Mary Shelley’s 1818 tale of Frankenstein tells a tale of living as a homosexual in a heteronormative world, and the consequences of repressing desire. Victor Frankenstein always found himself standing at the edge of a world that demanded him to conform. The unbearable ideals of marriage, family, and duty pressed against him, yet his heart wandered toward a darker, unspoken longing; towards the masculine, rather than the feminine. His relationship with Elizabeth, though filled with a sisterly affection, never sparked the fire he had hoped for in life. She represented a perfect, dutiful figure; beautiful and loved by all, but his feelings for her never ventured beyond the familial. Instead, he grew alienated from her, his soul finding no warmth in her presence. Each gesture of affection from Elizabeth felt like an obligation he could not fulfill; his emotions shackled by an invisible force he desperately yearned to control, pulling him further away from her and deeper into the isolation of his studies.
Victor’s true solace lay in the seemingly hate-free, intellectual halls of Ingolstadt. The hope and discovery bred by science, the laboratories full of curiosity, and the endless possibility it brought soothed his self-deprecating mindset. Knowledge alone mattered here. In the company of his male professors, Victor detached from the expectations placed on him by the public. “In M. Waldman I found a true friend,” he admits, “his gentleness was never tinged by dogmatism…his amiable character banished every idea of pedantry” (Shelley 45). Perhaps Victor really found M. Waldman ‘amiable’ because of his accepting, open-minded nature; qualities he’d never seen in another man.
So why not design a new world? Victor’s attempt to create life did not simply pursue scientific glory. He unconsciously responded to this longing for connection, desperately attempting to forge a companion who would finally understand him, and reciprocate his feelings, without the judgemental influence of the collective. The creation of the monster, then, becomes a metaphor for the suppression of Victor’s homosexual longing. James Wohlpart explains, “Victor Frankenstein’s rejection of femininity, both through his avoidance of marriage and the creation of a masculine figure, mirrors his deep-seated resistance to the feminine aspects of his own nature” (Wohlpart 4). The monster emerged from Victor’s deep-seated wish to create a being who could fill the emotional void left by his repressed desires, and his attempt to reject the femininity presented to him by society.
When the creature opened its eyes, Victor recoiled—not from its grotesque form, but from the terror of confronting his own hidden self. “The beauty of the dream vanished,” Victor confesses, “and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart” (Shelley 53). Victor’s dream, to love anyone in a world which only accepted one kind of love, stood before him, ready to become a reality. But the suffocating control the world exerted on him made him think his dream unachievable. The creature’s grotesque appearance reflected his own internal conflict; an embodiment of the desires he could not accept.
As the sun fades over the mountains in the Alps, so does Victor, consumed by the very darkness he dreamt of escaping—each step a reminder that some shadows prove too powerful to outrun. The creature, abandoned, wanders, just like the desires of Victor’s heart.