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摘 要

弗兰肯斯坦中主人公的怪物创造与马克思劳动异化之间具有异同之处：相似之处是两种劳动都偏离人的生命活动自我表现目标；相异之处是前者主观上出于好奇和自愿，后者客观上出于生活所迫。

本文分为三个部分。在第一章中，介绍了这本小说的作者及这本小说。在第二章中，我着重介绍了小说中主人公的怪物创造经历及异化过程并提出了马克思劳动异化观并做详细介绍。在第三章中，分析比较并发现弗兰肯斯坦中主人公的怪物创造与马克思的劳动异化之间的异同。

通过两者比较,我们可以意识到人的生命活动的自我再现目标的重要性，一旦人的活动偏离了自我再现的目标，劳动便会发生异化，给自身以及他人甚至全人类带来灾难.

关键词：弗兰肯斯坦；马克思；劳动异化；

1. Introduction

1.1 About the author

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley ( August 30th, 1797–February 1st, 1851) was an English novelist, short story writer, travel writer, dramatist, essayist and biographer, who was best famous for her Gothic novel Frankenstein. She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. Modern scholars have made a more comprehensive view of Mary Shelley’s achievements. Scholars have shown increasing interest in her literary output, particularly in her novels, which include the historical novels Valperga(1823) and Perkin Warbeck(1830), the apocalyptic novel The Last Man (1826), and her final two novels, Lodore(1835) and Falkner(1837). Studies of her lesser-known works such as the travel book Rambles in Germany and Italy(1844) support the growing view that Mary Shelley remained a political radical throughout her life.

Her best-known novel Frankenstein is about an eccentric scientist named Victor Frankenstein, who creates a grotesque creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment. Shelley started writing the story when she was eighteen, and the novel was published when she was twenty. The first edition got published anonymously in London in 1818. Shelley's name appears on the second edition, published in France in 1823.

Mary Shelley had traveled through Europe in 1814, journeying along the river Rhine in Germany with a stop in Gernsheim which is just 17 km away from Frankenstein Castle, where two centuries before an alchemist was engaged in experiments. Later, she traveled in the region of Geneva (Switzerland)—where much of the story takes place—and the topics of galvanism and other similar occult ideas were themes of conversation among her companions, particularly her lover and future husband, Percy Shelley. Mary, Percy, Lord Byron, and John Polidori decided to have a competition to see who could write the best horror story. After thinking for days, Shelley dreamed about a scientist who created life and was horrified by what he had made; then her dream later evolved into the story within the novel.

1.2 About the novel

Frankenstein has been both well received and disregarded since its anonymous publication in 1818. Different people of that time hold different opinions. The Belle Assemblee described the novel as ‘very bold fiction’. The Quarterly Review stated that ‘the author has the power of both conception and language’. Sir Walter Scott, writing in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine congratulated ‘the author's original genius and happy power of expression’, although he is less convinced about the way in which the monster gains knowledge about the world and language. The Edinburgh Magazine and Literary Miscellany hoped to see ‘more productions from this author’.

Frankenstein is infused with elements of the Gothic novel and the Romantic movement and is also considered to be one of the earliest examples of science fiction. Brian Aldiss has argued that it should be considered the first true science fiction story, because unlike in previous stories with fantastical elements resembling those of later science fiction, the central character ‘makes a deliberate decision’ and ‘turns to modern experiments in the laboratory’ to achieve fantastic results. It has had a considerable influence across literature and popular culture and spawned a complete genre of horror stories, films, and plays.

Since the publication of the novel, ‘Frankenstein’, the surname of the protagonist, is not only the title of the novel, but is often used to refer to the monster itself.

There have been a lot of studies about Frankenstein and alienation. Many of them focus on Frankenstein’s controversial topics and religious ideas and alienation’s side effect, so it’s meaningful to make a comparison between the similarity and the difference of Frankenstein’s monster creation and Marx’s labor alienation. If we know the similarity and the difference of Frankenstein’s creating the monster and Marx’s labor alienation, we can realize the importance of the realization of mankind’s life behavior of self-expression.

The thesis is about to analyze the similarity and the difference of Frankenstein’s monster creation and Marx’s labor alienation, try to find the similarity and dissimilarity between them, and find out the factors that cause the similarity and dissimilarity.

2. Frankenstein’s Monster creation and Marx’s labor alienation

2.1 Definition of alienation

Alienation has a technical and legal meaning, and we often use it to describe how we are or feel separated from activities or situations which we do not like. A dictionary definition is ‘withdrawing or separation of a person or his affections from an object or position of former attachment’ or, in the case of property, ‘a conveyance of property to another.’ The notions of separation or transferring something to a new owner are one way of considering alienation.

In contemporary sociology, alienation has been used in a variety of ways. In the sociology of labor, some writers use alienation in the Marxian sense, as the way in which private property and capitalism alienate the worker from what they create. Other writers consider alienation to have a more social-psychological interpretation, with interpretations such as of powerlessness, meaninglessness, self-estrangement and social isolation.

2.2 Frankenstein’s Monster creation and alienation

The main characters of the novel are Frankenstein and the monster that he creates. The essence of the novel is about Frankenstein’s monster creation and Frankenstein’s alienation.

The monster produced by Frankenstein is to some degree a kind of products and this product becomes an alien being and becomes a power independent of its producer. The results of Frankenstein’s creation include the loss of essential aspects of life and work, work itself and the domination of labor's product. Work and religion are similar because as more is put into the object, the less there is of the self. This is not just a bad meaninglessness or feeling, but an actual separation and domination.

Frankenstein is related to the product of his labor as to an alien object. For it is clear on this presupposition that the more Frankenstein expends himself in work, the more powerful becomes the monster that he creates in face of himself, the poorer he becomes in his inner life, and the less he belongs to himself. In the novel, Frankenstein puts his life into the object, and his life then belongs no longer to himself but to the object. The greater his activity, therefore, the less he possesses. What is embodied in the product of his labor is no longer his own. The greater this product--the monster is, therefore, the more he is diminished. The alienation of Frankenstein in his product means not only that his labor becomes an object, assumes an external existence, but that it exists independently, outside himself, and alien to him, and that it stands opposed to him as an autonomous power. The life which he has given to the monster sets itself against him as an alien and hostile force.

Following is some detailed contents in the novel about Frankenstein’s creating the monster and how he gets alienated and the side effects of his alienation.

Frankenstein is born in a wealthy Geneva family, where he and his brothers, Ernest and William, are encouraged to seek a greater understanding of the world through science. Young boy as he is, Frankenstein is obsessed with studying outdated theories that focus on simulating natural wonders. When he is four years old, his parents adopt an orphan, Elizabeth Lavenza, with whom Frankenstein later falls in love.

His inherent interest in science unbelievably increases when he witnesses a lightning strike on an oak tree, which inspires he to harness its power for his experiments. Weeks before he leaves for his university in Germany, his mother dies of scarlet fever, creating further impetus towards his experiments. At university, he excels at chemistry and other sciences, soon developing a secret technique to impart life to non-living matter, which eventually leads to his creation of the Monster.

He starts alienating when he comes up with the idea of creating the monster. Because of the difficulty in replicating the minute parts of the human body, he is forced to make the creature roughly eight feet tall. He thinks what he creates might be a beautiful and elegant creature. Instead, a hideous monster, with yellow eyes and skin comes into the world. At that time, Frankenstein completes his alienation when he completes his product. Repulsed by his creation, he flees; when he comes back only to find the monster disappears.

Frankenstein falls ill from the experience, which is an obvious indication of side effects of his alienation. Luckily, he is nursed back to health by his childhood friend, Henry Clerval. After a four-month recovery, he returns home when he learns of the murder of his brother William. This is the beginning of the bad side of his creation. Then Justine, William's nanny, is hanged for killing William because William's locket is found in her pocket. On arriving in Geneva, Frankenstein happens to see the monster at the crime scene, leading him to believe the creature is responsible. However, he knows nobody would believe him and the hanging could not be stopped.

Ravaged by grief and guilt, Frankenstein retreats into the mountains. But the monster locates him and pleads for Frankenstein to hear his tale. Now intelligent and articulate, the monster tells Frankenstein how fearful he is when people drive him into the woods. While living next to a cottage, he notices and is interested in a family there. The Creature learns to speak by listening to them and he teaches himself to read after discovering a lost satchel of books. But when he sees his reflection in a pool, he begins to realize that his physical appearance is very hideous. Despite this, he approaches the family in hopes of becoming their friend, but they are frightened and flee their home. Out of anger and rage, the monster burns the cottage.

Then the monster demands that Frankenstein create a female companion for him. He argues that as a living being, he has a right to happiness. The monster promises if Frankenstein grants his request, he and his mate will vanish into the South American wilderness and never reappear. Because of fearing for the safety of his family, Frankenstein reluctantly agrees. Clerval accompanies him to England, but they separate in Scotland. Frankenstein suspects that the Monster is following him. Working on the female creature on the Orkney Islands, he is plagued by premonitions of disaster, particularly the idea that creating a mate for the monster might lead to the breeding of a race that could plague mankind. He destroys the female creature after he sees the monster watching through a window. The Monster confronts him, vowing to be with Frankenstein and Elizabeth on their upcoming wedding night. The Monster then kills Clerval and makes people think Frankenstein is the killer. Frankenstein is imprisoned for Clerval's murder and suffers another mental breakdown in prison. After being acquitted, he returns home with his father.

In Geneva, Frankenstein marries Elizabeth and prepares to fight the Monster. Wrongly believing the monster threatens his life, Frankenstein asks Elizabeth to stay in her room while he looks for "the friend". While Frankenstein searches the house and grounds, the monster murders Elizabeth. From the window, Frankenstein sees the Monster, who taunts Frankenstein with Elizabeth's corpse. Grief-stricken by the deaths of William, Justine, Clerval, and Elizabeth, Frankenstein's father dies. Seeking revenge, Frankenstein pursues the monster to the North Pole; however, he does not kill his creation as he has already lost the control of his creation since the moment he completes his work.

With unendurable and miserable experiences, Frankenstein continues his long journey for finding the monster but exhaustion leads him to death. His death has not brought the monster peace. However, the monster’s crimes have increased his misery, and his words are almost exactly identical to Frankenstein's own in describing himself. It vows to kill himself on his own funeral pyre so that nobody will ever know his existence. In the end Frankenstein and his creation--the monster die, which is the final result of Frankenstein’s alienation.

2.3 Marx’s labor alienation

The main aspect of Marx’s labor alienation is the separation of work or labor from the worker, as well as the separation of the products of labor from the worker. With a result, employers control and dominate the worker.

Marx thinks that human labor is one of the chief ways that humans are distinguished from non-human animals. Non-human animals have a life activity in that they produce, but they are only for survival, and only in an instinctual manner. In contrast, humans are creative and can make their life activity and labor the object of their own wills and consciousness. However, capitalism crushes human experience. It destroys the pleasure related to labor, the distinctively human capacity to make and remake the world, and the major distinguishing characteristic of humans from animals. Labor is much more productive in capitalism than in earlier economic systems, but the problem is that capitalism will thwart, distort, and limit human potential.

Marx begins his analysis of alienated labor by noting what happens to workers under capitalism. As the worker creates wealth, this wealth is created for the capitalist and not for the worker or direct producer, and the condition of the worker deteriorates. The worker produces commodities, out of these commodities capital is created, and capital comes to dominate the worker. As a result, the worker becomes devalued.

The worker becomes poorer the more wealth he produces and the more his production increases in power and extent. The worker becomes an ever cheaper commodity the more goods he creates. The devaluation of the human world increases in direct relation to the increase in value of the world of things. Labor does not only create goods; it also produces itself and the worker as a commodity, and indeed in the same proportion as it produces goods. This fact simply implies that the object produced by labor, its product, now stands opposed to it as an alien being, as a power independent of the producer. The product of labor is labor which has been embodied in an object and turned into a physical thing; this product is an objectification of labor. Labor itself becomes an object which he can acquire only with the greatest effort and with unpredictable interruptions. The more objects the worker produces the fewer he can possess and the more he falls under the domination of his product, of capital.

Under capitalism, the worker created products or objects. This object is lost to the worker and is appropriated by someone else. These products are produced in conditions over which the worker has no control. In capitalism, production is for exchange and the market, to be sold to others, and the worker does not control the fate of what is being produced. The worker actually puts his or her life into the object, but in this process the worker deprives him or her self of the means of existence. That is, there is a separation of the objects from the worker.

Commodities produced by labor are taken away from the worker and sold, and labor itself becomes a commodity. This produces wealth for the capitalist, but poverty for the worker. This alienation produces riches and power for some but enslaves and deprives the worker.

The product of labor belongs to the capitalist, who uses it to create profits. Workers have no control over the product, or over what they are producing. In modern industry, with a highly developed division of labor, workers may not even be aware of what they are producing, since the process itself is highly segmented.

3. Comparison of Frankenstein’s Monster creation and Marx’s labor alienation

Frankenstein creates the monster but is destroyed by it. According to Marx’s labor alienation theory, there are four kinds of alienation. The first alienation is alienation of the worker from the work. Frankenstein can be seen as the worker in the process of making the product--the monster, but he loses control of his product, which is a kind of alienation. The second alienation is alienation of the worker from working. In the first stage of producing his monster, tired as he was, he still works hard to get his job down. But when he finishes his product, he is shocked and totally breaks down because of exhaustion. He does not enjoy his working process, which is another kind of alienation. The third alienation is alienation of the worker from himself, as a producer. Frankenstein experiences a great change in his characteristics as a result of his work, who is no longer a happy and free man and has to deal with the matters caused by his product--the monster. This is the alienation of the worker from himself. The fourth alienation is alienation of the worker from other workers. Because of his work, Frankenstein has to get away from his family and friends with a strong sense of homesickness and missing. He is alienated from others, which is one kind of alienation.

3.1 The Similarity

Frankenstein’s monster creation and Marx’s labor alienation have certain similarity. Both of them deviate from the purpose of human life’s self-reproduction. When Frankenstein begins his creation, the activities of life have become a means to achieve his ambitions. When an individual's life’s activities deviate from the purpose of self-reproduction, especially when life event turns into a way of achieving personal ambitions, the contact of individual with its own and others will wither; family love and friendship will disappear from personal life’s activities, accompanied by painful and lonely alienation. Marx's theory of alienation explains that Frankenstein alienates himself from products that he has created as well as from friends and family.

On the surface, Frankenstein tirelessly learns and constantly explores new knowledge whose creativity seems to reinvent himself and express himself, but actually it is not true. In Marxist vision, Frankenstein's creation does not have the content of reinventing or expressing himself. According to Marx's distinction between humans and animals, people have created their own world in the life’s activities. In this world, one can see his own and be able to face his own creation, and thus be happy and realize his value. Or in this world, people can see their footprints and shadow everywhere. But the world created by Frankenstein is not so. He not only can not see his shadow in his own creation nor can he get any trace of comfort. He hated this creation, afraid to face it, and tried to avoid it. Even if Frankenstein had the chance to meet with his creature face to face, or even has thought of reconciliation with his creature, it still can not be called self-expression, because what he creates does not reflect any of his identity.

The monster created by Frankenstein is eight feet in length, grim and very ugly. Frankenstein says that the monster has terrible face and anyone will be intolerable. Even living mummy does not look as ugly as this ghost. He looks at it carefully before this hideous creature completes, it has already been very ugly; then its muscles and joints move up; its askew countenance, even Dante could not possibly imagine.This monster does not look like a normal human and no shadow of its creator can be seen. Therefore, the act of creation does not belong to human life’s activities. It deviated from the goal of human life and the goal is self-creation and self-expression. According to Marx, the object produced by labor, its product, now stands opposed to it as an alien being, as a power independent of the producer. The more wealth the worker produces and the more his production increases in power and extent, the worker becomes poorer. The reason is that his work stands as something alien to him and does not depend on him but an independent force against him. Frankenstein produces a strange alien with independent force, as a result it makes hims wither.

During the work time, he forgets to eat and sleep, making himself physically weak. His face becomes pale and his body becomes increasingly thin and weak. He describes himself as a dead tree struck by lightning which strikes his soul. He feels he should live, to show to others a state soon ending and a sad tragic destruction of humanity; this humanity in the eyes of others is poor, and for himself is unable to endure. Thus, the relationship between workers and labor are concerned, Frankenstein described by Mary Shelley is just like a misery worker in Marx’s labor alienation theory.

3.2 The Difference

The difference of Frankenstein’s monster creation and Marx’s labor alienation lies in their different motivation. The former one is out of curiosity and desire, but the later one is out of the burden of life’s pressure. Marx describes the worker's labor: his work is not voluntary, but a forced labor thus forced labor is not required to meet, but only a means to make a living. A visible manifestation of alienation of labor is that as long as forced labor or other compulsory physicality disappears, people would like to escape from the work just like from plague. Frankenstein is not the same; his experiment does not like original natural science researches, which have cast light in the dark places of this world, and leaving great influence in the scientific discoveries. Although believing the god in his mind, he is inevitable to be unfortunate, and abandoned by the god when he does those studies. However, he was passionate to attach himself to his creation. Leading Frankenstein to alienation is not external forces, but inner strength, and that is his ambition. He consciously makes his life activities a tool or a means of fulfilling his ambition, making himself go alienated and lose his humanity.

His purpose is not to show himself or express himself, but to be the Creator of a new species to realize his ambitions. He describes his feelings when he gets initial Frankensteiny with passion that his heart feels like a thousand kinds of feelings pushed forward by a hurricane. The new creature which he creates in his will pay homage to him. And many wonderful lucky perfect creatures will be grateful for him giving their lives. Ironically, the truth is that Frankenstein creates the monster by using different parts of dead bodies and God creates man in the image of the juxtaposition. Frankenstein is not the god, compared with the Almighty God, Frankenstein changes his mind to enlarge the creature’s size. According to his own interpretation, various components of the human body are very sophisticated, which makes his work very difficult and time-consuming. In other words, bulky parts are easier for his creation, which to a large extent can reduce difficulties in the process of creation. Frankenstein manifests a human’s limitation and he can not create a new species with the size of a normal man, which shows us some lessons. The first one is that Frankenstein’s creative activity is not a process of constant pursuit of himself. The second one is that human intelligence can not challenge the limits and the third one is that ambitious expansion will only lead to tragedy.

Frankenstein estranges relationship with others when creating his creature, and he seems to have realized that if the research you are engaged in may make you snubbed others, lose the spice of life, do not want to experience simple life, then your research is improper, in other words, you should not waste thoughts on this study. However, he puts his ambition above everything else, so his creative activity must obey the deviation target of self-expression, which is bound to make him alienated from others. When he is like a criminal escaping from his fellows, he is constantly alienating from others. When the product is produced, Frankenstein’s alienation also completes, and then, between him and the others are insurmountable obstacles. Frankenstein's dream also implies his degradation in human relationships because of creating the monster. He dreamed of young and healthy Elizabeth, but when he kisses her, her lips become deathly gray, which makes him feel like holding the body of his dead mother. Thus, the act of creation makes Frankenstein alienate from himself, so that he imagines the prospect of self-realization and self-face so bleak, both unbearable and impossible. As a result, he chooses to flee, trying to find consolation from escaping. For him, any alternative option is a better choice than facing that ugly monster which has intrinsically link with him. Actually it is his strange identity, his alienated ego.

4. Conclusion

The novel Frankenstein written by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley is about a scientist’s monster creation and his alienation, which to some degree have links with Marx’s labor alienation. And this thesis mainly focuses on the study of similarity and difference of Frankenstein’s monster creation and Marx’s labor alienation.

Through a comparative study of Frankenstein’s monster creation and Marx’s labor alienation, I find that the monster created by Frankenstein later becomes an an alien and hostile force against its creator. In order to create the monster, Frankenstein loses essential aspects of life, work itself and the domination of his creation--the monster, destroying his family and career. In the novel, Frankenstein puts his life into his creation, and his life then belongs no longer to himself but to the object he creates. The more he expends himself in his creation, the more powerful the monster becomes, the poorer he becomes in his inner life, and the less he belongs to himself. And for Marx, the main aspect of labor alienation is the separation of work or labor from the worker, and separation of the products of labor from the worker, which will lead the worker controlled and dominated by employers.

Whatever Frankenstein’s monster creation or Marx’s labor alienation, the similarity is they both going far away from the goal of life’s self-expression, while the difference is their different motivation. The former one is out of curiosity and desire, but the later one is out of the burden of life’s pressure. Through such kind of study, we can stress the realization of mankind’s life behavior of self-representation.

As far as I am concerned, there is a wide ground for people to study monster creation and alienation because alienation is almost everywhere in our daily life. Alienation describes how people are or feel separated from activities or situations which they do not like. Once people’s behavior goes away from their goal of life’s self-expression, work will go alienation, thus disaster will come down to the victim and even the whole human race. It is very meaningful to study this subject and try to find a way out to fight against alienation.

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