A Psychoanalytic Reading of Frankenstein
Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory offers a rich framework for analysing the characters of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1831 edition). Freud’s model divides the psyche into the id (primitive drives and desires), the ego (the rational self that mediates with reality), and the superego (the internalized moral conscience that enforces both morality and punishment). While Freud’s theories were developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, much later than Shelley’s novel, they provide a useful lens for understanding the psychological forces at work in the story.
In Frankenstein, these psychic forces manifest vividly in the characters’ actions and inner conflicts. We also see Freudian concepts like repression (burying unacceptable feelings in the unconscious), the Oedipal complex (unconscious sexual anxieties linked to parental figures, though not always in a strict father-mother-child dynamic), and mechanisms of projection and displacement (attributing one’s own unacceptable impulses to others, or shifting emotions to a safer target) at play throughout the story. The themes of forbidden desire, psychological trauma, and overwhelming guilt drive the narrative. Each of the main characters—Victor Frankenstein, his Creature, Robert Walton, Elizabeth Lavenza, and Henry Clerval—can be viewed through a Freudian lens, revealing how unconscious desires and conflicts shape their fate. Ultimately, Frankenstein resonates with Freudian ideas of creation and parent-child dynamics: a creator driven by repressed urges, a “son” figure warped by parental abandonment, and the tragic consequences of desires unleashed without the balance of conscience.
Victor Frankenstein: The Ambitious Ego and its Guilt
Victor Frankenstein can be interpreted as the ego of the novel’s central psyche, caught between his ravenous id-like ambitions and the restraints of morality (superego). As a scientist, Victor is consumed by the id’s “pleasure principle”—an obsessive drive to satisfy his curiosity and attain godlike power by creating life. He admits he pursued his experiment with an enthusiasm that “far exceeded moderation,” showing how his desire overwhelmed any caution. In Freudian terms, Victor’s ego was swamped by his id during the creation process. He ignores the voice of his superego (for instance, knowing that neglecting his family and ethical obligations is wrong) and focuses solely on the selfish thrill of “infusing life into an inanimate body.” Once his creature awakens, however, Victor’s ego snaps back to attention and is horrified by what he has done. He experiences an immediate surge of guilt and regret—“the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart,” he confesses. This crushing guilt reflects the punishment of Victor’s superego after the fact: his conscience belatedly asserts itself, making him feel the “tension between the demands of conscience and the actual performance of the ego”—in other words, moral guilt over his heinous deed. Victor’s internal conflict between “desire and morality” is precisely what Freud described: the id’s lust for forbidden knowledge clashing with the ego’s realization of wrongdoing. Through Victor’s arc, Shelley illustrates how the unchecked id can lead the ego into transgression, only for the superego to strike back with relentless guilt and self-punishment.
Victor’s psyche is further tormented by repression and the return of the unconscious. After animating the Creature, Victor is so unnerved that he literally represses the event—he flees the lab, falls ill, and for a long time refuses to tell anyone what he created. He desperately tries to “forget” or deny the horrible reality, as if pushing it into his unconscious. But in true Freudian fashion, the repressed content returns in disguise: Victor is plagued by a nightmare of his beloved Elizabeth turning into the corpse of his dead mother in his arms. Freud saw dreams as the arena where repressed wishes surface, and Victor’s dream is a stark example. As one analysis notes, this “wild dream” is the disguised eruption of Victor’s buried fears and desires—a direct manifestation of his unconscious id conflicts. In the dream, just after his act of creation, Victor “imprints the first kiss” on Elizabeth only for her to become his mother’s lifeless body. This grotesque transformation suggests Victor’s repressed incestuous anxieties rather than a full-fledged Oedipal complex. Since his fiancée was raised as his adoptive sister and played a nurturing role, it is possible that Victor’s subconscious conflates his affection for Elizabeth with his mother, leading to an undercurrent of guilt and unease. He awakens in terror, which Freud would interpret as the ego recoiling from an unacceptable unconscious wish.
Victor’s relationships and the ensuing tragedies can likewise be read as expressions of his unconscious impulses through projection and displacement. Throughout the novel, Victor projects his own darkest qualities onto the Creature, calling the being “demon,” “monster,” and “fiend,” as if all evil lies in the external creature and not in himself. Yet, intriguingly, Victor at one point recognizes the Creature as “my own spirit let loose from the grave, and forced to destroy all that was dear to me.” This line (which appears after William’s murder) suggests that the Creature enacts Victor’s subconscious conflicts—perhaps embodying repressed rage, guilt, or suppressed hostility.
Some scholars have suggested that each of the Creature’s victims might correspond to a repressed hostility of Victor’s. The younger brother William could represent Victor’s unconscious jealousy or rivalry as a child who competed for parental affection. Justine (framed by the Creature) is a family friend Victor cared for, yet his failure to save her suggests an inner indifference or displacement of blame. Henry Clerval, as Victor’s dearest friend, may provoke latent envy due to his warmth and moral superiority. Most notably, Elizabeth’s murder on their wedding night can be interpreted as the culmination of Victor’s unconscious fears and conflicts. Victor has long delayed marrying Elizabeth, suggesting an unspoken anxiety about sexual consummation. The fact that she is killed before their marriage is completed might reflect a subconscious relief—his psyche (through the Creature) has “conveniently” ensured that Elizabeth remains an untouched ideal rather than a real sexual partner. While Victor is consciously devastated by her death, psychoanalytically, this catastrophe fulfills the repressed logic of his anxieties and the superego’s need to punish him for his transgressions.
Victor’s profound guilt and pursuit of punishment align with Freudian notions of the superego’s cruelty. After the Creature’s murders, Victor is weighed down by what Freud would call a “super-moral” conscience. He feels responsible for every death. Interestingly, Victor repeatedly chooses not to confess the truth of the Creature’s existence to others (such as at Justine’s trial), even when it could save innocent lives. This self-imposed silence can be seen as an act of repression (refusing to acknowledge reality) but also as an unconscious acceptance of punishment. Freud noted that an overly harsh superego can make a person passively submit to suffering as atonement. Victor’s decision that revealing the truth would sound like “the ravings of insanity” masks a deeper motive—on some level, he doesn’t want to be absolved. By the end of the novel, Victor is essentially driven by a death impulse. Freud’s theory of Thanatos (the death drive), though developed after Shelley’s time, offers a compelling way to interpret Victor’s obsessive chase of the Creature into the Arctic. His ego has been completely taken over by the need to satisfy both his id (revenge instinct) and his superego (the urge to expiate his guilt). As one critic observed, by this point, Victor and the Creature are “bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us,” indicating that Victor’s pursuit of the Creature is also a subconscious desire for his own destruction.
In sum, Victor Frankenstein’s psyche exemplifies a Freudian tragedy: an ego destroyed by the very id impulses it indulged, and by the superego punishments that followed. His tale shows the peril of repressed desires—they don’t vanish, but rather return in monstrous forms to haunt the conscious mind.
The Creature: Id Unleashed and the Wounds of Abandonment
If Victor is the conflicted ego, the Creature he creates can be seen as an embodiment of Victor’s repressed id – as well as a being with his own developing psyche that suffers from the lack of a nurturing superego. From the moment of his “birth,” the Creature represents raw, untamed impulse and need. He opens his dull yellow eye and “breathes hard” with convulsive movements, like a newborn driven purely by instinct. Victor intended to create a beautiful, superior being, but what he actually gave life to was the dark, unconscious side of life – symbolically, the id made flesh. One Freudian reading argues that the Creature contains Victor’s “passions and libidinal energy” unchecked by reason. Separated from Victor’s body, this id is free to act on violent desires that Victor inhibited. Indeed, as soon as the Creature is animated, Victor’s ego feels repulsion, and he runs away, effectively abandoning his creation. This abandonment is crucial: the Creature is like an infant with no parent to provide guidance. In Freudian terms, it is as if a psyche were all id with no superego at all – “a cauldron of seething excitations” without any moral compass. However, the Creature does not remain a mere embodiment of id; instead, he undergoes a psychological evolution, attempting to develop both an ego and a rudimentary superego, though on an unstable foundation.
The Creature initially knows nothing of right or wrong; he is driven by hunger, thirst, cold, and the longing for affectionate contact. His first experiences are painful and bewildering. Without a parent figure to mirror kindness, he cannot internalize any benevolence from the world. The psychological consequence is severe: as modern psychoanalytic critics have noted, a child who experiences only rejection is “left alone to make sense of and act upon his instinctual impulses for survival” without the moderating influence of love, causing him to be psychologically affected in potentially destructive ways.
Yet the Creature is not a monster from the outset – his psyche evolves in response to his experiences, illustrating Freud’s idea that external reality shapes the ego and superego. Remarkably, the Creature attempts to develop an ego and even a superego on his own. While hiding near the De Lacey cottage, he observes a loving family and “learns” about human values and language. He secretly helps them (gathering firewood at night) – an altruistic impulse that suggests an emergent conscience or at least a desire for approval. He educates himself by reading books he finds (including Paradise Lost and Plutarch’s works), absorbing notions of virtue, justice, and humanity. This self-education means the Creature does form a kind of superego – for instance, he reproaches himself when he realizes he inadvertently frightened the De Lacey family: he knows that his intentions were good, yet the outcome was bad, which causes him pain and confusion (a moral feeling). However, these positive developments in his psyche are built on a fragile foundation, because he still lacks any genuine loving guidance or acceptance from a “parent” or society. The moment the De Laceys react with horror to his appearance – Felix attacks him and the family flees – the Creature’s nascent ego and superego collapse under the weight of trauma. This is the turning point where the Creature’s id – the rage and hurt of a betrayed child – overwhelms his more civilized impulses. He describes this transformation: “I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend” – a line that captures how his fundamentally innocent desires (to be loved and accepted) were thwarted, generating overwhelming aggression. The Creature’s response to rejection is to give in to destructive instinct: in a frenzy of vengeful anger, he burns down the De Laceys’ cottage. At this moment, the death drive (Thanatos) seems to have taken root alongside his life instinct (Eros), with the balance tipping toward destruction rather than connection.
The Creature’s subsequent actions can be analyzed as expressions of displaced anger and projected pain that tragically mirror Victor’s own unconscious struggles. Enraged by the abandonment and cruelty he has suffered, the Creature decides to find his creator and make him pay. When he randomly encounters young William Frankenstein, he learns the boy’s identity and impulsively murders the child – his first act of intentional violence. Psychologically, this murder is laden with symbolic meaning. In part, the Creature is displacing his revenge: he cannot immediately hurt Victor (the “father” who hurt him), so he strikes at Victor’s family, the next closest thing. Killing William also hints at an unconscious dynamic within Victor himself: some psychoanalytic critics suggest that William’s death could be seen as fulfilling Victor’s own buried sibling rivalry, an unconscious fantasy of eliminating a rival for paternal affection. However, this interpretation remains speculative and should be viewed as one possible psychoanalytic reading rather than a definitive claim. The Creature subsequently frames Justine (planting a locket on her) to ensure another of Victor’s loved ones is punished. This indicates a calculating ego operating in the service of his id’s rage – he knows how to manipulate the situation and understands enough of human justice to set up Justine. By causing Justine’s execution, the Creature is effectively amplifying Victor’s guilt and isolation.
The Oedipal dynamic between the Creature and Victor is an inverted but recognizable one – it’s a struggle of parent and child fraught with resentment, desire, and hatred. In creating the Creature, Victor has usurped the role of natural parent (defying the mother’s function and “playing God the Father”). The Creature initially regards Victor as a sort of God/parent and experiences the deep trauma of parental abandonment when Victor spurns him. This traumatic origin yields a relationship that Freud would find familiar: a child filled with both love and aggressive impulses toward the parent. The Creature at various points implores Victor for compassion (yearning for fatherly love) and at other times swears “eternal hatred” and revenge on him. When the Creature later demands that Victor create a female companion for him (a symbolic mate or “Eve”), Victor’s destruction of the half-made female creature enrages the Creature like a rebellious son turned against the father. In a twisted Oedipal turn, the Creature seeks to deprive Victor of his own bride Elizabeth, just as Victor denied him a bride. “I shall be with you on your wedding-night,” the Creature threatens – a chilling promise that he will invade Victor’s marital bed. While some Freudian critics argue that this moment positions the Creature as an Oedipal rival, such a reading is not explicitly supported by the novel’s text and should be considered an interpretive possibility rather than a certainty.
At the novel’s conclusion, when Victor dies, the Creature is overcome by grief and remorse. He calls himself a “wretch” and acknowledges his own culpability: “I, not in deed, but in effect, was the true murderer.” His plan to immolate himself can be read as an ultimate expression of Thanatos, but also as a moment where his long-repressed superego fully asserts itself. However, this final act may be more a function of existential despair than purely moral reckoning – a recognition that, without Victor, he no longer has any purpose. Either way, it is a powerful resolution to a deeply fractured psyche.
Through the Creature, Frankenstein explores the psyche in a state of deprivation and extremes. The Creature illustrates how the desire for love can turn into rage when consistently frustrated (the id’s Eros flipping to Thanatos), and how a being with no affectionate upbringing develops a fractured identity. His story suggests that monsters are made, not born: they are the product of trauma and repression, reflecting back the darkness projected onto them by others. Ultimately, the Creature’s horror lies in his almost-human psyche, one that mirrors the unconscious conflicts of his creator and, by extension, of humanity itself.
Robert Walton: An Ambitious Ego Learns Restraint
Captain Robert Walton, the Arctic explorer who frames the narrative with his letters, serves as a foil to Victor and offers a further Freudian dimension to the novel. Walton begins the story driven by ambition, which is largely an ego function in service of his id’s desires. Like Victor, he is obsessed with pushing beyond natural limits, confessing a strong urge to reach the “region of beauty and light” at the North Pole and achieve personal glory as a discoverer. He admits, “One man’s life or death were but a small price to pay for the acquirement of the knowledge I sought,” showing a dangerously single-minded pursuit of his goal. This echoes Victor’s hubristic desire for greatness, as both men initially fail to acknowledge moral constraints. In Freudian terms, Walton’s ego is largely dominated by his id—his “basic human curiosity” and ambition. However, unlike Victor, Walton demonstrates an awareness of interpersonal needs: he writes long, intimate letters to his sister and bemoans his “want of a friend.” This suggests a developing superego, as he values human connection and emotional bonds alongside his ambitions.
As Walton’s expedition progresses, he encounters Victor Frankenstein, who is brought on board the ship weak and emaciated. Fascinated by this “noble and godlike” man, Walton sees in Victor both a kindred spirit and a cautionary figure. Through Victor’s tragic story, Walton receives a stark lesson in the dangers of unchecked ambition. Rather than serving as a purely externalized superego, Victor operates as a warning—a living example of the consequences of an ego failing to mediate between id and superego. By the novel’s end, Walton faces a crucial decision. His crew, fearing death in the ice, urges him to turn back south. Though his id-driven ambition still yearns to push onward and immortalize his name, he ultimately yields to reality. This decision is the triumph of his ego, which balances his id’s desire with the superego’s ethical considerations. Victor’s warning (his explicit plea to Walton to avoid “ambition” if it threatens lives) reinforces this balance. Walton’s ego, tempered by responsibility and an awareness of his crew’s well-being, prevents him from repeating Victor’s fate.
Another way to interpret Walton is as a potential double of Victor who avoids the catastrophic outcome—an alternative ego that successfully integrates superego guidance. In a sense, Walton functions as a healthier psychic structure compared to Victor’s fractured one. His final role in the novel also resembles that of a listener or confessor: he absorbs Victor’s narrative much like Freud’s analyst listening to a patient’s confession of unconscious drives. However, it would be an overstatement to call Walton the “law of the father” in the final scene when the Creature appears after Victor’s death. While he listens to the Creature’s remorse, he does not actively impose moral judgment; instead, he remains an observer and chronicler. His reaction, though horrified, is restrained and does not involve a direct assertion of authority. Rather than standing as a superego authority figure, Walton embodies a more balanced psyche that acknowledges both ambition and responsibility.
Walton’s arc reinforces Freudian themes of moderation and the necessity of balancing one’s internal drives. Unlike Victor, whose unchecked id led to his downfall, Walton demonstrates that ambition must be tempered by ethical responsibility and awareness of external reality. His decision to abandon the voyage highlights the importance of heeding both conscience and experience. Through Walton’s shift from relentless ambition to moral responsibility, Shelley presents a possible resolution to the id–superego conflict, showing that happiness and survival depend on curbing narcissistic desires and accepting the limitations imposed by ethics and reality.
Elizabeth Lavenza: Love, Idealization, and Taboo
Elizabeth Lavenza – Victor’s beloved "cousin" (in the 1831 edition, an orphan adopted by the Frankenstein family) and fiancée – occupies a crucial place in Frankenstein’s psychoanalytic landscape. She is often read as an idealized object of desire and a symbol of domestic virtue, placing her at the intersection of Victor’s id desires and superego values. Freud’s theories illuminate the complex role Elizabeth plays, especially in relation to Victor’s Oedipal conflicts and repressed sexuality.
On the surface, Elizabeth is "the pure and the good" – she has a gentle, nurturing personality and is deeply concerned with others’ well-being. In Freudian terms, she might be seen as representing the superego ideal for Victor: the promise of familial happiness, a lawful and socially approved love (marrying her is both his mother’s and father’s dearest wish), and an angelic figure who would redeem Victor’s soul. Victor himself describes Elizabeth in saintly terms, indicating he has placed her on a pedestal (suggesting idealization, a defence mechanism). However, beneath this conscious idealization lurk Victor’s unconscious tensions.
Elizabeth, raised alongside Victor from childhood and later becoming his betrothed, triggers subconscious incestuous desires and taboos – the core of the Oedipal complex. As one Freudian critic bluntly puts it, there is “a weird relationship between Frankenstein and Elizabeth, his cousin/more-than-sister/fiancée,” which creates an undercurrent of sexual fear and guilt in Victor. Freud’s Oedipal theory predicts that a man may unconsciously seek a partner who resembles his mother, and indeed Victor was “given” Elizabeth by his mother Caroline, almost as a gift or a replacement for herself. Elizabeth essentially steps into Caroline’s role in the household after Caroline’s death (caring for the younger brothers, maintaining domestic harmony), and Caroline’s dying wish is for Victor and Elizabeth to marry. This situation is ripe for what Freud called “family romance” fantasies and anxieties.
Victor’s nightmare after creating the Creature explicitly reveals his repressed psyche: he dreams of kissing Elizabeth, only to see her transform into his mother’s corpse. In Freudian terms, this is a classic condensation of two loved figures into one, showing that in Victor’s unconscious, Elizabeth = mother. His horror at this dream signals the incest taboo surging up, along with guilt over possibly causing his mother’s death (by not preventing Elizabeth from nursing her). As Steven Gonzalez observes, the dream is “an exemplar of Freud’s solution to the Oedipal complex, where the boy – in this case, Victor – transfers his libidinal attraction from his mother to another woman who acts as a substitute.” Yet Victor’s subconscious does not fully accept this solution; it keeps conflating the substitute (Elizabeth) with the original beloved (mother), resulting in psychic distress.
Because of these unconscious conflicts, Victor’s behaviour toward Elizabeth is marked by repression and avoidance. Throughout the novel, Victor often distances himself from Elizabeth – he leaves for university and stops writing to her during his obsessive work; he delays their wedding on the excuse that he must first deal with the Creature. On the night of their wedding, Victor is agitated and initially avoids being in the same room with her, ostensibly to protect her. Freud might interpret all this as avoidance rooted in unconscious anxiety: Victor both desires Elizabeth and fears that desire. Elizabeth, for her part, remains devoted, though she expresses concern that Victor might love someone else (in a letter, she even releases him from the engagement). Victor assures her of his love – yet ironically, his greatest act of love (marrying her) sets the stage for her destruction.
Elizabeth’s murder on her wedding night can be read in several Freudian ways. One interpretation is that the Creature enacts Victor’s repressed wish to sabotage his marriage. Earlier, Victor exclaims that if he had to marry Elizabeth immediately, he “would rather banish [him]self forever… and wander a friendless outcast” than go through with it. While this line can be rationalized as fear of the Creature’s threat, it also suggests that marriage represents a terrifying obligation for Victor. The Creature’s murder of Elizabeth externalizes Victor’s unconscious dread, preventing the sexual consummation he both desires and fears. This aligns with the idea that “Elizabeth is the most complex [victim] because she not only represents the killer of his mother (the one who ‘caused’ Caroline’s death) but also a sexual desire that he fears and knows is forbidden.” In this sense, the Creature acts as the shadow of Victor’s psyche, carrying out the very repression Victor’s mind has been constructing.
Another layer to Elizabeth’s death is superego punishment. Victor’s superego may feel he does not deserve Elizabeth, given the deaths that have occurred due to his hubristic ambitions. In Gothic-romantic terms, losing Elizabeth is the ultimate retribution for his transgressions. The Creature tells Victor “I will be with you on your wedding night,” essentially promising to deprive Victor of marital fulfillment as revenge for being denied his own mate. In effect, Victor’s paternal failure (refusing to create a bride for the Creature) is mirrored by his own sexual failure (losing Elizabeth). This tit-for-tat psychological logic reflects projection and displacement between Victor and the Creature: each projects their suffering onto the other’s love object. Victor destroys the Creature’s potential mate (displacing his own fear of female procreation onto that female form), and the Creature in turn displaces his rage onto Victor’s companion, Elizabeth. The wedding night thus becomes a Freudian battleground, saturated with Victor’s unconscious guilt and dread.
From Elizabeth’s own perspective, applying a Freudian lens, she occupies the Madonna/whore dichotomy in Victor’s psyche (firmly on the Madonna side). Victor can only love Elizabeth as long as she remains pure, sisterly, and almost asexual. The moment she is to become a sexual partner, catastrophe ensues. Freud noted this as a common phenomenon in cases of psychic impotence, where a man separates love and desire. Victor’s idealization of Elizabeth renders her untouchable, and his own nightmares about sexual intimacy reinforce this. Elizabeth’s letters suggest she senses Victor’s emotional distance, but she remains steadfast. Notably, Elizabeth and the Creature share a significant parallel: both are “creations” of the Frankenstein family, one adopted, one made in a lab. Yet Elizabeth, nurtured with love, becomes gentle and virtuous, whereas the Creature, abandoned, becomes vengeful and monstrous. Elizabeth represents the normative resolution of parental nurturing, while the Creature embodies the disastrous consequences of rejection.
In summary, Elizabeth’s character brings Freud’s themes of desire, repression, and taboo to the forefront. She is the object of Victor’s Eros (love drive) yet remains entangled in his Oedipal conflicts, making her a focal point of unconscious psychic turmoil. Her tragic fate underscores the consequences of repression: those whom Victor consciously cherishes become victims of his unacknowledged fears. Ultimately, Mary Shelley uses Elizabeth to highlight the collateral damage of Victor’s psyche, showing that when unconscious desires are not confronted, they manifest in destructive ways. Elizabeth’s sacrifice is not only the cost of Victor’s hubris but also the price of repression itself.
Henry Clerval: The Superegoed Friend and the Cost of Losing “Goodness”
Henry Clerval, Victor’s boyhood friend, represents the ethical and compassionate self that Victor largely abandons in his quest. In a Freudian reading, Clerval can be seen as an externalized superego figure or an idealized ego that Victor fails to live up to. Clerval is everything that Victor, at his worst, is not: he is empathetic, cheerful, grounded in reality, and loves natural beauty and poetry. While Victor becomes obsessed with illicit science and withdraws from human connections, Clerval remains connected to people and embodies moral responsibility and innocence. Freud’s concept of the superego includes internalized ethical constraints shaped by parents, mentors, and friends. In this light, Clerval functions as a reminder of the moral order Victor is meant to adhere to. For example, after Victor creates the Creature and collapses in illness, it is Clerval who nurses him tenderly back to health, effectively restoring Victor’s connection to the human world. This nurturing care, while not necessarily an assertion of direct moral authority, does reflect an external pull toward normalcy and ethical responsibility. During their journey in England, Clerval delights in the landscape and plans to help humanity through imperial service, reflecting a benevolent ambition as opposed to Victor’s egotistical one. Clerval’s influence tempers Victor’s moods, showing the ego-balancing effect he has.
In a deeper psychoanalytic sense, Clerval might be viewed as a projection of Victor’s own psyche – the part containing his conscience and kindness – that temporarily prevails but is ultimately destroyed by the unleashed id (the Creature). One Freudian analysis posits that “the Super-Ego is Clerval or Frankenstein’s father, both of whom represent what is ‘good, proper, and socially desirable,’” whereas Frankenstein is the ego and the Creature the id. Indeed, both Clerval and Alphonse Frankenstein (Victor’s father) try to pull Victor back to familial duty and virtue. The Creature targets both figures: Clerval is murdered outright, and Victor’s father dies from grief after Elizabeth’s death. The loss of these superego figures leaves Victor’s psyche in total disarray. Clerval’s murder, in particular, is a devastating blow. It is the moment Victor cannot recover from; he becomes delirious for months, wracked with guilt and self-blame. On a subconscious level, one could interpret Victor’s breakdown as the ego’s recognition that its better half (Clerval, the embodiment of Victor’s own goodness and potential for joy) has been killed by his worse half (the Creature, the embodiment of Victor’s darkest impulses). In Freudian terms, the id has vanquished the superego, leaving the psyche unbalanced.
The circumstances of Clerval’s death also invite analysis. The Creature kills Clerval after Victor refuses to proceed with creating a female monster. While it is possible to see this act as the Creature eliminating the person who represents duty and virtue in Victor’s life, the text presents his motivation more clearly as revenge. However, psychoanalytically, the death still serves a dual function: it isolates Victor completely (punishing the “father”) and enacts Victor’s unspoken fear that his dearest friend would find out his horrible secret and judge him. The claim that Clerval would have held Victor accountable remains speculative, but Victor's overwhelming guilt after Clerval's death suggests a deep-seated psychological recognition of his own indirect responsibility. The fact that Victor is framed for Clerval’s murder when he washes ashore in Ireland is symbolically appropriate—he is responsible, if not in action, then in consequence. The weight of guilt Victor feels is enormous, suggesting his superego is now internally punishing him harshly for Clerval’s death. He calls himself a “wretch” and longs for death after this event, indicating the collapse of any self-esteem (the superego’s crushing judgment). In a sense, Clerval’s death is the point of no return for Victor’s psyche—after this, he has nothing left to counterbalance his vengeful id or to comfort his ego. All the structures that keep a person sane (friends, family, love) are gone; the superego’s positive side (inspiring goodness) turns entirely into its negative side (inflicting guilt).
Clerval’s role in the novel highlights by contrast what a healthy psyche might look like. He is creative (writes songs and fairy tales), shows sublimation (he channels energy into exploring and learning rather than transgressing boundaries), and maintains empathy. He is excited by the prospect of doing “good” in the world. If Victor had more of Clerval’s balance, the tragedy might have been avoided. This contrast underscores Freudian themes: Clerval is guided by the “reality principle” and altruistic ideals, whereas Victor was seduced by the “pleasure principle” of personal glory at all costs. Shelley, through Clerval, illustrates the path of Eros (life instinct, love of others), which is abandoned by Victor for the path of hubris (which in Freudian terms aligns with an unchecked id and narcissism). The murder of Clerval may also be interpreted as the Creature (and metaphorically Victor’s id) eliminating the competition for Victor’s affection and attention. The Creature initially approached Victor saying he wished to be “thy Adam” – a beloved son or friend to Victor – but Clerval already fills the role of brother/closest companion. Thus, the Creature’s unconscious motivation could include jealousy, leading to Clerval’s elimination. However, while an Oedipal-like reading may hold some merit, it remains a secondary layer of interpretation rather than a direct textual claim.
After Clerval’s death, Victor’s personality becomes monomaniacal and self-destructive. This demonstrates Freud’s point that the loss of a vital superego figure (or an internalized ideal) can lead to depression and fixation on the death drive. Victor no longer has the gentle voice of Henry to recall him to the beauties of life or the duties to others. Instead, Victor’s thoughts are dominated by the Creature (the embodiment of his guilt and hate). As Victor chases the Creature northward, his own behaviour increasingly mirrors the Creature’s. He becomes wild, fixated, and indifferent to suffering – one might say Victor psychologically “becomes” the Monster in those final chapters. This convergence confirms the interpretation that Clerval (along with Elizabeth and others) was what kept Victor human. With Clerval gone, Victor loses the external ethical anchor and thus any remaining internal restraint.
In conclusion, Henry Clerval’s character functions in the story as the moral compass and a repository of Frankenstein’s better nature. From a Freudian perspective, Clerval is associated with the superego (moral ideals, the pull of friendship/family) and with the life-affirming forces of the psyche. His murder by the Creature (id) symbolizes the victory of death and chaos over those forces. Shelley uses Clerval’s fate to emphasize the novel’s dark lesson: if one allows one’s humane and moral side to be destroyed (literally or figuratively), the result is utter catastrophe. The death of Clerval drives home the guilt and consequence that Victor must face. It is also a critical emotional turning point – the last blow that ensures Victor and his Creature will spiral to mutual destruction. Clerval, as a foil to Victor, highlights what Victor could have been had his desires been balanced by ethical responsibility. His loss is not only Victor’s personal tragedy but also the loss of innocence and goodness in the world of the novel, amplifying the Freudian theme that when the id runs rampant, it does so at the expense of all that is “good and socially desirable.”
Freudian Themes of Creation, Parental Abandonment, and Repressed Desires
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein can be viewed as a story that anticipates Freudian themes of creation, parental abandonment, and repressed desires—interweaving them into a Gothic tragedy that illustrates the consequences of these psychological forces. Below, we examine how each theme is reflected in the novel:
Creation and the Oedipal Ambition
Victor Frankenstein’s act of creating the Creature represents a profound transgression of natural and parental roles. In Freudian terms, this act can be read as a family romance fantasy, wherein the child dreams of supplanting parental authority and assuming ultimate power. By stealing the creative role from both God (the father figure) and women (maternal reproduction), Victor enacts a symbolic rebellion against the natural order, much like the Oedipal child who unconsciously desires to replace the father.
Victor’s scientific ambition also has repressed psychological motivations. His dream of his dead mother after completing the experiment suggests a latent wish to undo her death, reinforcing Freud’s notion that unresolved childhood traumas resurface in disguised forms. However, by bypassing natural procreation, Victor’s fantasy backfires: he brings forth not triumph, but horror, reflecting Freud’s idea that repressed desires, when actualized, do not lead to fulfilment but to catastrophic consequences—the return of the repressed in monstrous form.
The act of creation itself carries unmistakable sexual symbolism. Victor’s obsessive, isolated labor in a "workshop of filthy creation" evokes a grotesque parody of procreation—handling corpses and assembling life without natural reproduction. While some readings interpret this as a form of sublimated sexual impulse, it is perhaps more accurately seen as an instance of sublimation failing and collapsing into pathology. Freud argued that socially acceptable outlets (like science or art) allow individuals to redirect their unconscious urges. However, when sublimation is insufficient, repressed drives may return in disturbing forms—as seen in Victor’s repulsion toward his creation and his subsequent breakdown.
The novel punishes Victor’s overreach, suggesting a psychic equilibrium must be restored. In the end, both creator and creation perish, symbolizing the collapse of an ego overwhelmed by its own unchecked desires. This echoes Freud’s caution that the fulfillment of forbidden wishes—whether Oedipal, narcissistic, or hubristic—carries a heavy psychological price. Shelley’s tale thus warns that attempting to usurp natural or divine authority without recognizing one’s unconscious motivations leads to destruction.
Parental Abandonment and Its Trauma
Freudian theory posits that early parental relationships fundamentally shape an individual’s psyche. Frankenstein dramatizes what happens when this bond is violently ruptured. The Creature, abandoned at birth, suffers what psychoanalysis terms primal trauma—the foundational wound of rejection that distorts his psychological development. Lacking secure attachment, he exhibits hallmarks of early object-relations dysfunction, including rage, identity confusion, and an inability to regulate emotions.
As psychoanalytic scholars note, parental abandonment often leads to feelings of unworthiness and displaced aggression. The Creature, deprived of a nurturing figure, becomes a case study in this dynamic. His escalating violence can be seen as a displaced protest against the "bad parent" (Victor)—a desperate attempt to force recognition from the father figure who denied him love. Freud’s theory of ambivalence (wherein a child harbours both deep love and deep resentment toward a parent) is reflected in the Creature’s dual desires: he seeks Victor’s affection yet also seeks to punish him for his neglect.
The Creature’s revenge is strikingly parental in language—he calls Victor his “accursed creator” and declares, “You gave me life and left me to misery.” His pursuit of Victor can be understood as an unconscious demand for acknowledgment, akin to a neglected child acting out to gain a parent’s attention. In a Freudian reading, the Creature’s final act of self-destruction represents the culmination of his internalized rejection—the psychic death of one who has never been validated as lovable. Shelley’s depiction of an abandoned being aligns with Freudian insights that without love and mirroring, the psyche struggles to form a stable ego; instead, it is consumed by despair and self-destruction.
Repressed Desires and the Uncanny Return
At its core, Frankenstein is a novel of repression and its terrifying consequences. Victor exemplifies a repressive personality, burying emotions and moral concerns in the pursuit of ambition. He avoids processing his mother’s death (plunging into obsessive scientific study instead), suppresses his horror at the Creature, and refuses to acknowledge his guilt, choosing secrecy instead. Freud argued that repressed drives do not disappear but instead resurface in distorted, destructive ways—the “return of the repressed.”
The Creature embodies Victor’s repressed content. He is, quite literally, the monstrous secret Victor tries to ignore. The novel plays on Freud’s concept of the uncanny (Das Unheimliche)—the disturbing sense that something both alien and intimately familiar has resurfaced. Victor himself refers to the Creature as “the hideous phantom of my conscience”, hinting that the Creature externalizes his own dark impulses.
Notably, the Creature’s appearances coincide with Victor’s emotional crises, reinforcing the idea that he is an external manifestation of Victor’s suppressed anxieties and guilt. He appears on Victor’s wedding night—the moment of Victor’s anticipated sexual consummation, suggesting the return of a deeply repressed fear surrounding intimacy. Similarly, the murder of William follows Victor’s euphoric homecoming, as if the repressed guilt of his unnatural act must intrude on his attempt at normalcy.
Freud’s projection is another central theme: Victor projects his own monstrosity onto the Creature, while the Creature projects his hatred onto innocent victims. Both fail to integrate their shadows, leading to mutual destruction. Defence mechanisms—denial, displacement, and projection—drive the novel’s tragic trajectory. Victor blames fate or the Creature for what his own actions set in motion, while the Creature blames Justine for a crime he committed, mirroring Freud’s notion that unconscious guilt often manifests through external scapegoating.
The psychological conflict between Victor and the Creature ultimately represents a divided psyche at war with itself. The Creature calls Victor his “equal” and declares, “You are my creator, but I am your master—obey!”—implying that the repressed now controls the repressor, much like an unchecked drive overtaking the conscious mind. Their final chase across the Arctic suggests the futility of repression: one cannot escape what one refuses to confront.
Simply Put
In conclusion, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein richly rewards Freudian psychoanalytic interpretation. Victor Frankenstein, the overreaching “modern Prometheus,” embodies the battle between the id’s vaulting ambition and the superego’s crushing guilt, illustrating how repression of ethical qualms and natural affection breeds literal and figurative monsters. The Creature, born as an abandoned “id” in a brutish state, demonstrates through his painful journey the formation (and deformation) of a psyche without love – a study in trauma, displaced rage, and the craving for the parental presence that Freud deemed so essential to development. The interactions between Victor and the Creature play out an inverted Oedipal saga, with creator and creation locked in a fatal embrace of mutual hatred and dependence, each acting out the other’s unspoken impulses. Meanwhile, characters like Walton, Elizabeth, and Clerval round out the Freudian landscape: Walton as an ego who learns to tame his id by heeding superego warnings, Elizabeth as the beloved object entangled in Victor’s Oedipal and sexual anxieties, and Clerval as the embodiment of Victor’s better self (superego/ideal ego) who is sacrificed to the cause of unchecked passion. Ultimately, Frankenstein can be read as a nightmarish allegory of what happens when parental responsibility is abdicated and desires are left unchecked or unspoken. The novel suggests that creating life (or pursuing any grand desire) without understanding one’s unconscious motives and without love leads to destruction. In Freudian terms, Victor’s sin was not only against God or nature, but against his own psyche – he dared to act out an infantile wish (to be a creator of life) while flouting the relational and moral bonds that ground human society (family, empathy, accountability). The catastrophic outcome – a trail of death and a tormented soul – reflects the collapse of the ego under the weight of its transgressions and the vengeance of the very impulses he repressed. Thus, Frankenstein endures as a deeply psychological novel, one which, long before Freud, explored the “monstrous” consequences of our secret desires and the profound need for love and conscience to civilize the beast within. As much as it is a Gothic horror story, Frankenstein is also a human psyche laid bare – a cautionary tale that warns, in effect, “Know thyself”: confront your inner demons before they become real.
Sources:
Freud, S. (1900). The Interpretation of Dreams. Macmillan.
Freud, S. (1923). The Ego and the Id. W. W. Norton & Company.
Freud, S. (1933). New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis. W. W. Norton & Company.
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Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as an insight into Freud’s hypothesis of the psyche
Frontispiece to Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley - Age of Revolution
