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V
While there are only two extended analyses of the Frankenstein manuscripts (Murray; Mellor 57 — 68, 219 — 224) prior to the present one, analyses of the published text, whether the 1818 or the 1831 edition, or both, number in the hundreds. The question now arises, What are the interpretative implications of the analysis of the Last Draft that I have provided? The best way to answer this question is to review two articles which — amidst the sea of interpretation — are lent particular and quite startling support by what may
Rubenstein argues that Frankenstein's concentric narrative arrangement implies a structural central point that is symbolically equivalent to the North Pole — the imagistic focus of Walton's quest and the approximate site of the novel's conclusion. That structural centre is the monster's rendition of Safie's account (in her letters to Felix) of her mother:
The account of Safie's mother occurs in what can be assumed to have been "Chapter 4" of Volume II of the Last Draft — that lengthy chapter towards which (according to my reconstruction of the drafting/copying/revision process) Mary had moved inwards in December 1816 (and in March 1817?); that chapter which seems to have given her particular difficulty to judge from the extant manuscript; and that chapter with which she essentially completed the drafting of Frankenstein. In other words, the theme that Rubenstein abstracts from the published text (with its spiral-like, concentric structure) — Mary's search for her own mother — was enacted by the inward-spiralling movement that characterizes the order in which she actually composed and revised her manuscript.
Although an analysis of "Safie and her unnamed father and mother, the only specifically Oriental personages within the narrative" (256), provides the climax of Joseph W. Lew's article, he devotes considerable space to Oriental elements in Frankenstein, as his projective synopsis (here abbreviated) makes clear:
Lew has not exhausted the Oriental aspects of Frankenstein.[30] Although
In Laon and Cythna the tyrants quickly recover power and the eponymous protagonists suffer the fate that Mary's monster projects for himself: they are burnt to death. In the concluding canto, however, having been resurrected, they travel by canoe with their child to "Elysian islands, bright and fortunate, / Calm dwellings of the free and happy dead" (Complete Poetical Works 262; XII.31, 4727 — 28). (Compare the discarded Elysian framework of Mary's 1819 draft, "The Fields of Fancy," a work which also features incest; it was retitled Mathilda but not published until 1959. Similarly, Lord Verney, the eponymous character who stands in for Mary in her 1826 apocalyptic novel, The Last Man, hopes in conclusion "to moor my worn skiff in a creek, shaded by spicy groves of the odorous islands of the far Indian ocean" [342].)
The "Elysian islands" which surround the Temple of the Spirit are introduced in the symbolic opening canto of Laon and Cythna. The Poet-narrator and his Lady (and the wounded serpent enfolded in her breast) are in a bark:
Which girds the pole, Nature's remotest reign —
And we glode fast o'er a pellucid plain
Of waters, azure with the noontide day.
Ethereal mountains shone around — a Fane
Stood in the midst, girt by green isles which lay
On the blue sunny deep, resplendent far away.
(Complete Poetical Works 125; I: 48, 552 — 558)
Of course, the Chinese-box structure of Frankenstein recalls what might be viewed as an Orientalist literary model — the framed story sequence of a work like the Arabian Nights' Entertainments. As it happens, Frankenstein
What finally needs to be added to Lew's account can only be supplied by the Last Draft of Frankenstein. As insightful as his article is, it does contain at least one significant blind spot, something he could have avoided had he had access to that Last Draft. After reviewing the case for paralleling Mary Shelley and "Walton's silent sister, the mysterious Margaret Saville [my emphases]," Lew points out that "in French . . . 'Saville' is almost homophonous with 'Safie.' Mary Shelley, Margaret Saville, and Safie become images of one another" (282). However, the name variants in the Last Draft, Amina/Maimouna/Safie, indicate quite clearly that it is Arabic pronunciation, not French, that is primarily relevant. All three names are associated with the Prophet Muhammad.
Āmina bint-Wahab was the mother of Muhammad; she died when he was six. Her first name is equivalent to āmina, meaning "peaceful or feeling safe," and to amina meaning "to be or feel safe." The differently pronounced Amīna (most famously the name of Solomon's wife) is the feminine of amīn meaning "honest or trustworthy," and derives from amuna meaning "to be reliable or faithful" (Baker 361). Maimouna is a transliteration of Maymŭnah, the eleventh or thirteenth (if two concubines are counted) and last surviving wife of Muhammad; she was a fifty-one-year-old widow in Mecca when Muhummad married her. Her name, bestowed on her by Muhammad and related to āmina and amīna, and to amuna and ma'mūn (meaning "reliable, trustworthy" [Baker 374]), means "auspicious" or "blessed."[34] Safie is a transliteration of Ṣafiyyah, the ninth wife of Muhammad (whose name means "praiseworthy, possessing fine qualities" [Baker 375]). Ṣafiyyah, who married him when she was eighteen (Mary was only one year older when she married Percy), was the daughter of the chief of the Jewish tribe of Bann Nadir, one of the Prophet's bitterest enemies; she was captured and converted to Islam. In describing "the works of the orientalists," which Frankenstein followed Clerval in reading, Frankenstein mentions "the smiles & [tears cancelled] ˄frowns˄ of a fair enemy" (Volume I, 99; Rieger 64.28) as a typical ingredient. Clearly, Ṣafiyyah was an historical example of such a "fair enemy" and it should be noted that Safie's complexion is "wondrously fair" (in the missing
If Safie's mother and father correspond to Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, and Safie to Mary herself, then Safie's lover, Felix/Muhammad, must correspond to Percy. Apparently Mary viewed Percy as a type of the Prophet. It is of interest to note that Mary read Voltaire's play Mahomet, ou le Fanatisme (1742) on 5 June 1818 (Journals I: 212), and that, in a letter dated 9 August 1830 to the publisher John Murray venturing various topics for his Family Library series, she writes: "A Friend suggested the life of Mahomet" (Letters II: 113). In the absence of that life by Mary, a reader interested in learning more about Āmina, Maymŭnah, Ṣafiyyah, and Muhummad, might well consult Martin Ling's Muhammad (1983), supplemented by al-Shati' Bint's The Wives of the Prophet (1971), and M. H. Zaid's Mothers of the Faithful (1935).
One might still wonder why, of all the names of all Muhammad's wives, Mary should have chosen Amina, Maimouna, and Safie. The answer would appear to be that the names occur (with two slight variations) in a narrative entitled "The Story of the three Calenders, Sons of Kings; and the five Ladies of Bagdad" (Weber I: 32 — 68). This tale sequence is part of "The Arabian Nights' Entertainments" which occupies most of Volume I of Henry Weber's magisterial 1812 compilation Tales of the East, a title that figures in Mary's reading list for 1815 (Journals I: 92). Volume I concludes with part of "The New Arabian Nights" (the "New Arabian Nights" that Mary records in her 1815 list was apparently the separate edition — with four fewer tales — identified by editors Feldman and Scott-Kilvert as Arabian Tales; or, A Continuation of the Arabian Nights Entertainments, a 1794 translation of a 1793 French translation [Journals I: 88]). Volume II continues with the remainder of "The New Arabian Nights," "The Persian Tales," "Persian Tales of Inatulla of Delhi," and "Oriental Tales." The concluding third volume contains "Mogul Tales," "Turkish Tales," "Tartarian Tales," "Chinese Tales," "Tales of the Genii," and "The History of Abdulla, the Son of Hanif."
The five ladies of Bagdad in "The Story of the three Calenders" (who are the ladies' guests) are sisters; they share the same father but three of them had one mother and the remaining two another. No doubt this narrative made an impression on Mary because of the parallels with her own family situation. Godwin had two wives and five children; he was father to two of them and stepfather to the other three. In the story sequence, of the three sisters
The second volume of Tales of the East includes "The History of the Birth of Mahomet" (Weber II: 616 — 631), among the "Oriental Tales." In this four-tale sequence, the yet-to-be-born Mahomet selects one Zesbet to be his mother and renames her "Aminta" (Weber II: 630), a corruption of Amina. A daughter takes on the new identity of a mother; and Mahomet, as the source of the name of that new identity, seeks to incestuously sire himself (his "real" father in fact died before he was born). To the extent that the monster is Frankenstein's double, Frankenstein too might be said to incestuously sire himself. The name "Zesbet" has elements in common with the name "Elizabeth" and may have been a source. Whether it was or not, the relationship between Zesbet and Aminta, like that between Elizabeth and Amina/Safie (or that between Elizabeth and Frankenstein's mother) is that of daughter and mother. The alternates Maimouna and Safie (Safiyyah) add the role of wife. To complete the gamut of archetypal female roles, it is only necessary to evoke that of the whore. This Mary Shelley does with her sometime choice (previously noted) of the name "Myrtella" for Elizabeth. As my appendix below reveals, "Myrtella" derives from the name of a mistress and courtesan. These archetypal identities are all dependent on the
This analysis of altered character names (among other matters) has taken us a considerable distance into new areas of fact and of interpretation. Clearly, the Last Draft — and Fair Copy fragments — of Frankenstein have much to teach us about that novel's composition and interpretation beyond the matter of Percy Shelley's input. In fact, few literary manuscripts are quite so revealing. A new stage of Frankenstein scholarship will be initiated by their study.
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