Abandonment in Frankenstein and Jane Eyre: A Comparison

Introduction: Abandonment as a Literary Theme

Abandonment is a substantial theme in literature. It appears in the poems of Emily Dickinson, in Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein, and in the novels of the Brontë sisters — Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. It is not a theme addressed exclusively by women writers, but it is one that seems to be utilized most evocatively by them. This paper provides a comparative analysis of two literary works — Shelley's Frankenstein and Brontë's Jane Eyre — to show how abandonment can cause depression, deep emotion, and despair, but how it can also open new doors for an individual. It will show how destructive abandonment can be and yet how beneficial it may also prove in the long run.

Jane Eyre: Abandonment and Spiritual Growth

Jane Eyre is a romantic-gothic novel by Charlotte Brontë about an orphan named Jane who is raised by an unloving guardian and treated cruelly by her cousins. The novel begins with an exploration of the abandonment Jane feels as a child who is essentially unloved at a tender age. She retreats into the world of books, longing for moments of solitude so she can escape the oppressive environment in which she finds herself. Her aunt and cousins treat her so abominably that she feels completely abandoned by the world, and her only comfort is to read something that can carry her imagination away from what she suffers.

Her sufferings are not lessened when she is sent to a boarding school, because the school is harsh and unhappy. However, Jane meets a friend there who teaches her how to transcend her environment by thinking on the goodness of God and the meaning of Christian teaching. Her friend represents what Jane lacks inside herself — essentially grace and life of the soul. Jane has a great deal of creativity and potential, but she is bitter about her condition and her abandonment; she does not feel love for anyone, though she does feel love for her friend because her friend shows her love and kindness in return. Her friend teaches her, through example, how to accept injustice patiently, as their Savior did when He accepted His cross. This is the spiritual seed planted in Jane, and it teaches her both how to cope with abandonment and how to grow through it.

Damon Linker of The Week writes that "God shows his love not by helping you avoid suffering, but by sending you suffering," because through suffering one grows into what God intends one to be — a better person. This is the essence of the Christian ethos that Jane's friend teaches her at the boarding school, and it is a lesson that takes root inside Jane and helps her through a particularly difficult time later in her life.

In her adulthood, Jane accepts abandonment in a more spiritual light. She also, at the same time, gives a feeling of abandonment to Mr. Rochester. But in the context of the novel, this abandonment is actually a good and necessary thing, for Mr. Rochester has been nursing a sinful fantasy involving Jane and has been acting deceitfully about who and what he actually is. Her leaving obliges him to accept the reality of his situation, to face it and to take responsibility for it. He does not pursue Jane. He sadly returns to his house and accepts the mad woman to whom he is already married. It is a moment of maturation for Mr. Rochester — painful, but absolutely necessary for his own spiritual growth.

Jane is pained by the fact that she is causing him to feel abandoned, because she loves him deeply. She nonetheless reflects on her human love for Mr. Rochester as she fears what he might do when he wakes to find her gone: "Oh, that fear of his self-abandonment — far worse than my abandonment — how it goaded me! It was a barbed arrow-head in my breast; it tore me when I tried to extract it; it sickened me when remembrance thrust it further in" (Brontë 113). However, Jane persists in her faith that she has done the right thing by God. She suffers for what the novel frames as three days of abandonment — an implicit spiritual allegory paralleling the passion of Christ — before grace finds her again. Brontë creates a spiritual allegory in this way.

Frankenstein: Abandonment and Despair

In Shelley's Frankenstein, there is no such lesson for the monster. He feels abandoned in the same way that Milton's Satan felt cast off by God in Paradise Lost. There is a loss of spiritual faith on the monster's part — in part because he is a creature whose creator, Dr. Frankenstein, had dubious aims in bringing him to life in the first place. The theme of abandonment is addressed in a twofold manner in Shelley's gothic novel. First, there is Dr. Frankenstein, who has abandoned the old-world spiritual values of his fathers in pursuit of Enlightenment science. Second, there is the monster, who feels abandoned and scorned by mankind for being a freak of nature: he questions whether he has a soul, kills out of revenge, and is ultimately pursued by his creator into the icy wilderness of the Arctic, where he vanishes from all humanity. It is a novel about how abandonment — by one's father, or the felt abandonment by God — can lead to despair.

The monster finds a friend of sorts in an old blind man who is also a cast-off, living in a shack in the woods. He learns what it means to be human by watching and imitating the blind man and the others who live nearby. He feels love within himself and kinship with them. He reads the books he discovers and learns about what it means to be a human being. He calls this his "birth," and it is actually similar to Jane's early childhood — both find meaning and solace through books, which seem to call especially to the abandoned, functioning as gateways that only those in solitude can fully enter. But when the monster finally steps out of hiding and tries to befriend the people around him, only the blind man accepts him — because he cannot see and does not judge. Felix, however, is shocked by the monster's appearance and beats him to drive him away.

It is a profoundly sad scene because the monster takes it so badly — heartbroken, feeling that his chance at human connection has been lost forever. He never really recovers from this moment. He recalls Paradise Lost and states: "I remembered Adam's supplication to his Creator. But where was mine? He had abandoned me, and in the bitterness of my heart I cursed him" (Shelley 156). The monster feels like Lucifer after being cast out of Paradise. He does not understand what he has done to deserve his fate, and he harbors ill will against God as a result. For the monster, abandonment leads to hostility, depression, and deep emotions that become an insurmountable obstacle to any human connection or society at all.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Charlotte Brontë and Mary Shelley write strikingly about the theme of abandonment. Both create evocative scenes that wrench the heart and make the reader feel the depth of sorrow their characters experience. However, Brontë shows the way through abandonment — a way upward toward light and goodness. Shelley, on the other hand, shows how unprofitable abandonment can be when the person who suffers it wallows in the depression and despair it inflicts. Together, these two gothic novels offer a rich and contrasting meditation on one of literature's most enduring themes.

Works Cited

Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. London: J. M. Dent, 1905. Print.

Linker, Damon. "Terrence Malick's Profoundly Christian Vision." The Week, 2016. Web. 2 Apr. 2016.

Macdonald, D. L., and Kathleen Scherf, eds. Frankenstein: The 1818 Version. NY: Broadview, 2005. Print.

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. NY: Broadview, 1999. Print.