” illustrate the change in the doctor’s perception of his ‘creation’ from “beautiful” to seemingly grotesque. Frankenstein continues, “The different accidents of life are not so changeable as the feelings of human nature. I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing lie into an inanimate body. For this I had deprived myself of rest and health. I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart.” (Shelley 37). In this passage Dr. Frankenstein acknowledges his change in feelings toward his ‘creation’. He, not unlike a parent, has put his all into his ‘creation’ for years until this point. But, the moment his ‘creation’ opens his eyes he no longer recognizes him as the “beautiful” being he was moments before.
This, again, mirrors Jenny McCarthy’s own ableist reaction to the diagnosis of her son, “’Everything I had thought was cute was a sign of autism’” (Rodas 15). As we’ve just read, moments earlier McCarthy had seen her son’s behavior as “cute”, and she has now dehumanized them into strictly symptomatic behaviors, or as Rodas puts it, as “autism’s antihuman identity” (Rodas 16). McCarthy goes on, “The things I’d thought were character traits were in fact autism characteristics, and that was all I had. Where was my son, and how the hell did I get him out?” (16). McCarthy’s inability to see her son, and insistence upon seeing his once “cute” “character traits” as non-communicative autonomic compulsions that he needed saving from, illustrate the dehumanization of her own son due to her ableist blinders. This is further exemplified by McCarthy’s interaction with her own doctor, who states that her son “is still the same boy you came in here with”, and her response “No, in my eyes he wasn’t,” (16). Much like Doctor Frankenstein no longer sees his ‘creation’ as the same “beautiful” being that he had known for years, neither does McCarthy see her own son as the “cute” boy that she had raised until this point.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein is chock-full of material to analyze through the lens of Disability Studies, from the Doctor’s many possible invisible disabilities, to the various possible physical and invisible disabilities that his ‘creation’ could be seen to represent. But perhaps more interesting, at least to me, is the way in which the interactions between the Doctor and his ‘creation’ or either character and the outside world, can be seen to represent interactions between the disabled community and the non-disabled community. How do we see things differently today, or do we? One example can be found in the problematic way that many ableist parents fear the diagnosis of autism for their children as most parents would fear a deadly illness. Which is ironic, given that this same fear pushes many to avoid modern medical treatments such as vaccines, under the misguided notion that they may cause autism; literally risking their children’s lives to avoid an autism diagnosis. This best illustration of this dehumanizing fear is Jenny McCarthy’s experience of the diagnosis of her son with Autism, and the succinct reflection of that experience within Dr. Frankenstein’s experience of witnessing the birth of his ‘creation’, which shows us that although we’ve come a long way in terms of we still have a very long way to go in dismantling the ableism in our society.
Word Count = 1014
Works Cited:
Rodas, Julia Miele, and Melanie Yergeau. Autistic Disturbances: Theorizing Autism Poetics from the DSM to Robinson Crusoe. University of Michigan Press, 2018. < https://www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net/blog/readings/>
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Susan J. Wolfson. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelleys Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus. Pearson Longman, 2007.
Thomson, Rosemarie Garland. Freakery: Cultural Spectacles of the Extraordinary Body. New York University Press, 1996. <https://www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net/blog/readings/>
I hereby declare upon my word of honor that I have neither given nor received unauthorized help on this work.
