I was always familiar with “It’s alive!” and a large green man. I assumed the story was his narrative entirely, and of course that his own name was Frankenstein. Instead we have a monster, human in every aspect besides his creation, desperate for his creator to feel in accordance with the joy he imagines himself to be capable of. Both characters demand that the reader engage in the “who’s at fault for the other’s dejection” debate.
Even in indelible absence, Victor and the monster plague each other’s existence, both seeming to exist in excess. Victor’s volatile emotions become a constituent element of his persona, exceeding Mary Shelley’s portrayal. Similarly, the monster appears to others, and the reader, as overwhelming overflow from his own representational confinement. This renders the monster unintelligible, and therefore