A_Tale_of_Two_Monsters

To many, the worlds of Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Mary Shelley’s Nineteenth century novel Frankenstein would appear to share little beyond affection for the macabre and the unexplainable. Yet, the popular show about a teenage girl who battles the forces of darkness confronts many of the same issues that Shelley addressed in Frankenstein. Whedon uses a popular and imaginative genre to address complex and philosophical issues much in the same way Shelley asks critical questions about the morality of science and our relationship with our creator. Romantic ideology expresses an admiration for the male hero who struggles with opposing forces in his psyche. The conflicting pulls of social and antisocial impulses, emotional and intellectual concepts as well as nature versus technology, which often manifests in the ‘demons’ that haunt him. For Shelley’s Victor and Whedon’s Buffy, these ‘demonic’ forces come to life in the complexities of their relationships with Victor’s Monster and Buffy’s nemesis turned ally turned paramour Spike. Shelley’s novel tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young man from an aristocratic and loving (if somewhat passive) Genovese family. Victor’s family includes his father, brothers and an adopted, much loved “cousin/sister” Elizabeth; the reader quickly learns that it was the “fondest hope” of Victor’s late mother that Victor and Elizabeth eventually marry. However, when Victor goes to the University at Ingolstadt, he indulges in his interest in alchemy and medieval science, feverishly, furtively attempting to create life. When his experiment is successful, he is repulsed by the “demonical corpse to which [he] had so miserably given life” (Shelley, 43). He immediately runs in terror from the laboratory. The now-living creature, horrifically made from materials gained from the “dissecting room and slaughter-house” (Shelley, 39), is left to negotiate an unfamiliar and unfriendly world without the guidance of his creator. Whedon’s series tells the story of Buffy Summers, a young woman who has been chosen in a long line of Slayers to be the Slayer, the one who fights the demons and takes back the night. She happens to be a fashion conscious young woman who has struggled against her destiny. Apocalyptic battles not withstanding, Buffy desperately craves a normal life but is often thwarted at every turn by destiny. She finally comes to terms with her life as a Slayer only to have a mystical energy being become her sister and lose her mother to a brain aneurysm. Buffy resorted to running away once at the end of the show’s second season to escape the overwhelming burdens on her, but she returned. At the end of the show’s fifth season, Buffy performed the ultimate sacrifice by taking her sister’s place in the portal and ending her own life so the world could be saved. She left behind a devastated cadre of friends and the vampire who loved her, even though she was repulsed by his affections. ‘The Gift’ was a pinnacle episode in many ways, in Whedon’s story, but a key moment included Buffy re-inviting Spike back into her home and trusting him to take care of her sister in the event she died. He told her that she made him feel like a man – when she treated him like that. A man and not a monster, after Buffy’s death, Spike remained with her friends, fighting alongside them and protecting them as best he could. He was lost without her, save for the single purpose he possessed which was to keep the promise he’d made to Buffy. While Buffy was willing to put her faith in Spike, this monster, to protect her sister and beloved friends, Victor selfishly refused to protect his own beloved kin from the monster he created. When the monster demanded a mate, one who could love him and be his companion. Victor was appalled and refused. "I do refuse it, and no torture shall ever extort a consent from me. You may render me the most miserable of men, but you shall never make me base in my own eyes. Shall I create another like yourself, whose joint wickedness might desolate the world! Begone! I have answered you; you may torture me, but I will never consent." (Shelley, 124) Even as the monster argued with him and Victor wavered on this point finally conceding to the monsters pleas. "I consent to your demand, on your solemn oath to quit Europe for ever, and every other place in the neighbourhood of man, as soon as I shall deliver into your hands a female who will accompany you in your exile." (Shelley, 127) This concession on Victor’s part was equally selfish for he simply wished to be rid of this creature that had murdered his brother and represented his vile experiments. What is a man' What is a monster' Shelley defined her monster as a creature that was created from parts. He lacked the fundamental ability to tell right from wrong or the social skills that we all develop in childhood to serve us as adults. Shelley’s monster, in many ways a child, developed as abandoned children often do. Whedon’s definition appears on the surface to be far more clear-cut. He defines his characters as souled or not. Demons, in the buffyverse, have no souls. The soul is the moral Geiger counter in Buffy’s world, allowing humans to have the ability to choose. It would seem that the demons have no such ability – or do they' While this argument may be debated at some length, the simple premise of the Whedon created universe exists to allow Buffy to see things in Black and White. Those Black and White visions are challenged in the series sixth season following Buffy’s resurrection as her closest friend becomes an enemy and her once worst enemy becomes her lover. Shelley defined her monster through his journey as well as his interactions with others. The monster described his awakening as: "It is with considerable difficulty that I remember the original era of my being: all the events of that period appear confused and indistinct. A strange multiplicity of sensations seized me, and I saw, felt, heard, and smelt, at the same time; and it was, indeed, a long time before I learned to distinguish between the operations of my various senses. By degrees, I remember, a stronger light pressed upon my nerves, so that I was obliged to shut my eyes…” (Shelley, 84). The monster described his journeys and his infatuation with the family DeLacey. Their rejection pained him and that pain spurred him to seek out his creator. Spike’s journey began in the second season episode “School Hard.” (2x03) He was presented as a one hundred year old vampire who had killed two previous slayers. His devotion to his paramour Drusilla was absolute and they were described by the Judge in the episode “Innocence” as “reeking of humanity and affection.” (“Innocence,” 2x14). His journey continued through a bout with paralysis and the loss of his paramour to her creator and the Slayer’s lover Angelus. Spike spent the majority of the season in a wheelchair, watching and waiting until the season finale where he allied himself with the Slayer in an attempt to reclaim his lover and vanquish the Slayers enemies. (“Becoming Part 1 and 2,” 2x21 and 2x22) Shelley involved her readers with the Monster’s tale as he relates his experiences to Victor. The monster’s descriptions are filled with the plethora of raw sensations that overcame him as he struggled to adapt to his ‘existence.’ Juxtaposing his affection for the DeLaceys is the raw rage he experiences toward Victor as they reject him for being a hideous creature. “Who can describe their horror and consternation on beholding me' Agatha fainted; and Safie, unable to attend to her friend, rushed out of the cottage. Felix darted forward, and with supernatural force tore me from his father, to whose knees I clung: in a transport of fury, he dashed me to the ground and struck me violently with a stick. I could have torn him limb from limb, as the lion rends the antelope. But my heart sunk within me as with bitter sickness, and I refrained. I saw him on the point of repeating his blow, when, overcome by pain and anguish, I quitted the cottage and in the general tumult escaped unperceived to my hovel.” (Shelley, 115) He fled the rejection from these genial folk he called his protectors. And thus was his rage for the one who made him and abandoned him born. Spike left the canvas, returning briefly in season 3 for a single episode where the viewers discovered that his alliance with the Slayer ended his relationship with paramour Drusilla. Fourth season, Spike returned once more. This time, his goals were simple and straightforward. He would kill the Slayer once and for all, but before he could accomplish his task he was captured by the Initiative and implanted with a microchip. (“The Initiative,” 4x07) Just as Shelley invited her readers to understand the creature, the awful “other” that we are initially repelled by so did Whedon invite the viewer to follow Spike’s story as this vicious, blood thirsty demon was neutered by the chip and rendered less than he was before. The transition for him was shocking and painful because the chip prevented his ability to attack humans without experiencing excruciating pain. Left to depend on the very people he wanted to kill, Spike struggled against this fate going so far as to ally himself with the creation “Adam.” Adam was the project of the same doctor that implanted the chip in Spike’s brain and in many ways pays homage to the original Frankenstein myth as he was comprised of demonic and human parts. He killed his creator because unlike the original “Monster,” Adam possessed the knowledge and technology to create more like himself. (“The I in Team,” 4x13.) The admiration Spike has felt for Buffy over the years came into play during the final showdown between the Slayer and Adam. Never one to stick with a losing side, Spike helped the gang fend off the demons because the chip was inactive against them. As his journey continued into seasons 5 and 6, we see Spike’s metamorphosis which travels the same paths of the romantic hero describe by poets like Wordsworth and Byron. They persisted in the view that the romantic hero was a lonely, sensitive and often misunderstood crusader against the injustices of fate and cruelty of man. Spike, a soulless demon as defined by Whedon’s rules, grew into that role steadily. This struggle and evolution of character is not visited in Shelley’s monster save to his references to reading Paradise Lost. His moral code was shaped by his observations and eventually by the painful interactions. Spike survived for more than a hundred years before this metamorphosis and in this, he has an advantage that Shelley’s Monster didn’t. The advantage of experience, for the Monster, every interaction was new and fraught with wonder and eventually terror. For Spike, his journey was adjustment from one life to another. The monster expressed his pain as he told Victor of the lessons he learned. "Other lessons were impressed upon me even more deeply. I heard of the difference of sexes; and the birth and growth of children; how the father doted on the smiles of the infant, and the lively sallies of the older child; how all the life and cares of the mother were wrapped up in the precious charge; how the mind of youth expanded and gained knowledge; of brother, sister, and all the various relationships which bind one human being to another in mutual bonds.” (Shelley, 101) The Monster expressed his loss and ultimately the source of his pain and confusion, a pain and confusion he suffered because of his creator’s abandonment. During season 6, following Buffy’s resurrection, her violent depression and loss of self drove her into a relationship with Spike that turned sexual in nature. (“Smashed,” 6x08) Just as gender roles and expectations have been blurred so the relationship between the creature and creator in Buffy is more complicated. The romantic ideal of Spike with his passionate declarations of love has rarely altered in scope throughout the series. His affection for Buffy developed much to his own horror, but eventually like the monster that desperately craves some purpose, he reconciled himself to it. The raw conflict of their tortured relationship was explored until Buffy ended it with the finality that he was a demon and she couldn’t get past that. (“As You Were,” 6x15) Spike’s confusion mounted as he struggled with this idea of what Buffy wanted. Following a profoundly disturbing encounter where Spike tried to force Buffy to acknowledge their relationship through the uncomplicated format they’d been using with aggressive sex and Buffy rebuffed his attempts. Spike began to question his own morality. “It’s the chip! Steel and wires and silicon! It won’t let me be a monster. And I can’t be a man. I’m nothing.” (“Seeing Red,” 6x19) Spurred on by his burning struggle of conflicts, Spike left Sunnydale to earn back his soul and to become what he believed Buffy deserved. Spike’s reaction to the rejection is remarkably different from the Monster’s reaction to the rejection by the DeLaceys. Spike reacts in a manner of an adult in many ways while his childlike notions and feelings impede the Monster. Successful in his quest, Season 7 begins with Spike’s battling madness as the monster and the man wrestle within his mind. He reveals his transformation to Buffy within the shadowy confines of a chapel. (“Beneath You,” 7x02) Terrified and overwhelmed by the confrontation with her “creation,” Buffy withdraws. She has not abandoned Spike as her predecessor Dr. Frankenstein did when confronted with his creation; however, Buffy must deal with the responsibility of her choices. Spike is now both monster and man because of his devotion to her. When Victor abandoned his creation, he inhumanely sets into motion a series of events he cannot control. When Buffy drove Spike to seek a soul and to better himself, her inhumane behavior left him confused and pained. In many ways, the monsters of both Whedon and Shelley are more sympathetic than their creators. We are lead to understand Victor and Buffy, but we also see what their actions have wrought on others. They have responsibilities to their creations, we know what Victor did, now we must wait to see if Buffy can avoid repeating his mistakes. The truism that both writers have determined through their works is that it matters more about who you are, than what. Works Cited: Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. NY: Penguin Putnam, 2000. “School Hard.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer. WB WBDC, Washington D.C. 30 Sept. 1997 “Innocence.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer. WB WBDC, Washington D.C. 20 Jan. 1998 “Becoming, Part 1.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer. WB WBDC, Washington D.C. 12 May 1998 “Becoming, Part 2.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer. WB WBDC, Washington D.C. 19 May 1998 “The Initiative.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer. WB WBDC, Washington D.C. 16 Nov. 1999 “The I in Team.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer. WB WBDC, Washington D.C. 8 Feb. 2000 “The Gift.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer. WB WBDC, Washington D.C. 22 May 2001 “Smashed.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer. UPN WDCA, Washington D.C. 20 Nov. 2001 “As You Were.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer. UPN WDCA, Washington D.C. 26 Feb. 2002 “Seeing Red.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer. UPN WDCA, Washington D.C. 7 May 2002 “Beneath You.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer. UPN WDCA, Washington D.C. 1 Oct. 2002