Of monsters, mothers, men and makers: an exploration of representations of the

abominable in William Shakespeares The Tempest (1611) and Mary Shelleys

Frankenstein (1816)

The persistence and popularity of monsters in literature and the arts indicates the significance
of the monstrous as a social and cultural trope. These antagonists signify intolerable
abnormality and unthinkable transgression; from the problematic portrayal of Caliban in
Shakespeares Jacobean play The Tempest to the horror of Frankensteins reanimated
creature, the monster endures as an image of fear and outright disgust representing the
extreme societal fears of the cultures in which they were produced. According to Noel
Carroll, fictional monsters represent apparent disturbances of the natural order (Carroll 16)
and seem to be regarded not only as inconceivable but also unclean and disgusting
(Carroll 21), yet these figures arguably provoke as much delight as disgust and as much
fascination as terror.

Importantly, the monster also confronts us with the fragile nature of human normality and the
artificiality of social structures which rest on excluding the Other. They provoke extreme
reactions from characters in texts so much so that the reader of Frankenstein or The
Tempest is left to ponder whether the monsters of these literary works are indeed the real
barbarians. In pondering this we are left to reflect on the essential questions of what makes a
monster, and who decides what a monster is, for it is certainly true that both Caliban and
Frankensteins Creation are highly sensitive and inherently humane beings who the reader
comes to understand and empathise with. Indeed, the slave Caliban, in Shakespeares late
drama The Tempest, is the bearer of what are the plays, arguably even Shakespeares, most
richly poetic lines, yet is severely abused and maltreated by civilised Europeans throughout
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the text. They view him simplistically as a barbaric subhuman Thing of Darkness (V.i.275)
fit to be merely exploited for his innocence and naivety only because of his inherent physical
difference from the rest of the human characters in the play. Shelleys Frankenstein
features a villain who depicts the 19th century publics fears of the growing power of science.
Shelley, who, in this original work founded the genre of science fiction, (Marsh 207)
sketches the Gothic image of a monster composed of human parts who threatens society with
violent vengeance. However, the wretch in this novel is not only literally, but also
figuratively generated by human actions. Human behaviour in both works proves that the true
barbarian may not necessarily be the monster presented in the texts. Initially these literary
figures seem to be wicked savages deceitful yet eloquent, but perhaps they are victims turned
villains by societal fears of the Other.

Jeffrey Cohens Monster Theory; Reading Culture has had a sizable influence on the study
of monster studies since it was published in 1996. In the opening essay entitled Monster
Culture (Seven Theses), Cohen critically assesses classic and modern horror genres and
presents seven theses toward understanding cultures through the monsters they bear, noting
how the monstrum is etymologically that which reveals or that which warns (Cohen 19).
The first thesis, The Monsters body is a cultural body outlines how monsters are products
of the cultures and eras in which they are created, for the monstrous body is pure culture.
As such, they embody certain cultural anxieties, as well as incorporating the prejudices,
desires and fantasies of a particular social context. Both Shakespeare and Shelley, whether
consciously or unconsciously, formed their antagonists in such a remarkably rich and
suggestive way as to represent the fears that haunted the collective unconsciousness of the
societies which spawned them. Shakespeares romance, for instance, arguably displays his
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anxiety for the consequences of colonial exploration overseas. As has been noted by various
commentators, ideas from Michel de Montaignes essay Of Cannibals, and his reflections
on civilisation and barbarism have clearly influenced The Tempest (Charry
107). Montaigne describes the barbarous horror in the practices of New World cannibals as
they roast and eat dead men, images which would be shocking and utterly horrifying to
European civilisation, yet he does so only to question European practices of "tearing a body
limb from limb by racks and torments." In doing so Montaigne challenges the Renaissance
tendency to link morality and civilisation to ethnicity, race and religion (Charry 107).
Shakespeare would have been aware of tales of encounters with the natives of newly
discovered lands, yet influenced by his reading of Montaigne he adapts and subverts standard
cultural tropes concerning savages when creating the creature Caliban, whose name may even
derive from the word cannibal, though as Brinda Charry ironically notes, we see him eating
nothing more bloody than berries, fruit and fish (Charry 52). Although labelled throughout
the play as a bestial and vulgar monster by the Europeans, Shakespeares portrayal of
Caliban is nuanced and he presents to us a profound and complex personality who fills us
with repulsion and dismay even as he moves us; who makes a mockery of stereotypes as
much as he reinforces them (Charry 54). The behaviour towards Caliban by more civilised
characters, on the other hand, is problematic and has been the subject of much post-colonial
criticism over the last sixty years (Charry 125). Prominent among these problematic
portrayals is of Prospero, who signals to the reader the barbaric behaviour of those who
appear civilised, yet, ironically, it is this very character who can be interpreted as monstrous
in the way he reveals certain unsavoury aspects of the Colonial enterprise and as such he
serves as a warning character. First he exploits the nave native puppy-headed monster
Caliban to discover all the secrets of the island; next he seizes it, enslaves Caliban, and
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condemns him to years of cruel torment and torture. Perhaps Shakespeare is showing and
warning readers that the true barbaric brutes might be the ones that seem
sophisticated. Among a certain liberal, educated and humanistic segment of society it may
well have been the fear that in the name of civilisation we commit crimes and acts of cruelty
more barbarous than those of the cannibals; that the reality is that we ourselves, as
Europeans, as Montaigne states are no less barbarians than the cannibals.

Shelleys a cautionary tale provides what Anne K. Mellor calls a feminist critique of
science (Marsh 231). Science experienced many breakthroughs in the 19th century, yet in so
doing provoked numerous ethical questions concerning interference with nature, and the
dangers, uses and abuses of knowledge (Marsh 110). Frankensteins creature becomes
irrepressible and uncontrollable, posing an existential threat to mankind in the process.
Shelleys father, the radical philosopher William Godwin expressed an interest in earthly
immortality in his influential Political Justice (1793), and explored the idealism of life
extension in his Gothic novel St Leon (1799). His daughters fascination with this topic led
her years later to create her famous monster to rebut her fathers earlier optimism by pointing
to the alarming possible consequences of life extension and immortality. Beside the image of
a dead being coming back to life, Shelley portrays the image of a mentally unstable scientist
who is blinded by his ambition to reverse death. Victor, an unstable lunatic, is unable to
consider and comprehend the outcome of his unnatural experiment. He abandons the liminal
figure he gave life to, and believes his denial of the monsters existence will eliminate the
outcome of his highly irresponsible experiment. Yet as Cohens fifth thesis, The Monster
Polices the Borders of the Possible attests, left to his own devices and lying in a position at
the limits of knowing the created monster stands as a warning for those who venture into
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places that do not belong to them and where curiosity is more often punished than
rewarded (Cohen 12). The disturbing narrative of the deranged and reckless scientist Victor
Frankenstein who hubristically sees himself as a modern day Promethean joined with that of
his abominable creation shocks and warns the 19th century reader of what lies ahead if
reckless scientific experimentation were to remain ungoverned and unchecked.

Absent parents in the lives of Caliban in The Tempest and the fiend in Frankenstein is
one largely overlooked factor which arguably contributes to the monsters that they come to
be identified as. Each of these figures is defined by their relationships or lack thereof; both
have difficult births and later are shunned by surrogate father-figures and as a result of these
traumatic episodes are each deeply marked psychologically by a constitutive lack which both
feel at the heart of their being. Furthermore, it is for these very reasons that both characters
are sympathetic ones who the reader sympathises with. Through no real fault of their own
they are marked at birth as being irrevocable outsiders and consequently condemned to
hostile fates. For Prospero, Caliban is A Devil, a borne Devil, on whose Nature / Nurture
can never stick (IV.i 188), and he has been marked thus since birth, A freckled Whelp,
Hag-borne. (I.ii. 283) Brinda Charry remarks that such colourful language clearly signifies
to the audience that he should be associated with the bestial, as well as suggesting a
grotesque hybridity which signals his immoral state and his unnatural birth. Through
doing so Shakespeare places Caliban within the romance tradition where evil within is
represented by ugliness without (Charry 53). For Anne K Mellor, From a feminist
viewpoint, Frankenstein is a book about what happens when a man tries to have a baby
without a woman (Mellor 45). When reading with the view that Victor is the creatures
father, it can be argued that the lack of love and acceptance of a family member is what
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results in the creatures villainous actions. From the very instant the wretch opens its dull
yellow eye and faces his creator with his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips it is
evident that Victor is repulsed by his created catastrophe (F 44). Frankensteins repugnance
is underlined by the fact he doesn't give his creation a name, preferring to use highly
derogatory adjectives and nouns such as: abhorred monster, wretched devil, fiend, and
vile insect to address him instead. Importantly these terms sharply contrast with the
language used to refer to his project before the birth scene in chapter five of the novel. In
chapter four, for example, Victor wonders if he should attempt the creation of a being like
myself and remarks, It was with these feelings that I began the creation of a human being.
(F 40). Yet Victor Frankensteins total failure at parenting (Mellor 46) and the total
rejection of his responsibilities occurs immediately upon the first breath of the being he has
conferred life upon. As Mellor points out rather than clasping his newborn child to his
breast in a nurturing maternal gesture, he rushes out of the room, repulsed by the abnormality
of his creation. And when his child follows him to his bedroom, uttering inarticulate sounds
of desire and affection.reaching out to embrace him, Victor flees in terror, abandoning
his child completely (Mellor 46). From this moment the creature is abandoned and his
misery assured as he is left to fend for himself. Shelleys mother Mary Wollstonecraft, one of
the worlds first feminists, possibly influenced Shelleys perception of what creates evil for in
chapter XI of her famous and overtly feminist tract, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
she states: A great proportion of the misery that wanders, in hideous forms around the
world, is allowed to rise from the negligence of parents.. This idea perfectly captures the
loveless relationship between Victor and the wretched child he refuses to name.

Although some dismiss Calibans absent mother Sycorax as being irrelevant to The Tempest
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and long dead by the time the plays events take place (Thompson 339), she is very much
in the minds of Prospero and her freckld Whelp (I.ii.283) Caliban as she hovers over their
power struggle as evidenced in Calibans aggressive claim, This Islands mine by Sycorax
my Mother, / Which thou takst from me (I.ii. 330-331). Prospero, however, solely defines
the readers image of Sycorax as it is from him that she is described in detail (Caliban merely
refers to her in passing throughout the play). Caliban is likely to also be influenced by
Prosperos denigrating portrayal of the fowl witch (I.ii.258) since this is probably all he has
heard about his mother throughout the past twelve years. Sycorax, we are informed, was not
only damnd but also was grown into a Hoop (I.ii.259) from old age and bitterness. If a
parent is supposed to serve as an inadvertent model for their child, it is logical that Caliban
who Prospero labels a bastard (V.i.272) not honoured with a human shape (I.ii.283-284)
becomes the monster that his mother is said to have been especially as the surrogate father he
is rebelling against abhors her. If the parental example set for Caliban is that of a mischievous
outcast as repulsive as his mother is said to be, he is likely to become degenerate himself.
Nevertheless, when Prospero first arrived on the island, Caliban was taken into Prosperos
family and treated with Humane Care (I.ii.345). Prospero, we are informed by Caliban,
strokst and made much of me, (I.ii.332) though this may well have been a ruse by the
cynical European to exploit the natives knowledge of the island. Prosperos daughter
Miranda pitied Caliban and taught him the civilising gift of language (I.ii.351-356). Of this
earlier time together Caliban declares then I lovd thee implying that there was love and
mutual respect at the beginning (I.ii.335). However, after an alluded to event where Caliban
seems to have attempted to rape Miranda, the character is penalised with enslavement and
redefined as a monster. While the incident between Miranda and Caliban clearly motivates
Prosperos treatment of the character, it is unclear how severe the situation had been and it
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may be that the torture Caliban endures is incommensurate to the magnitude of the incident.
Furthermore, there is a possibility to perceive the event as a difference in culture for without
his deceased mother Caliban has grown up a child of nature. Again, we see how the absence
of a maternal presence in the text contributes to the creation of this monster.

Both Frankensteins wretch and Caliban develop a lust for vengeance after being rejected by
humanity. In The Tempest, Caliban jumps at the opportunity to betray his master when he
meets other Europeans who have landed on the enchanted island. The drunken comic duo of
Stephano and Trinculo open a window for Caliban to have his revenge for the severe
maltreatment and theft he was forced to endure. Both Italians instantly emphasise Calibans
physical divergence, and immediately categorise him as an abominable Monster though
Trinculo is quick to realise that Caliban is A very weak/Monster..A Most poor/credulous
Monster, in good sooth (II.ii.153-155). Montaigne states in his essay Of Cannibals, These
nations then seem to me to be so far barbarous, as having received but very little form and
fashion from art and human invention, and consequently to be not much remote from their
original simplicity., affirming how non-Europeans are evaluated through western views of
beauty, intelligence and sophistication. Stephano and Trinculo trigger a critical reader to
question the superiority and civilisation of these Europeans, when in addition to their
inappropriate drunkenness; they desire to exhibit the islander for a piece of silver.
Contrastingly, Calibans original virtuous nature is revealed when he describes events
following Prosperos arrival on the Island where he showed Prospero all the qualities o th
isle. Not only does this hospitable behaviour contrast to the unfitting behaviour of the
drunken duo, it also contrasts to the cold materialism of Europe displayed by Antonio
usurping and exiling his brother. Calibans welcome disproves the European opinion of his
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vulgar and villainous nature. Contrarily Prospero shows not to have learned from Calibans
welcome or his past experiences in Milan when he follows in his treacherous brothers
footsteps by seizing the island from its rightful ruler Caliban who responds to these years of
torment, torture, and treason in a valid and human way, discrediting the initial assumption
that he is the plays sole monster.

The creature in Frankenstein is likewise immediately rejected by all humans he meets. His
father shows nothing but disgust and repulsion from their first encounter, and so does the De
Lacey family he later meets. These humans also base their judgements on a societal fear of all
that is foreign and physically Other, Though they only see what is outside of the monster,
no effort is made to hide their utter repugnance, and through this prejudicial reaction the
novels human characters are controversial figures since their level of sophistication is
questionable. Especially after Shelley uses the monsters narrative to create sympathy for
the unnamed creature through presenting timeless feelings of loneliness and exclusion
relatable to any reader, allowing them to identify with, and understand the creature.
Furthermore, Victors increasing insanity and recklessness leads to readers distancing
themselves from this madman. After the creatures eloquently reasoned narrative, the reader
empathises with this supposed villain, while loathing the lunatic who created and vilifies him.
Thus the identity of the storys true monster becomes radically ambiguous and open to
interpretation.

In conclusion, Shakespeares famous lines in Macbeth, fair is foul and foul is fair, neatly
encapsulates the depiction of monsters in these texts. Those who at first seem virtuous may
have many more vices than those who seem villainous. While views of what is monstrous
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have developed and morphed throughout history, the underlying cultural logic behind them
remains the same. The Other is a figure to be feared since this character is a threatening
outsider to society. However, a critical reader identifies that what distinguishes these
representations is their physical difference, not their inherent nature since the nature of
civilised humans in these works is often more vengeful and vulgar than that of their
antagonists. While monsters reflect the anxieties of certain epochs, they can also be perceived
as timeless mirrors representing tensions and flaws in society serving as a warning for readers
not to assume the worst when confronted with something perceivably different from the
norm.

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