CREATOR-CREATION RELATIONSHIP INFRANKENSTEIN AND THE PICTURE OF DORIAN

GRAY

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title Page

Acknowledgements

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER I. DUALITY

A. Duality in FrankensteinB. Duality in The Picture of Dorian Gray

CHAPTER II. MOTIVES FOR CREATION

A. Egotism as a Motive in FrankensteinB. Narcissism as a Motive in The Picture of Dorian GrayC. Transcendentalism of Mortality

CHAPTER III. EFFECTS OF GENDER

CHAPTER IV. MUTUAL DENIALS

CHAPTER V. REASONS OF SELF-DESTRUCTION

CONCLUSION

WORKS CITED

INTRODUCTION

In this study, by tracing two literal texts which employ the

theme of creation, I tried to give a clear and accurate

account of almost all aspects of the creator-creature

relationship which I found essential. First of all, I want to

emphasize the fact that the creator-creature relationship is

problematic interdependence which expires only with the deaths

of the two parties. There are various elements which

problematize this relationship. Among these, we can include

duality, gender-consciousness, and motives for creation as the

most noteworthy ones.

The concept of duality is relevant to understanding the

personality of the creator via whom we will understand the

creature. Almost every work of creation is mentioned along

with the name of its creator. There are few exceptions to that

the novel Frankenstein is may be the example to such as

exception where the monster, by adopting the name of his

creator, overwhelmed both his own creator, and the creator of

the novel. Today very few people the name of Mary Shelley, or

Victor Frankenstein while there is almost no one who is not

familiar with the monster Frankenstein. Although it is a false

supposition, it is ironically ture. After a close reading of

the text, we begin to see how it is possible that Frankenstein

and the monster come to mean the same thing.

Before coming to the question of gender, I want to point out I

felt the need to base some textual facts on biblical

references since divine creation is the first prototype of

literary accounts of creation that we have. I also made much

use of the tools of psychological and feminist criticism in my

writings. Since both Mary Shelley and Oscar Wilde come from

masculine dominated circles, tools of feminist criticism are

very apt to interpret the creator-creature relations in their

works from a woman’s point of view. Biased gender-

consciousness is strongly influential in shaping the dynamics

of the creator-creature relationship. In the end, creation

appears as work rectified to only men.

Lastly, a discussion of the motives for creation is of use in

analyzing this problematic inter-dependence. Commentaries made

on the creator’s motives for creation such as narcissism and

egotism also direct our attention to the question about the

aims of art. In line with the ideology of the aesthetic

movement of which Wilde was a major proponent, “The purpose of

art is to have no purpose” as it is suggested in one of the

most frequently quoted epigrams of Wilde. If art is no

purpose, then how can creation have any purpose?

The aimless of creation lead to the dilemma about whether

people create for egotistical reasons. If we examine the

second chapter of this study which deals with egotism and

narcissism as motives for creation, we answer that question in

the affirmative.

The chapters report on both the physical and spiritual

situations of the creator and creature. Since it is a mutual

inter-dependence, comparisons and contrasts are the best

methods to explore its dynamics.

CHAPTER I: DUALITY

A. Duality in Frankenstein

Every kind of creation artistic, scientific, or divine is a

self-reflection of the creator. In both the both the physical

and the spiritual sense, there is an interwoven relationship

between the creator and his creation. This relationship takes

us to problem of duality. If we examine the concept of duality

closely, we see that a sine qua non opposition lies in the

center of this concept. Although the creator and his creation

are one in the deep underlying structure, this opposition

leads them into two different beings on the surface structure.

In this context, creator-creature relation in which creator

found a way of self-expression in his creature, and vice

versa, presents us a problematic mutual dependence.

In Frankenstein, we see how the monster, the creature falls

victim to the uncontrollable madness of his creator and gets

to resemble him morally. First of all, the way Victor brought

the monster into being is quite unethical. By bringing the

remains of dead bodies together, he creates a living body. In

other words, through death he brings forth life. So in this

respect, we also see the duality and interaction of life and

death apart from the duality in creator – creature

relationship.

Victor continues his initial and unethical behavior with his

irresponsible acts among which we can mention his denial of

his own creature and his escape from him. In the long run, the

monster becomes, in a way, the moral counterpart of Victor

Frankenstein. Victor’s destruction of the female monster which

he promised to his creature is responded to by the monster’s

destruction of Victor’s wife in imitation of his creator.

According to Smith, “the monster is fated to define himself in

relation to Victor, becoming Victor’s imaginary double, the

mirror-self that haunts his every step. If, as Lacan suggests,

the I is an Other, then on some level Victor is the monster,

and the monster in turn is Victor.” (Smith, 256)

Also the false supposition about the name of the novel is

suggestive of this duality of Victor and his monster. Most

people, event today, believe that Frankenstein is the name of

monster although Victor never gave a name to his creation. As

a result of this namelessness the monster is always mistaken

for Frankenstein and he is mentioned together with the name of

his creator. Frankenstein thus becomes the name of the

monster. Therefore, Victor is also mentioned together with the

name of his creature.

This duality can also be seen in the monster-slave

relationship in Frankenstein. Jameson defines this relationship

as one in which two parties struggle with each other for by

the other. As soon as this recognition is fulfilled, two

dialectically ironic reveals take place: now that only the

master is a real person, his recognition by the slave vanishes

at the moment of its attainment. Quoting from Hegel, Jameson

adds to this: “The truth of the master is the Slave; while the

truth of the Slave, on the other hand, is Master” (Jameson,

85).

Although Victor is the creator, thus master, he sometimes

feels obliged to obey his own creature’s orders. Being

desperate in his loneliness, the monster wants Victor to

create a female partner for him, and Victor promises to obey

(127). But when he disobeys him, the monster reminds him who

the real master is with the utmost ferocity: “Slave, I have

reasoned with you, but you have proved yourself unworthy of my

condescension. Remember that I have power; you believe

yourself miserable, but I can make you so wretched that the

light of day will be hateful to you. You are my creator, but I

am your master; obey!” (142).

Here although the monster admits that Victor is his creator,

he regards himself superior to him as we can infer from both

the choice of vocabulary, and the way he addresses him. There

is no end in the dialectical master-slave relation which is

another aspect of creator-creation relation. As Smith states,

Caught in this relation to the double, each sees the

other as his reveal self, attacking the other and getting

revenge in an endless spiral of violence… rivalry becomes

a directly destructive force, reducing everything to the

opposition between the imaginary pain an opposition that

is never resolved but which expires at last only with

their deaths. (256)

B. Duality in The Picture of Dorian Gray

The concept of duality in The Picture of Dorian Gray can be

interpreted in two different ways. According to the first

interpretation, we examine the interaction between Basil and

his portrait. As an artist, Basil Hallward sees the portrait

like a creature which has come out of himself. This notion

leads Basil not to exhibit the portrait. When he is asked by

Lord Henry Wotton why he is doing so, he answers:

I have to put too much of myself into it… Every portrait

that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist,

not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the

occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it

is rather the painter who on the colored canvas, reveals

himself. The reason is that I am afraid that I have shown

in it the secret of my own soul (72, 74)

In this respect, the portrait is the reflection of the

artist, or the creator.

On the other hand according to the second interpretation, the

portrait is the reflection of Dorian Gray, or the object.

From this point of view, in the novel we observe how the

portrait of Dorian Gray reflects his corrupt nature. In a

way, the portrait becomes the mirror-image of the innermost

recesses of Dorian Gray. As he commits vile crimes and lead a

decayed life, the expression of his face on the portrait

deteriorates mysteriously, Dorian himself is also aware of

the signs of deterioration on the portrait: “His own was

looking at him from the canvas and calling him to judgment”

(168).

Having to face his counterpart every day, Dorian Gray can

neither embrace nor deny him. He cannot embrace him because

he is the physical representation, in a way emblem, of his

corrupt soul which he refuses to confront. On the other hand,

he cannot deny him because he is part of himself, a part

which resembles Dorian Gray in his entirety, no matter how

unpleasant it is for him to admit. In the long run of endless

discord, Dorian Gray found the solution in putting an end to

the exercise of the portrait. The following passage, taken

from the story William Wilson which depicts exactly the same

theme, is striking to show us the underlying oneness of the

surface of the surface duality of the portrait and Dorian

Gray: “You have conquered and I yield. Yet, henceforth art

thou also dead_ dead to the World, to Heaven and to Hope. In

me didst thou exist and, in my death, see by this image,

which is thy own, how utterly thou hast murdered thyself”.

(86)

Dorian simply stabbed himself. He stabbed the picture is also

true because by this stage Dorian is the picture-the-false-

semblance, and the painting, with its ghastly image, is the

reality as McGinn suggests (qtd. in Nuttall, 530). Unless

there is reconciliation with self; death, the unavoidable

intervenes each time.

Although the second interpretation is more commonly accepted

in literary circles, the first interpretation is also vital

in clarifying the dynamics of the creator-creation

relationship which problematize itself with duality. This

problematic creator-creation relationship has its roots in

the very act of man’s creation, which is divine creation.

Man, who is created by God in His own image (Gen: 27), can

never be reconciled with his creator since he fell from

Grace. Eating of the tree of knowledge, man commits his first

sin; a sin which will from then on be the motive

problematizing all the creator-creation relationships.

‘The hunger for knowledge’ which springs from the biblical

myth of the ‘Original Sin’, later on as the human relations

got more and more intricate, became, in a way, “an idolatry

of the central impulse of the soul. When this appetite is

fetishized it becomes a parody of itself, an artificial

monster for a son, a diagram of a man for a human being”.

(qtd. in Nuttal, 531) Both ‘the artificial monster’ and ‘the

diagram’ become, in a way, icons through which they reflect

their hidden selves.

At this point, the concept of ‘the artificial monster’ needs

further clarification. The first question to be asked is: if

the reflection of the creator, then why did not Victor create

that being in semblance to his own physicality but in such a

hideous, monstrous form whereas God created man in His own

image? The answer is quite simple: instead of physical

resemblance, this time spiritual resemblance is at work. The

Monster, symbolizing the evil, malign side (or, alter-ego) of

Victor, becomes projection of the hidden monstrosity of

Victor. As Picart proposes, “The monstrous Other is simply

part of the Self”. (390)

After the horrible murders of the monster, even Victor

himself realizes this fact. In his long confession to Walton,

Victor admits his consciousness of this fact in a bitter

tone: “I considered the being whom I had cast among mankind,

and endowed with the will and power to effect purposes of

horror, such as the deed which he had now done, nearly in the

light of my own vampire, my own spirit let loose from the

grave, and forced to destroy all that was dear to me”. (73)

What occurs in Frankenstein in terms of creator-creation

relation is “ as complex picture of mutual and escalating

victimization” and in The Picture of Dorian Gray a rearrangement of

the soul and the matter” .(Picard, 390) To given an example,

yielding to the completed, the human side of Victor

disappears and this time his inhuman side takes control. And

the awakening of the inhuman side results in the

victimization of the monster’s future wife. When we look at

the other novel, this time we see how the soul, represented

by matter, gets to signalize the traces of corruption whereas

the matter, which is normally supposed to change, keeps its

form and beauty.

CHAPTER II: MOTIVES FOR CREATION

In order to understand better the dual role of the parties in

creator-creation relationship, we should examine the causes

of the self-reflection of the creator. Underlying this self-

reflection, egotism, narcissism, and desire to have

immortality can be considered as three main motives. Although

these are divided into three different categories, they are

quite interrelated with each other.

A. Egotism As a Motive in Frankenstein

Egotism, a kind of self-obsession, leads people to take

actions which will provide them with tools to satisfy their

egos. Creative action, in this context, can be defined as

nothing but self-satisfaction of the creator. In Frankenstein,

Victor, talking about the superiorities of being a creator,

explains his motives to create the monster: “A new species

would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and

excellent natures would owe their being to me. No father

could claim the gratitude of his children as I should deserve

theirs” (55).

The act of creation, by bringing forth ‘a new species’

furnishes the creator with an object which he will dominate.

Similarly, motive for creation, as Bloom suggests, “springs

from a spirit from a spirit that wishes to assert its own

self-hood over other” (62). In other words, necessity of

self-assertion finds a way of expression in the creative act.

Egotism as a motive brings forth selfishness inevitably. In

this sense, creation motivated by egotism can be seen as

selfish act. When we think of the Promethean spirit which is

yearning to assert itself, we understand the parallelism

between egotism and selfishness better. Also the subtitle of

the book as The Modern Prometheus, gives us a clue about

Frankenstein’s Promethean side.

According to Nardo, “Prometheans merely use others as a means

of loving themselves and becoming and entirely self-

sufficient. They do not love another but themselves through

another. Herein lies the root of many man’s relational

problems. The way they love is often quite selfish”.(96) So

as a Promethean, Frankenstein uses his creature as a means of

loving himself and becoming entirely self-sufficient. At the

same time, his ignorance of the monster just after the task

of creation verifies the claims upon the selfishness of

Victor as a creator.

B. Narcissism As a Motive in The Picture of Dorian Gray

If we now turn from egotism to the other motive, narcissism,

although it sounds similar, it presents a different

perspective for the interpretation of creator-creation

relationship. Narcissism, a type of self-indulgence, emerges

as self-love as we can see in the case of Dorian Gray: “I

wish I could love… I am too much concentrated on myself. My

own personality has become a burden to me”. (238) Carried

away with his own beauty, Dorian Gray pulls all his strength

in himself. This self-indulgence looks for ways of expression

and his portrait becomes the embodiment of it. Long hours of

spectation, adoration of the portrait, even jealousy about it

are all suggestive of narcissism.

When Basil understands that Dorian feels upset because of his

own jealousy of the portrait, he decides to rip up the

canvas. Bu at the moment Dorian stops him saying “Don’t

Basil, don’t! It would be a murder!”. This interjection of

Dorian helps us to understand how much he identifies himself

with the portrait. After Basil express his gladness of

Dorian’s appreciation of his work, Dorian goes on “Appreciate

it? I am in love with it, Basil It is part of myself. I feel

that.” (93) By expressing that he is in love with portrait,

Dorian in fact admits that he sees it as a part of himself.

In this sense, creation of the portrait is a narcissist act.

In addition to its emergence as self-love, narcissism

sometimes brings forth love for the similar, if reduced to

gender, homosexuality. Basil’s attraction to Dorian Gray

turns in a mad love in a short time and takes control over

his personality and art. When Lord Henry asks him how often

he sees Dorian Gray, Basil answers: “Every day. I couldn’t be

happy if I didn’t see him every day. He is absolutely

necessary to me… He is all my art to me now”. (78) Being the

motive for the artistic creation of Basil Hallward, Dorian

Gray also becomes the object of his art and thus emerges the

portrait of Dorian Gray.

C. Transcendentalism of Mortality

Along with egotism and narcissism, the desire to be god-like

and to achieve immortality can also considered as other

important motives which will help us in the interpretation of

creator-creation relationship. Actually, these two motives

are quite intermingled: in order to achieve immortality one

has to be god-like. Both motives require the accomplishment

of a divine act. In this aspect, scientific creation of

Victor Frankenstein can be seen as an attempt to imitate the

divine act of creation through which he will achieve

immortality.

Just like God who points to the immortality of himself by

pointing out the mortality of man through his creation,

Victor also aims to achieve immortality through

parthenogenesis by siring the monster and thus precluding

death (Picart 144). Some film versions of the novel, carrying

this creative act to the furthest extreme, added and extra

scene in which Frankenstein uttered the following words upon

seeing the first signs of life in his creature: “It is alive!

Now I know what it is to be god-like!”. Just at this point,

Picart draws our attention to the myth of self-birthing which

becomes emblematic of the absurd dream of male Ego-as-God

(146).

Together with self-birthing which can also be named as an act

of creation the male ego extends itself and reaches its peak

point. At this point, since he assumes to have completed a

God-like task, he identifies himself with God by having the

most prominent divine attribute: omnipotence. Omnipotence, or

ability to do everything, in this respect, is embodied in the

masculine figure whose ego puts itself forth as God.

Victor’s earliest ambitions are considerably in line with

this extend notion of male ego-as-God. Talking about his

childhood recollections, he refers to his desire to learn

“the secrets of heaven and earth” and in line with this

desire, also the desire to discover how “to banish disease

from the human frame, and render man invulnerable to any but

a violent death” (43, 45).

During his long and exhausting studies on natural philosophy,

one day Victor comes up with and unusual discovery: “I was

surprised that among so many men of genius who had who had

directed their enquiries towards the same science, I alone

should be reserved to discover so astonishing as secret”(54).

The secret that Victor is talking about is the secret of life

which is supposed to be known only by God. The secret of

life, represented as the ‘tree of life’ in Old Testament is

so well protected by God that, He throws Adam from the Garden

of Eden, “lest he take also of the tree of life, and eat, and

live forever” after he had taken of the tree of knowledge

(Gen.3.22). Being aware of the fact that if man eats from the

tree life, he will become immortal like Himself, God forbids

man to take of this tree.

Metaphorically, by finding the secret of life, Victor takes

of the tree of knowledge, thus transgressing the divine law.

This transgression of divine law through the attempt at

omniscience, which is another divine attribute, is a

different revelation of the masculine ego-as God. This time

instead of unlimited capability to do anything including

self-generation, man’s attempt at unlimited knowledge is at

work. Having unlimited knowledge will no doubt make man feel

God-like. The end-product of this dangerous knowledge in

Frankenstein is to have “the capability of bestowing animation

upon lifeless matter” (54). Victor’s desire to transcend

mortality, or limitedness of human life is the most vigorous

motive for his creating the monster.

Immortality becomes possible only through the imitation of a

God-like act. This desire carries Victor as he aspires to a

divine status.

Attempts at the immortalization of human life can also be

seen in The Picture of Dorian Gray. This time, instead of

immortalization of human life, we have immortalization of

beauty. In the novel Dorian is depicted as a figure who is

obsessed with the idea of physical deterioration of the body.

“To him, man was being myriad lives and myriad sensations, a

complex multiform creature that bore within itself strange

legacies of thought and passion, and whose very flesh was

tainted with the monstrous maladies of the dead (187). In

this respect, he is very similar to Victor Frankenstein with

engages himself on the observation and analyses of this

physical deterioration of the body. Talking about the

progress of his anatomical studies, he tells Walton how he

was attracted to examine the decay of dead bodies:

I became acquainted with the science of anatomy: but this

was not sufficient; I must also observe the natural decay

and corruption of the human body. A churchyard was to me

merely the receptacle of bodies deprived of life, from

being seat of beauty and strength, had become food for

the worm. Now I was led to examine the cause and progress

of this decay, and forced to spend days and nights in

vaults and charnel-houses. I saw how the fine form of man

was degraded and wasted; I beheld corruption of death

succeeded to the blooming cheek of life; I saw how the

worm inherited the wonders of the eye and the brain (53-

54).

Although both Victor and Dorian are interested in physical

deterioration, their motives are quite different. Victor,

through understanding the cause of bodily decay, wants also

to understand the cause of life. On the other hand, Dorian is

interested in physical deterioration only because he is upset

by this fact. “He was almost saddened by the reflection of

the ruin that Time brought on beautiful and wonderful things.

He, at any rate, had escaped that.” (183). It is too painful

and dismal to accept this for such a beauty like Dorian Gray.

Beauty should be immortalized somehow, and the portrait, in a

way, is expected to realize this immortalization. Through his

artistic creation, which is the portrait, Basil tries to

immortalize the beauty of Dorian Gray. After the portrait is

completed, Dorian Gray looks at it and says:

How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, and

dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It

will never be older than this particular day of June… If

it were only the other way! If it were I who was to be

always, and the picture that was to grow old! For that-

for-that I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing

in the world in the world I would not give! I would give

my soul for that! (91).

The immortal portrait marks the inner monstrosity of the

outer beauty of Dorian, alluding to his physical mortality.

Creation of the portrait, in this sense, guarantees

immortality both for Dorian and Basil.

To conclude this part, every act of creation, either

scientific, or artistic is a challenge to death. Each time,

man wants to transcend his mortality through a creature which

will carry the traits of his creator. But man’s every attempt

at creation is always punished with his own creature. The

creature, which man thinks will bring him immortality, brings

only an early death to its creator.

CHAPTER III: EFFECTS OF GENDER IN THE CREATOR-CREATION

RELATIONSHIP.

Strangely in both novels, the act of creation is confined to

men, setting aside women. In The Picture of Dorian Gray, there is

not much place for women who are regarded as the inferior

sex. Most of the speeches of Lord Henry are full of negative

commentaries on women. For him “No woman is genius. Women

are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say but

they say it charmingly” (169). In the view of male-dominant

intellectual circle, henry refers to women always in the same

disdainful manner. This negative view about women helps to

attract men to each other. Carrying that view to its extreme,

such men end up with misogyny which leads them to

homosexuality.

In his confession of Basil’s love to Dorian, he tells him the

extremity of the situation in which he found himself: “I

worshipped you. I grew jealous of everyone to whom you spoke.

I wanted to have you all to myself. I was only happy when I

was with you” (164). Homosexual creator-creator relationship

between Basil and Dorian Gray fortifies the act of creation

by emphasizing the similarity between the two masculine

parties.

At this point, if we regard divine creation, we see a

striking resemblance between that of Frankenstein and one

depicted in The Picture of Dorian Gray, when we examine the passage

of the creation of man in the Old Testament closely; we

understand that creation is described as a masculine-work:

“And God created man in his image, in the image of God

created he him” (Gen: 27). Repetition of the masculine

pronouns helps to construct creation as a male-action, the

end product of which is another male.

This man-to-man creator-creation relationship is also

apparent in Frankenstein. Creation of a human being without any

feminine connection is kind of triumph of man over women.

Mellor describes Victor’s creation of the monster as a

masculine attempt to circumvent the maternal, to usurp and

destroy the life-giving power of feminine sexuality (230-

232). The masculine attempt at parthenogenesis or male self-birthing

as Picart terms it is influential in shaping the dynamics of

the relationship between the creator and his creation (382).

Tracing back the origin of parthenogenesis to the mythical

story of the birth of Dionysus from the thigh of Zeus, Whale

tells us how Frankenstein critiques the reconstruction of

masculine divinity and humanity versus feminine monstrosity

and sub-humanity. In this sense, Frankenstein is the revival

of ‘parthenogenetic dream’ (401).

Furthermore, murder of the two feminine figures, or

elimination of women in the novel can be seen as a binding

factor in man-to-man creator-creation relationship. The death

of Victor’s mother at the very beginning, later death of

Victor’s wife Elizabeth, and lastly the death of monster’s

future wife present us also with the tragedy of un-womanned

man. All these female figures have one common point: They all

have a vital role in a man’s life. According to Smith, the

female monster and Elizabeth represent not simply feminine

sexuality bu also its function within the symbolic order:

Elizabeth as a married sexual partner blessed by the

patriarch Alphonse Frankenstein, and the female monster as

someone who will join the monster in creating a new society

(251).

As a result of deaths of Victor’s mother, Elizabeth and the

female monster, Victor and his creation are confined to each

other. This confinement or womanned men which brings the

unconscious mutual dependence beneath, shows itself as mutual

victimizations on the surface. Fragmentation and projection

of the Other as feminine and monstrous in Frankenstein can be

considered as a attempt to strengthen a super-masculinized

version of parthenogenetic myth (Picart, 404).

Similarly in The Picture of Dorian Gray masculine relationship are

re-written in and through the repression of the female. The

society depicted in this novel is not a simple masculine-

dominant society. It is a ‘super-masculinized’ society in

which men are adored. In his haughty speech, addressed to

Dorian gray, Lord Henry tries to impose his misogynist views

on him: “Being adored is a nuisance. Women treat us just as

Humanity treats its gods. They worship us, and are always

bothering us to do something for them” (135). Sowing the

seeds of misogyny in Dorian’s heart, Lord Henry is very

effective in the suicide of Sibyl Vane who prefers death to

the loss of Dorian’s love. Dorian, also being aware of Lord

Henry’s corruptive influence on himself, blames himself with

the death of his ex-lover: “So I have murdered Sibyl Vane,

murdered her as surely as if I had cut her little throat with

a knife.” (151). So these murders are not only simple acts of

killing, but also attempts to terminate productive function

of female sexuality.

To conclude this part, reinforcement of male gender dynamics

in and through the repression and deaths of female figures in

both novels confine the world of men, and this confinement

justifies man-made creation the end-product of which is

another male.

CHAPTER IV: MUTUAL DENIALS

Mutual denials play an important role in the creator-creation

relationship. After the cast of creation is completed, his

own creature becomes the Other of the creator. And as soon as

the Other starts to threaten the creator, he denies it, and

turn he is denied by his creature. Upon the murder of his

brother by the monster, victor starts to think of destroying

his creature: “When I thought of him, I gnashed my teeth, my

eyes became inflamed, and I ardently wished to extinguish

that life which I had so thoughtlessly bestowed… I wished to

see him again, that I might wreak the utmost extent of

abhorrence on his head, and avenge the deaths of William and

Justine” (84). Denial of the Other, which I mentioned as part

of the Self in the previous chapter, is actually denial of

the Self.

The self-denial is employed through the denials of the

creatures in both novels. In Frankenstein, the monster who

makes Victor purse him to the northern extremity of the

globe, confesses his guilt of the death of his creator: “I

have devoted my creator to misery; I have pursued him even to

that irremediable ruin” (184). As we can infer from the

monster’s confession, he is quite conscious that he is the

cause of the fall of his creator. The monster’s denial of the

fact is his creator, the reason for his being, facilitates

his endeavours to pursue his creator to death.

Apart from the monster’s own confession, the quotation which

is put by the author Mary Shelly to very beginning of the

novel is also significant to note the denial of the creature:

Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay

To mould Me man? Did I solicit thee

From darkness to promote me?

(Paradise Lost, X: 743-5)

In a way, the monster’s denial of Frankenstein is a natural

reaction to Frankenstein’s denial of the monster. The

following trenchant utterings of the monster show how he is

motivated for his denial of Victor: “All men hate the

wretched, how, must I be hated me who am miserable beyond all

living things! Yet you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy

creature…” (90). Denied by his own creator, the monster loses

all his trust and hopes in Victor. Monster’s frustration

certainly becomes the most important motive power in his

denial of his creator.

Similarly, it is possible to see the same pattern of denials

in The Picture of Dorian Gray, too. As soon as the creation, thus

the portrait starts to alter for the worse, Dorian decides to

hide it because he thinks that no one should see it. By

keeping his portrait, Dorian decides to hide it because he

thinks that no one should see it. By keeping his portrait

away from human eye, he simply denies it. Bu his denial of

the portrait does not change the fact that it is there and

continuing to exist. Dorian’s existence sustains, and is

itself sustained by the picture (JR, 52).

The creation, or portrait which was designed to immortalize

the beauty of Dorian Gray, did actually destroy him in the

long run. The following dialogue which passed between Basil

and Dorian upon his showing the portrait to the painter

corroborates this destruction:

“Basil You told me you had destroyed it.

Dorian: I was wrong. It had destroyed me.

Basil: I don’t believe it is my picture… This is the face

of a satyr.

Dorian: It is the face of my soul” (198-99).

Apart from indicating the portrait’s destructive effect on

Dorian and vice versa, this dialogue also indicates Basil’s

denial of his picture. He does not believe that it is his

picture because of the hideous visage of the portrait. Like

Victor, he denies his own creation which turns into a beast

in time.

After Basil shows Dorian the portrait, it takes control over

Dorian and pushes him to kill Basil, the creator of his own

portrait. “Dorian Gray glanced at the picture, and suddenly

an uncontrollable feeling of hatred for Basil Halward came

over him, as though it had been suggested to him by the image

on the canvas, whispered into his ear by those grinning lips”

(200).

By killing Basil, Dorian denies the creator of the portrait

in order to deny the portrait itself. Here Basil becomes a

substitute for the portrait. At that level because Dorian

could not destroy the portrait, he destroyed its creator. At

another level, on the other hand, Dorian Gray and the

portrait are the same things. Therefore, Basil also becomes a

substitute for Dorian himself. At this level because Dorian

could not destroy himself, he destroyed his creator. Held up

in such a triangle, Basil becomes the creator of Dorian. So

in this sense, by killing Basil, Dorian denies the creator of

his beauty; for the painter is solely “responsible for his

preternatural beauty and vanity” (JR, 52).

If we now turn the other side of the coin, we see that all

the denials of Dorian Gray are consummated in his destruction

of the portrait. “Dorian’s stab on the picture, a final

assent to self-contradiction, comes with graceful

inevitability (JR, 63). His final attempt to deny the

portrait brings his tragic death which shows us that self-

denial is passible only through suicide.

CHAPTER V: REASONS OF SELF-DESTRUCTION

Self-destruction or suicide has usually been associated with

psychological disorders. Split personalities who fail to

reconcile the self with the Other find the solution in self-

murder. In The Picture of Dorian Gray and Frankenstein, this self-

murder is employed through the creation of the monstrous-

Other. The monstrous-Other, in a way, becomes a scapegoat on

which we can pour out all our violence and detestation

through destruction.

Narcissist view stemming from suppressed self-hated as we see

in The Picture of Dorian Gray, is also another corrupt soul.

Therefore, he adores his physicality whereas he detests his

soul. His over-indulgence in his physical beauty, therefore,

is a natural outcome of the suppression of his self-hatred.

When he tears at the portrait with knife, as Gates lays

stress, he is determined “to kill this monstrous soul-life”

(247). Bu instead he kills the emblem of his corrupt soul,

and himself dies. Dorian becomes “the hideous portrait” or

“his Other-self” as Gates terms it (123).

Almost all critics agree that the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray

is almost a replica of Oscar Wilde’s own life. At this point,

his death has too much in common with the self-destruction of

Dorian Gray. In his biography of Oscar Wilde, Julian

emphasizes this similarity between the death of Dorian Gray

and that of Oscar Wilde in the following way: “A life

dedicated to Beauty, so much luxury and so many works of art

only hide deception and decomposition. It seem as if Oscar

had had a premonition of his own ruin, inevitable although

delayed by success, in the way he shows Dorian’s beauty

suddenly crumbling into decay” (220).

Physical beauty, in a way, camouflages the spiritual ugliness

of Dorian. But since the picture is there to show him his

spiritual ugliness, he starts to abhor himself. Failing to

suppress his self-hatred, he finds the only solution in

destroying the portrait, which is the metaphorical depiction

of his suicide.

Another reason of self-destruction is the need to get rid of

the guilt attached to one’s past. Dorian’s past life, which

is full of many abominable crimes, becomes a burden he is no

more capable of carrying. Just like Frankenstein who tries to

escape his past marked by his creation of the hideous

monster, Dorian Gray attempts to escape his degenerate life.

Past in which their monsters, or monstrous selves seek

shelter becomes a “little shadow that went along with them”

(Gates, 124). That shadow was, as Gates ses the term “a

hideous hunchback seated on their shoulders and which was the

main business of their lives to hate and to oppose” (qtd. in

Gates, 124). Suicide, in this sense, is the amputation of

this sense, is the amputation of this hunchback which they

are no more capable of carrying.

Inevitability of Dorian’s suicide is certainly the result of

the portrait’s reversal of its object. Epifanio describes

this reversal as one in which self and its appearance cannot

arrive at all embracing reconciliation:

He has become the portrait in his ageless glamour while

the lineament of his human self, human in the sense that

its face grows more distorted whenever Dorian commits a

vicious deed. How can one exist without the other?...

What this signifies is the failure of Dorian’s nerve in

endeavoring to arrive at an all embracing reconciliation,

a marriage of self and its appearances, finally death

lends the ultimate oneness. (68).

Murder of Basil Hallward is also suicidal just like the death

of Victor Frankenstein. Both of them fall victim to their

creations. In creating the monster who is rejected and

abhorred by people Victor sows the seeds of this own

destruction. Similarly, in worshipping and portraying

Dorian’s beauty, Basil has helped create the monster of his

own destruction. Therefore, the creator’s tragic death

brought by his creature can be defined as a kind of suicide.

Among the reasons of self-destruction, dereliction of

responsibility as we see in the case of Frankenstein is also

worth examining. After his creation of the monster, Victor

escapes the room “unable to endure the aspect of the being he

had created” (58). Victor acts like a step-father rather than

a caring one.

In this context, we can compare the post-creation situation

of the monster to that of Adam. After the act of creation,

Adam was thrown into the world by his creator. Not knowing

what to do with his life, and the world in which he was

thrown away, man had to learn everything on his own and work

hard in order to survive without the least help from his

creator. This tragic process of the forlorn creature

penetrated the monster thoroughly that he holds Victor mere

responsible of his misery. By impelling him listen to his

tale, the creature call his creator to judgement:

All men hate the wretched; how, then must I be hated, who

am miserable beyond all living things! Yet you, my

creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou

art bound by ties only dissoluble by annihilation of one

of us. You purpose to kill me. How dare you sport thus

with life? Do your duty suppose towards me, and I will do

mine towards you and the rest of mankind (90).

Neglecting to ‘do his duty towards his creature’, there is no

doubt that Victor fails as a creator and pays this with his

own life. The need to get rid of the feeling of guilt

attached to his past is son influential that Victor tortures

himself with endless agonies to which he puts an end with

self-sacrifice. His self-sacrifice is a kind of hara-kiri to

put an end to his shameful situation. Like Dorian Gray who

can no more endure the shameful traces of his past life, he

destroys himself. Bu since the creator and creature are

“bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of

them”, the death of Victor also means the death of his

creature.

The suicide of the monster, too, originates from the same

reasons as we can infer from his final speech at the end of

the novel: “Polluted by crimes, and torn by the bitterest

remorse, where can I find rest but in death?” (185). Suicide,

to conclude this part, is their final attempt to wash

themselves of their sins. Only through this purification can

they attain that “ultimate oneness”.

CONCLUSION

Inextricable links between creator and creature deprive this

problematic relationship of all opportunities of

reconciliation. Since these links are “only dissoluble by the

annihilation of one of the parties”, death becomes the only

way out.

Fictional monsters haunting their creators and projecting the

soul feed the hatred which is felt for the monstrous Other.

Almost all the stories about vampires and freakish creatures

are thus relocated products of our self-hatred. In analyzing

motives for such fantastic stories, Gates proposes that

“People who did not belive that they bore monsters within

eagerly sought stories of monsters without” (101). This

denial is quite reasonable in terms of dereliction of

responsibility since nobody wants to sire a monster. As a

result, they choose to be subject to “dark, eternal forces

rather than search for them as inner demons” (101). Just like

Frankenstein, we become the slaves of our own monsters from

whom we turned our face and escaped. When we cannot destroy

our hideous products, we destroy ourselves. Self-destruction,

in addition to “lending that ultimate Oneness” through death,

also purifies the sinne by taking away the burden and moral

decay of life and presenting eternal peace. In this aspect,

death comes to be something longed for. If the creator cannot

take away the evil from his life, he takes his own life.

Lastly, self-destruction can be defined as the final desolate

attempt of creator and creature who seek refuge in the same

end. In and through the dialectical quality of this mutual

master-slave relationship, both parties try to put an end to

their sufferance and regretful agonies. But being denied by

the other each time, they hold back in isolation for death.

Not only death saves them from their sufferance, but it also

helps them to attain ‘oneness’ which had been lost at the

point of creation.

WORKS CITED

Bloom, Harold. Modern Critical Views: Mary Shelley. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1985.

Epipanio, San Juan. The art of Oscar Wilde. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University, 1967.

Gates, V Barbara T. Victorian suicide: mad crimes and sadhistories. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988.

Jameson, Frederick. “Third World Literature in the Era ofMulti-national Capitalism.” New Political Science. 15 (summer, 1986):85.Jr, John B. Stetson. The Oscar Wilde Collection of John B. Stetson, Jr. Harvard University: The Anderson Galleries, 1920.Mellor, Anna K. (Ed.) Romanticism ad Feminism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988. Nardo, Don. Readings on Frankenstein. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2000.

Nuttal, A.D. “Ethics, Evil, and Fiction.” The Review of English Studies. 49. 196 (Nov, 1998): 530-35.

Picart, Caroline Joan S. “Rebirthing the Monstrous: JamesWhale’s (mis)reading of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.” Critical Studies in Mass Communication. 15. 4 (Dec, 1998):382-404.

Poe, Edgar Allan. The works of Edgar Allan Poe. Vol: 2. London: Lawrence and Bullen. 626-41.

Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft. Frankenstein, or, the modern Prometheus.

Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England; New York, USA: PenguinBooks, 1994.

Smith, Johanna M. (Ed.) Frankenstein: Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2000.

The Holy Bible. 1984. International Bible Society. U.S.A.

Wilde, Oscar. The P icture of Dorian Gray . London: PenguinEnglish, 1992.