Reflection_1.1: Reflection on Chap.21-23 + Anagnorisis & Catastrophe

Thinking in retrospect, this painting makes a lot more sense, having read the chapter more thoroughly. Now I finally know what that horse means! However, the goblin and the woman are much more closely related to Frankenstein than the horse.
 

Wow. I would have never guessed that this poem was likely a projection of the painter's unrequited sexual feelings towards a woman that he liked.

 Catastrophe and anagnorisis plague these chapter as Elizabeth and Henry have their lives taken away by the monster. When Victor discovers that the monster has robbed Henry of his life, he becomes overwhelmed by the emotions of grief and despair. These feelings quickly transform into hate as soon as he realizes that the monster did this only to make him feel his suffering. This shows us that the monster most likely did this in order to bring Victor down to his level. The monster felt like he was a creation born to be aborted and shunned. Living like a pariah, he could never achieve the same happiness that Victor appeared to experience. To the monster, Henry seemed to infuse Victor with hope and happiness. So, the monster thought that if he brought Victor to face the same despair that he was living in, then he would begin to truly know what he was feeling. However, this is still not enough for the monster. He wants to bring something worse than this catastrophe to Victor.

With a looming threat from the monster that he will visit Victor on wedding night, Victor is extremely nervous. The monster's threat suggests that the monster wanted Victor to feel like this so that he could torture his emotions. It's simply more pleasure for the monster as he watches all of the events unfold. Part of our desires when we are experiencing grief is that we wish that someone else could feel what we're going through. Some people can be so sadistic and cruel that they will go so far as to bring harm to them in order to make them feel their suffering first-hand. The monster shows us that he is one of these sadistic and cruel beings by treatening Victor (and ultimately carrying out the threat).

Upon wedding night, Victor is with his wife in their honeymoon cabin. Victor is so consumed with dread and fear that he asks Elizabeth to leave the cabin for a little bit so that he can face the monster alone. Then a moment of great anagnorisis occurs and Victor realizes that it was his wife that the monster was going to confront. He realizes that the monster didn't want to kill him because (in the words of Bane) his punishment must be more severe. Thus, Victor is completely stunned and shocked at the horror that he witnesses when he sees his wife dead. Mary Shelley slyly referenced Fuseli's Nightmare when she was describing how Elizabeth laid on the bed. "She was there, lifeless and inanimate, thrown across the bed, her head hanging down, and her pale and distorted features half covered by her hair." (Chap.23) Another inference about the painting's relationship to Frankenstein is that the goblin resembles the monster in that it carries an expression on its face that seems to tell me that it killed the woman and subsequently felt no remorse. Upon discovering the death of his only beloved, Victor is overtaken by emotions of grief, despair, and anger. Even yet, his tragedy goes even further as his father dies of shock when he hears of this grave news. Victor's pain is so severe because he is unable to tell anyone, so he finally decides to reveal to the world of the monster's existence. Adding to his angst, nobody believes him and they scoff at him. This is the salt in the wound. It truly makes us sorry that nobody will believe in the monster's existence besides Victor, the monster, and the readers. When someone denies the existence of your own problems, it brings you an emotion that is reserved for those in the most extreme anguish. What could be more agonizing than the fact that no one will believe in you, and therefore cannot even sympathize with you?