Incredible indeed!

Ridiculous is apparently key today. So since I have been bombarded by psychological themes from other classes, we shall proceed in this fashion to analyze Frankenstein. I'm sorry to say have to break it to everyone that Frankenstein is probably a brilliant psychopath in disguise. According to the first definition that popped up on Google, a psychopath can be defined as, "an individual with no superego or conscience; because of this deficit, the person often engages in extensive antisocial behavior."

Ah yes, Frankenstein the psychopath. It makes absolute sense! First of all, the man seems to have no REAL problem with grave robbing and disrespecting the dead, as he disregarded all moral dilemmas a normal person (but what is "normal"?... a topic for another day) rather quickly. True, he is a scientist, but how many people do you know that could handle hacking away at the corpses he stole from graves of people's loved ones for months, possibly years at a time without a complete nervous breakdown? In fact, Frankenstein does not seem to really realize the atrocity of his actions until the daemon is alive and well. For all we know, the creation of the daemon could be a byproduct of his true desire to just inflict damage and harm on human flesh (alive or not).

The extensive antisocial behavior is also shown in Frankenstein's regular self-imposed bouts of depressing isolation. The man just could not seem to handle being around people! Although much of his desires for isolation came about after the daemon's animation, the daemon could have just become the easy excuse in his mind to finally explicitly say "I WANT TO BE ALONE." The pressures of being around such a lovely and perfect family could have finally gotten to Frankenstein as well, cracking his tediously pieced together facade of a jubiliant, flawless individual.

I don't know if it's the Freud getting to me in my class or not, but I wonder if Frankenstein also suffers from an unresolved childhood Oedipus complex. It did indeed mention that he was the pride and joy of his parents, and it's logical that his mother would shower him with endless love and attention. Perhaps Frankenstein never quite made the transition from seeing his mother as his love object to another female. Since his mother dies, so dies his hopes for love, and by association "happiness." This can be a pretty hard pill to swallow, and it occurs right before he goes off to the university, where the daemon's construction begins. The trauma of losing his mother, the potential love of his life could have been the straw that broke the camel's back, releasing him of a superego's hold and causing him to lead the curiously twisted life of a psychopath.

Overall though, I say Frankenstein is a brilliant psychopath because he plays it off so well and using the daemon as the scapegoat for all his actions that would otherwise be deemed insane. For all we know, he could have committed the murders against his beloved (who he could secretly hate for their perfection) and just sworn "The giant monster did it!" He takes on the role of victim too easily, too smoothly and too conveniently. Bravo for the ingenuity but a cold shudder if it should all be true.