FRANKENBRANAGH
Posted by admin on September 20, 2008, 5:15 pm
How should we understand Elizabeth’s self-immolation at the end of the movie?
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Posted by admin on September 20, 2008, 5:15 pm
How should we understand Elizabeth’s self-immolation at the end of the movie?
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September 20th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
Before we can consider the significance of “Elizabeth’s” self-immolation in Kenneth Branagh’s Frankenstein, we must better understand the apparent choices with which she is presented and also consider those choices within the context of the science of the movie.
Perhaps best demonstrated by the premonitions in the novel itself but also true in the film adaptations, there is a clear psychological connection between Victor and his creation. This is because the creature is actually a part of Victor’s being. In the film, immediately following the birthing of the first creature, Victor looks into a mirror and pauses. After which, in obvious distress he proceeds to his room and throws himself down onto the bed. The mirror scene symbolizes that Victor’s consciousness has been fragmented. He has not created life; instead, he has made a doppelganger of himself. It is a wretched part of himself that Victor has turned inside out. He immediately recognizes his alter-ego and abjects the double. This best explains why the creature cannot ever assume a name: Victor Frankenstein already lays claim to his name. Further evidence of this relationship can be deduced from the fact that throughout the rest of the text, nothing and no one is allowed to come between Victor and his creation. And ultimately, “peace” is only restored with the two are reunited in death. It is as though an invisible force, a type of violent magnetism, pulls them together no matter how hard they resist.
If then the creature is part of Victor, the creature will be at best a slightly altered shade of the same hue as Victor. Victor, by transgressing the boundaries of the “natural” order of the universe and creating life without woman, represents the ultimate goals of patriarchal society: the elision of the female altogether. This then explains his psychological blind spot when Victor misinterprets the creature’s threat, “I will be with you on your wedding night.” Victor is not only self-absorbed but also incapable of grasping the significance of the wedding night with its attendant consummation of the marriage. In this context, as Victor’s true mate, the creature is only another representative of the oppressive patriarchal order. The creature wants a mate of his own, to own. It is the creature’s own psychological blind spot, inherited from Victor, which allows for his failure to consider that the female creation might reject him. Because the creature sees woman as only something to be built and possessed, he cannot imagine his mate rejecting him, much less rejecting life altogether.
In this context, we can read the second creature’s self-immolation as the result of being given a choiceless choice and forcing upon the scene a new, third choice: not to play the game at all. In the scene in question, both Victor and the creature compete for the affection of the female creature. Victor, demonstrating the self-absorption consistent with his character, repeatedly asks, “Elizabeth, say my name.” Victor’s fragile identity demands that something outside of him recognize him. It is in the recognition of others recognizing him that he can be sure of his own individuality. And, since the privilege of bringing life into the world has recently been co-opted by Victor, representing patriarchy, the female monster, representing the nameless, powerless masses of women, is only useful as a testament to the superiority of the male ego. In contrast, the first creature’s “You are beautiful” appears to be a welcome alternative to Victor’s pleas for identification. At least his comments acknowledge the first creature’s existence. However, “You are beautiful” is only another way of objectifying the female creature. She is a pretty thing for the creature to have as his own. Recall that Elizabeth’s existence has always been in terms of possession. Victor’s mother jokingly gives “Elizabeth” to Victor, but he takes her quite seriously. Ultimately the female creature realizes that neither Victor nor his doppelganger will allow her an identity separate from them, and so she chooses death over objectification.
I have purposely avoided using “Elizabeth” as the name of the female creature because to do so makes assumptions about the science in the film. We learn in the film that the original creature has abilities that he never “learned.” Specifically he is able to play a flute. Victor dismisses this as mere trace memories from either the brain or the body of the people from which the creature is assembled. However, this is certainly the most relevant question to the creature’s concerns over the existence of his soul. If he is able to recall memories from the mind he inherited—most likely Waldman’s—does he not still have the same mind? Soul? What Victor quickly dismisses as unimportant becomes the very the foundation of his rash attempt to resuscitate “Elizabeth” by attaching her head (and hand?) to Justine’s body. Victor must believe that the mind (and soul?) persists in the body after death; otherwise he would not attempt such an act. If the female creature does possess the memories, and consequently mind and identity, of Elizabeth, then we can view her self-immolation as a rejection of her new fracture form.
It is important to note that both the female creature/Elizabeth and the original creature die in Branagh’s film as a result of self-immolation. In addition, these self-immolations both include the total destruction of fractured bodies. The creature is of course the compilation of many bodies, but he is also burned with his body double and creator, Victor. The female creature/Elizabeth destroys a compilation of Elizabeth and Justine but also the fractured female psyche in a patriarchal society. It is difficult to say if destruction brings about a type of reunification, but it is clear that the pain of fractured existence is overwhelming.
September 21st, 2008 at 11:20 am
Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, and Kenneth Branagh’s film adaptation both fundamentally illustrate an exaggerated situation of what can happen when men become so powerful, that they make women obsolete. Despite the dominant patriarchy of the late 18th century during which this movie is set, women still had some power, though not political or economic, over family operations—namely creating and sustaining a family with love. Elizabeth’s self-immolation at the end of Branagh’s film represents the absolute powerlessness of women in a world where men have become so powerful that women can no longer even serve their most fundamental purposes of reproduction and love.
When Victor creates another human being, he removes the one guaranteed power (or purpose) held by women: reproduction. His creature is a result of his mind, science, and is driven by his own selfish desires to play G-d. The special bond women forge with their child in the womb carries throughout that child’s life. Without a womb, or a mother, all the creature has is a father who abandons him for dead, and has made no effort to bond with him because he is an ugly consequence of pure selfishness. At the end of the film, the born-again Elizabeth recognizes not only what this creature represents, but also what she herself has come to represent. She has come back to life because of the selfish mind of Victor, a man. Her ugly appearance signifies the ugliness of the overbearing male desire to control every aspect of life, even those traditionally attributed to women. Men cannot produce “normal” children, because it is simply not normal. Seeing that the credit for her reproduction goes to a man, she has no choice but to self-immolate because she sees that women have lost even their most basic function as human beings.
Elizabeth represents the “ideal woman” of the time during which the film is set because she is the heart of the family unit while Victor is supposed to be the head. Her life revolves around keeping her family happy by showering love and devotion upon everyone after the death of their former “heart,” Caroline Frankenstein, dies. She distracts Victor’s father, Victor, William, and Justine from their sadness through frivolities such as dancing and picnics. She always has an optimistic outlook on life, no matter how dismal the circumstances may seem—like when she tells Victor that she wants to “bring life back into the house” again by becoming his wife. When the creature Victor creates kills Elizabeth by ripping out her heart, it represents how the loss of women is equivalent to the loss of the heart, or life, of the household. Yet, when Victor brings Elizabeth back to life by literally making her heart beat again, he becomes the one bringing life back into the household, thus robbing Elizabeth of her female livelihood.
September 24th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
Well, here’s the evidence of my techno-incompetence. Please see comment under Frankenquestion 2 and pretend it’s here.
October 5th, 2008 at 6:15 pm
The audience should realize that Elizabeth’s self-immolation at the end of Kenneth Branagh’s wonderful adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was the only honest choice she could make. While it is true that she was living once again and could continue the romantic relationship with her lover, Victor Frankenstein, or live a new life with Frankenstein’s hideous monster, these were not by any means promising and pleasant routes to take. Before dying and being brought back to life again by Victor, Elizabeth had an exquisite relationship with him. While it was definitely not a flawless one, they were seen by society as a lovely couple. Victor was a strong, intelligent man, while Elizabeth was a gorgeous, sensitive woman. However, once living again, Elizabeth was no longer that strikingly beautiful woman who could be noticed in a crowd of hundreds with her wonderful dark features and lively eyes. Realizing that she has the same hideous appearance as Frankenstein’s monster, the “new” Elizabeth knows that she will still stand out in a crowd but for the completely opposite reasons. To society, she would be a monster, regardless of how Victor saw her or how good of a woman she still was. Elizabeth knew exactly what would come in the future if she went on living because she saw how society treated Frankenstein’s monster. She would be shunned by the world, maybe even killed again. Victor would have to hide her in the attic as if she was some sort of dark secret. That is no way to live and she knew this.
As Elizabeth touches her face, feeling out all the grotesque scars she now has, tears break pass her eyes and her lips quiver with horror. The audience should pay particular attention to this scene because it is what determines Elizabeth’s final fate as a living being. She stares back at Frankenstein, not with love and thanks, but with anger and hatred. Elizabeth blames him for waking her from her eternal sleep and bringing her back as a deformed being. She is through with Victor and knows that Victor’s monster is her other alternative. She sees the monster as perhaps uglier and more awful than herself and could not bear starting a life with him because not only does she not love him, but she would no longer live in the same society she is used to but in a dark, secluded setting with absolutely no other contact but the monster. Obviously, living as a “monster” with Victor Frankenstein or his monster are not flattering choices at all, so she must take her only other alternative, which is her self-immolation.