Frankenstein - Chapter 11

This was so cool!

So first off—Vic apparently has an eidetic memory for what people said! I kid, of course, but there are times where the “person recounting a story” narrative does raise a bit of a logistical question. I thought this a lot in Heart of Darkness, with my thought mostly being that the people who Marlow spoke to must’ve had the wind let out of their sails by the time it was all over.

Adam begins recounting his journey starting with (I think) when he left Vic’s place. The narration seems to imply that he pretty much wasn’t conscious until he was already out in this forest. Even to a certain point, he’s barely able to make sense of what’s around him. Still, there are some apparent instincts which drive him. For one, he still needs to eat and drink. I’m kind of surprised by this, actually. I didn’t think a person made from a bunch of cut-up cadavers and animated by electricity would feel hunger like we do, since the material of his body is already dead. I know it’s probably just Shelley playing loose with biology, but there’s certainly an interesting posthuman claim toward human ontology in this sequence. Adam finds certain noises and visuals innately pleasurable, and some to be harsh. There’s definitely a sort of nature/nurture thing here, with some of the argument seeming to favor nature. “Yes, sparrows are just annoying. Yes, blackbirds sound pretty to everyone” here.

From here, Adam begins a basic exploration of the world around him. He observes the phases of the moon and the passage from day to night. He becomes fascinated by fire and tries to figure it out to use it for cooking and warmth and light. Quite a liberty Hollywood took there!

Eventually, Adam decides to leave the forest and begin wandering. He scares some shepherd out of his hut one night, totally unintentionally, and begins eating his food and understanding the concept of a constructed shelter. From here, he goes to a village and.. well it doesn’t go well, but not nearly as poorly as I’d’ve thought. The villagers aren’t nice to ol’ Adam, they either shriek or run away or attack him. But they aren’t coming out in a full-on mob at him, they seem content to just turn him away from their village.

Afterward he takes up residence in a shack and observes, what I think, is supposed to be a family at their work. He is fascinated by the whole scenario he watches unfold and is really quite a sensitive creature.

I liked this chapter a lot. We’re really getting into a good exploration of what it is to be human and of consciousness! This is the stuff that so much of sci-fi still delves into almost two centuries later!