The simple answer is yes. Without Chapter Five, the novel probably wouldn’t have been published. The publishers would no doubt have objected. I mean to say, you can’t just publish a novel with gaps, and if Chapter Five wasn’t there then of course there would be a gap between Chapters 4 and 6. You can’t just flow from the former into the latter – even numbers simply don’t work next to each other! It’s just one of those things. Chapter Five is an essential part of the structure of the novel. And not only that. Chapter Five is more than significant. Chapter Five is key. It’s like this:
Many moons ago, in 1818, the young wife of romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley published her first novel. Officially Gothic Horror and attributed to a certain Mr. Anonymous, Frankenstein was an instant success. Copies sold like hot cakes, the ideas portrayed in the novel became national idiom and, once she revealed herself as the true authoress, Mary Shelley was placed right up there with Jane Austen as instrumental in establishing women’s right to write.
But how on earth did such a sweet and loveable girl succeed not only in capturing the heart of a leading poet but also in chilling the flesh of every member of the British reading public, turning their bone-marrow to water and at the same time scaring them out of their wits? And yes, she was a formidable romancer. While only eighteen she had charmed Percy Shelley so much that he eloped with her, causing his current wife to commit suicide. Or maybe it was just Shelley’s habits after all – I mean, Mary’s half-sister came along on the honeymoon as well and by all accounts enjoyed it very much. What fun.
So, how did she’succeed at both, I mean. Many, many people persist, persevere and pledge that Frankenstein was written as a timely warning and much needed advice to pre-Victorian society. They are wrong. In fact, they are making mountains out of molehills, talking through their hats and generally crediting Mary Shelley with more tar than the most particular ship would need to save it from spoiling.
For Frankenstein was no idle wandering of a socially-conscious imagination: no embellished essay upon the dangers of science. No. Frankenstein was the direct brainchild of inspiration, but not naturally inspired inspiration. Opium inspired inspiration. Coleridge, Shelley, Byron and all that gang were great lads for drugs. Their works – poetry and prose – originated mostly during the height of their opium-fuelled orgies. With the risk of giving offence, I suggest that they were not literately gifted personalities; they just used literately gifted drugs…? Certainly some of their most famous creations (Don Juan, Rime of the Ancient Mariner) are pretty clearly out of this world.
The idea for Frankenstein germinated from a little competition run between friends Lord Byron, the Shelleys (Percy and Mary) and Dr. John Polidori. Bored with life in 19th Century Switzerland they decided, in the nicest way possible, to try to scare the socks off each other. Traditional ghost stories went by the board and, when not asleep, eating, smoking or drinking, they forced their addled brains to devise monstrosities calculated to put terror into the heart of any man. And Mary succeeded. Contrary and keen horticulturalist she may be, but when it came to pure, revolting, horrific and terrible ghastliness she rose notches and more above the crowd. Published two years later, substantially revised in 1831 and now the basis for many films, plays and novels Frankenstein, from the fermenting imagination of a teenage drug addict, has become a somewhat international phenomena.
Gothic it is called and gothic it is, but from its start until about Chapter Three the casually perusing reader would be easily excused for imagining Frankenstein to be a charming little adventure story. Talk of slow starts! The use of Captain Walton as a primary narrator was a stroke of (dare I say it?) genius. Basically, Captain Walton is – in his own words – ‘a workman to execute with perseverance and labour’ who has set his heart on ‘going to unexplored regions, to ‘the land of mist and snow’…” Thus he is similar to Victor Frankenstein, the novel’s hero, who has similarly set his life towards an exhaustive goal: life.
Mary Shelley basically uses Walton as a shirt press. She places Frankenstein’s narration in the middle of the novel as the shirt and then pops Walton’s on top of it to smooth out any wrinkles and make the text more wearable. But so much more could have been made of all the protagonists’ similarities, the differences between science and nature and ultimately preparation for the inevitable clash of friendly and gothic atmospheres. But that was not to be. Instead Mrs. Shelley chose to preface the action with such a wealth of elaborated boredom that absolutely any plot action creates considerable relief and the high drama she could have created at the start of Chapter Five is lost to the world. What a pity.
In all honesty, it really is quite disappointing. In Chapter Five she has the most wonderful plot matter (if you like that sort of thing) and yet it is, in my opinion, rather sloppily handled. For Chapter Five is the time for the pinnacle of action and the moment of truth; time for the heights of excitement and moment of revelation… Time for the monster. Key to the text and instrumental in creating the book itself, the creation of the monster in Chapter Five is the nub, crux and pivotal point of the novel; this is where a tale of love and adventure becomes a yarn of tragedy, terror and monstrosities. This is where Dr. Frankenstein creates life.
