While reading Frankenstein, many people may pass over the intertextual elements that Mary Shelley has strategically included in her novel. These people may believe that Frankenstein is just a long, drawn out wannabe horror novel; however, this belief is inaccurate. If one pays attention to the added intertextual elements, especially the poem Mutability by Mary Shelly’s husband, Percy Shelley, one may find that this novel has a much deeper meaning than is seen at first glance. The poem Mutability helps to convey Mary Shelley’s hidden message of human volatility and insignificance to the surrounding world.
Before I begin to explain the meaning of Mutability in Frankenstein, I would like to take a step back and instead examine the placement. The placement of the poem Mutability is essential in revealing the full message of Marry Shelley. Mutability appears in Frankenstein after Victor has returned home due to the death of his younger brother William; because of his distress and guilt, he turns to nature for consolation. In his exposure to nature, Victor is filled with “sublime ecstasy” and expresses how “we are moved by every wind that blows” (M. Shelly, 92). These emotions and expressions give an insight as to how powerful nature is over the human mind and body. Victor was so moved by the view in front of him, that he completely forgot the woes he had caused for himself and for others, and was moved to believe that nature has a controlling ability over human behavior. Directly after these realizations, the last two stanzas of Mutability appear in Frankenstein. These two stanzas are about the insignificance of human life compared to the surrounding world. No matter what condition a human is in, “be it joy or sorrow”, the world around us still continues to be and thus we are insignificant (Mutability, P. Shelley). If Mutability had been placed in a part of the novel where Victor had not just made these realizations, the message of the book may have been lost.
Only the last two stanzas of Mutability are present in Frankenstein but the poem as a whole conveys that human life is fragile and insignificant. In the first stanza, humans are compared to “clouds that veil the midnight moon…yet soon night closes round, and they are lost forever” (P. Shelley). Like the night clouds whose existence is fleeting, the lives of Frankenstein’s brother William, and his friend Justine are also short-lived and therefore the two can be easily related. Human existence, like a cloud, is fleeting and forever changing, and what is present today may not be present tomorrow. In the second stanza human life is compared to a musical instrument “whose fragile frame no second motion brings one mood or modulation like the last” (P. Shelley). The instruments production of a random sound instead of an intended one is analogous to the volatility of human life; as humans we do not have the ability to make things happen the way that we wish. This concept relates to Victor’s making of the Creature. While Victor is in the process of making the Creature, he does not think much about the outcome; he only considers proving his scientific ability. One can only assume, however, that he was not intending to make a being that would murder his family.
The poems and quotes that are strategically placed throughout the chapters of Frankenstein are easily passed over; however doing so can jeopardize finding the true meaning of this complex novel. Without having read the poem Mutability for example one may miss Mary Shelley’s message that human life is fragile and insignificant in comparison to the rest of the world. Many may believe that Mary Shelley only included this poem to advertise one of her husband’s less well known works; I believe though that this poem the hidden element that brings the novel’s message to the surface.
I pledge my honor that I have completed this work in accordance with the Honor Code.
The drafting/editing process of this paper was something that was difficult for me. I had a harder time than normal getting my thoughts from my head onto my paper and I feel that this was due to the complexity of both the poem I chose and the novel itself.
