Transhumanism
and Technological Sublime: Bhaya and Karuna in Mary Shelley’s Frankesntein
Abstract:
This paper aims to study transhumanism and technological sublime in Mary
Shelley’s gothic novel Frankenstein to explore the implications of Bhaya and
Karuna rasa in the novel. I am interested in knowing how the creation of
labrotaric male human being creates the horrors of robotic advancement in
Artificial Intelligence. For this, I will be using rasa interpretations.
Especially, I will draw upon ancient notion of Sanskrit Rasa. Thus, this study
will answer the implications of technological transhumant creature in the novel
from the perspective of classical Indian Rasa theory.
Keywords:
rasa, bhaya, karuna, transhuman, supercreautre, technology
Transhumanism is a futuristic
philosophy which celebrates the potential of advanced technologies to augment
human functioning to unprecedented degrees, ushering in a new phase of
‘posthuman’ evolution. Mary Shelley’s creature presents the threat of Artificial
Intelligence. Victor Frankenstein is a
scientist who comes to develop an early seventeenth century AI who can copy
others, learn from reading, a threat to surviving human beings. Philip Ball
writes, “Frankenstein is a warning about a hubristic, overarching science that
unleashes forces it cannot control (The Atlantic).” Frankenstein’s fear presents
the failure to set the control over self-created AIs and robots that could turn
their wrath on their very creators.
Shelley
takes some pains to show that the real problem is not what Victor Frankenstein
made, but how he reacted it. “Now that I had finished,” he says, “the beauty of
the dream vanished, and breathless horror, and disgust filled my heart” (27).
He rejects the hideous wretch he has created, but nothing about that seems
inevitable. What would have happened if Victor had instead lived up to his responsibilities
by choosing to nurture his creature? The bhaya
arisen in Victor’s heart fills the bhaya
in readers as well. The emotional rasa of bhaya
terrorizes the readers about the unprecedented catastrophes of AIs and
technologies. The society’s response to that new creature was disapproving. It
would be shunned by the society because of its extraordinary visage. Thus, now
we come to read Frankenstein from social prejudice and our perceptions of
nature and natural. On the other side, it creates karuna among readers when we find poor creature living unsuccessful
and lonely life. With Victor’s refusal to create a co-partner for his creature,
our pity arises towards the creature. The self-living creature is in desperate
need of someone similar to him who would give his existence an essence. But since,
Victor fears the self-invention of such more creatures who could be catastrophic
to human beings lead the creature more towards a pathetic life.
To condemn Victor for violating
“Mother Nature” with his “unnatural being” seems plan disturbing in the
present. Certainly it bears out complain of British biologist J.B.S. Haldane in
1924, “There is no great invention from fire to flying, which has not been
hailed as an insult to some god. But if every physical and chemical invention
is a blasphemy, every biological invention is a perversion” (quoted in Ball). Modern
scientific developments involve a complex and case-specific chain of events,
and incur a delicate balance of pros and cons showing a lack of foresight to creature’s
future and his role, Victor dejustifies the creature. He perceives the creature
only as the inception of some evil chaos bestowed upon future humanity. Thus,
the self-verified reason transforms the creature into a new superhuman.
Elaine
Graham writes that Digital technologies create new personal and social worlds.
Cybernetics devices are incorporated into the body as prostheses or implants.
The twenty-first century body no longer ends at the skin (2). Victor’s creature
is assemblage of fleshes from different human corps. May be that corps were so
vile because of pre-technological consciousness of Shelley. Shelley came to
make this creature a scene of horror that of course is the result of early
innovation which was still unsophisticated. Victor narrates:
I collected bones from charnel houses, and disturbed
with profane fingers, the tremendous secrets of human frame. In a solitary
chamber, or rather cell, at the top of the house, and separated from all the
other apartments by a gallery and staircase, I kept my workshop of filthy
creation. (26)
Victor’s
laboratory room looks like gloomy bed of the dissecting room and the
slaughter-house.
According to the rasa theory, the
aesthetic pleasure in art and literature is derived through the power of
suggestion (vynjana). But it also plays important role in providing aesthetic pleasure
through horror. The rasa theory distinguishes nine kinds of aesthetic pleasure
which are based on corresponding emotional states: peace, anger, love,
laughter, grief, wonder, disgust, heroism and horror. The horror rasa is,
therefore, as valid in the rasa theory as the comic, the pathetic and the
marvelous. Indian aestheticians believe that in a suggestive work of art, “the
emotion is brought out by suggestion and resides in and ideal plane as forms or
essences of their specific contents or instance in actuality. The ordinary
emotion (bhava) is said to be transformed into an extraordinary mood (rasa)
which is aesthetic delight embodied in the particular emotions” (Odin 298).
The emotions are always evoked
through suggestion rather than denotation. The traditional rasa scholars give
primary emphasis to erotic (Sringara), pathetic (karuna), and serene (santa)
rasa while delegating an inferior role to the horror (bhayanaka) rasa. The
horror rasa is, however, an important part of Indian literature as is evident
from the abundance of demon stories. Victor first noticing the creature is
terrified and runs fast to escape the probable attack. “Unable to endure the
aspect of the being I had created, I rushed out of the room, and continued a long time traversing my bed-chamber, unable
to compose my mind to sleep” (27). He tries to forget the bhayanaka face of his own invention. He gets disturbed by the
wildest dreams. He dreams holding the corpse of his dead mother. He couldn’t sleep
in horror. “I started from my sleep with horror; a cold dew covered my forehead,
my teeth chattered, and every limb became convulsed” (27). He is afraid of it
and describes it as the wretch; the miserable monster which in turn evokes bhaya in readers. The way Victor
escapes from his own creation, walking up and down in the greatest agitation,
listening attentively, catching and fearing each sound makes his life
miserable. He calls it demoniacal corpse.
When
readers read the line describing Victor’s reaction to such as artificial
creature probably the very first artificial intelligence as ell evokes the
suggested meaning of fear. She forgets individual identity, thereby identifying
himself with the universalized aesthetic object. Owing to her identification
with the aesthetic object, she encounters fear directly, which give rise to
horror (bhayanaka) rasa. “Oh! no mortal could support the horror of that
countenance. A mummy again endured with
animation could not be as hideous as that wretch” (28). He describes the
creature more monstrous than the mummy. For him, such creation has no comparison
in term of horror it produces. Thus, “the aesthetic experience at the cathartic
level” is not caused by the objective cognition of the dominant emotional state
of the protagonist, but it is rather the “self-experience of the self” free
from all limitation owing to the spectators identification with the focus of
the situation.
Edgar
Allan Poe suggests the difference in reaction shown by the two people to the
same situation. He believes that an emotional mood of horror is created in
order to shock the reader into action. The reader is no longer isolated in his
safe world; instead he becomes a participant in the situation (Odin 308).
Victor describes the creature, “I had glared on him while unfinished; he was ugly
then, but when those muscles and joints were rendered capable of motion, it
became a thing as even Dante couldn’t have conceived” (28). He finds the
creature much more horrible after the creature is successfully comes to
function. It was ugly before it was completely active he believes, but it
turned into hideous object after successful trial.
V.M. Kulkarni writes, “To say that
all rasas are pleasurable is against experience. Karuna, raudra, bibhatsa and bhayanaka-these
four rasas cause indescribable pain to sahrdayas
(sensitive, sympathetic and responsive spectators). They simply shudder
when they witness plays depicting these rasas” (283). Such fearful description
of the self-invented creature by Victor loads the readers with dark horror of
losing his life from malicious development of technology as would be termed by
Isaac Asimov. Painful rasas are as sweet to enjoy as the pleasant rasas.
Tragic events, when represented on
the text can never cause pleasure or delight in the hearts of readers or
viewers. Shelley explores the pleasurability of horror (bhibhatsa) and terror (bhayanka)
through a rather ghastly description of the creature of Victor. But towards the
end when the creature reveals the reason behind his brutality, the
aestheticised experience of rivery (karuna) comes with a slight twist.
Abhinavagupta
(c.1000) further specified rasa to be a clarification of a spectator’s own
latent emotional properties, resulting in a momentary manifestation of an inner
brahamasavada-the tasting of ultimate
bliss” (Sathaye 362). He suggests that enjoyment of rasa is only the semblance
of that bliss. He tries to establish the pleasurability of unpleasurable
emotions. For, most Kashmiri critics (Abhinavagupta,Mammata, Dhananja) the
otherworldly (alaukika) nature of rasas
guaranteed a transcendent pleasure, no matter what their specific emotional
value. Even for those who admitted that rasas produce both pleasure and pain
(sukhadukhatma), the unpleasurable rasas served either a satirical function or
were carefully subordinated to pleasurable ones.
According to Bharata, “Spectators
who feel joy when there is joy, and who feel sorrow when there is sorrow are
known to become depressed when it’s a depressing play” (Sathaye 369). Victor’s
gothic description in similar base frightens the readers. A general pattern thus appears in experience
of bibhatsa; first a feeling of
disgust or shock, then an exposition of the unpleasurable imagery of the
narration itself. Rasa for Abhinavagupta did not constitute a true emotional
event, but involved a generalize affective state occurring in the spectator’s
mind and extracted from a remembered personal experience of emotion.
Arya
Ksemisvara exposes an ambivalence between curiosity and anxiety in how we
experience unpleasuarable rasas-though we, as spectators ought to delight at a
poet’s skillful description of awful things, there lurks as ever-present danger
that these awful things might be real and that they might actually happen to
us” (37). Victor’s creature also produces the fear of such artificial creature
that can outsmart the whole race of human beings.
The
creature and Victor finish their conversation in a hut on the slopes of
Montanvert. This important chapter is where the creature confronts his maker.
The creature tells Victor, “You must create a female for me with whom I can
live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being” (80).
Victor refuses and then later relents to the creature’s wishes to whom he calls
monster. This scene arouses karuna
because we sympathize towards the monster. The monster expresses his pain
stricken grief and threatens work to destroy him. But his threatening also
comes out as his deep pair over not having companion to share his feelings. So,
he again pleads, “My creator, make me happy and do not deny my request” (81).
The monster further promises to move away from continental Europe to the wilds
of South America.
But
Victor’s denial to make a lady companion to the monster arouses two
complimentary rasa at the same moment. “I do not refuse it, and no torture
shall ever extort a consent from me” (80). We feel angry towards the doctor but
the same moment we sympathize and have karuna
towards the monster. Karuna rasa
becomes more dominant when the monster gives more logical answer requesting for
his companion than the doctor for denying his request. He answers, “What I ask
of you is reasonable and moderate, I demand a creature of another sex, but as
hideous as myself: the gratification is small, but it is all that I can
receive, and it shall content me” (81). The monster’s demand is more plausible
because he doesn’t demand beautiful companion. He just wants someone like him
who could shares his emotions. He just wants to feel the reason of being in the
world. He even promises Victor that he would leave the human habitation if only
he consents on his request. This reasoning evokes great karuna bhava among the readers because we come to realize how
excluded the monster feels in the society.
Victor
is perpetually haunted by the sense of malicious monster who has turned his
life into a miserable story. Though he promises the monster to make him a
companion to avoid his ferocity, he deep down is panicked by the terror borne
by himself. He exclaims, “Oh! stars, and clouds, and winds, ye are all about to
mock me: if ye really pity me, crush sensation and memory, let me become as
nought” (83). Such wild and miserable thoughts arouse the terror resided inside
him. He wants to leave everything and flee away from this terror, but he
couldn’t because the monster is not only a creature rather a super-creature
with high Emotional Intelligence (EI). He would exactly know where Victor goes
and what he does. He is capable of keeping surveillance on him all the time.
Victor’s idea of fleeing away from him is undoable.
Elizabeth’s
farewell bid to Victor also arouses the karuna
among us through the sense of anxiety that we feel during their separation when
Victor finally starts his journey as he says like two years of exile. Elizabeth
weeps and says, “We all depend upon you; and if you are miserable, what must be
our feelings?” (86). The miserable condition of Victor makes Elizabeth
miserable and this realization of miserability of Elizabeth makes the readers
emotions miserable too.
The
problem with Victor’s making second creature is the after consequences based on
‘If’ hypotheses. He guesses the wrong consequences of the she-monster. He
speculates what if they would loathe each other, what if she would go for
another man. Since the doctor knows everybody already loathed his deformity,
there is high probability that she would also reject him and we would feel more
exasperated than ever. This kindles more karuna
towards the unlucky monster. But again the terror pounds him as he notices
the monster peeping his secret job from the corner of his laboratory. All of
sudden the ghastly grinning of that monster’s lips shatters his all faith on
him. He quickly feels being emotionally cheated by the monster’s pathos. When
he realizes the monster’s secret surveillance he immediately realizes the some
sinister inside him, “As I looked on him, his countenance expressed the utmost
extent of malice and treachery” (93) and decides to stop his job re-evoking the
monster’s wrath and final warning of terror.
The monster becomes able to threaten him for the final time tickling the
supreme sense of bhayanaka in us. He groans, “I go, but remember, I shall be
with you on your wedding-night” (94). This burns the rage of vengeance inside
Victor. He wants to kill and get hi lost into the ocean, but he couldn’t since
the monster is a supercreature.
Now,
we feel sympathy even for the doctor as well when we realize the unprecedented
forecast of his would be wife’s murder. He clearly remembers Elizabeeth being
brutally snatched from him on the very auspicious night of a wedding couple.
But the doctor’s work of creating a female monster was nothing beautiful. It
was even more disordered and ugly. Perhaps he might have been unsuccessful. The
way he describes the torn pieces of the monster as ugly and hideous tells the
true nature of his work. He reflects, “I ought not to excite the horror and
suspicion of the peasants” (96). He never then gives a single thought to create
another fiend like him. But the idea of Victor taking firm resolution leads the
readers guess towards worst terrible consequences. Thus, the bhayanaka in its real sense is evoked
through the monster’s dreadful warning.
Thus,
Shelley’s Frankenstein blends the aesthetic experiences of karuna and bhayanaka through
the tug-of-war between the doctor and the monster for confirming their demands
ethical by their own justification. Monster’s persistence need of a companion
pitifully excites whereas the doctor’s subsequent description of the monster as
a gruesome character kindles the bhaya
in readers. The subsequent turnover of bhayanaka
and karuna continually forces the
fluctuation of these two rasas in readers. The bhaya of technological super creature and pity of deserting him
alone evinces the bhava of sukhdukhatma inherent in every human
being.
Works Cited
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/04/franken-science/523560/
Odin,
Jaishree. “Suggestiveness: Poe's Writings from the Perspective of Indian ‘Rasa’
Theory.” Comparative Literature Studies, vol. 23, no. 4, 1986, pp.
297–309. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40246716. Accessed 15 Feb.
2020.
Sathaye,
Adheesh. “The Production of Unpleasurable Rasas in the Sanskrit Dramas of Ārya
Kṣemīśvara.” Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 130,
no. 3, 2010, pp. 361–384. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23044957.
Accessed 15 Feb. 2020.
Shelley, Mary. The Project Gutenberg eBook of Frankenstein. Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online, Version 1818, Dec 10, 2010. http://www.gutenbe rg.org/files/41445/41445-h/41445-h.htm.
