애도와 정의의 뫼비우스 띠: 셸리의 <프랑켄슈타인>

Abstract

This paper examines the inextricable connection between mourning and justice in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Among the three concentric narratives, Victor’s story contains many deaths. All the deaths except Caroline’s are directly or indirectly caused by the Creature’s violence and demand mourning. But Victor fails to mourn successfully because he considers himself the real cause of those deaths in that he himself created the Creature. After his hopeless attempts to gain sympathy from humans, the Creature demands Victor to create a female companion as a right. To be able to mourn, Victor should comply with the Creature’s request and make things right. But his sense of duties towards his fellow-creatures leads him to break his promise to make the Creature a female companion, which incites the Creature’s rage. They get caught into a vicious circle of revenge in which retributive justice is the only raison d’être. The Creature cannot satisfy his desire for a sympathetic relation with another being and therefore destroy those who are dear to Victor. Victor gets devastated by the loss of his loved ones but cannot mourn for them successfully because he is partly responsible for those deaths. Only restorative justice can help them to break the logic of retributive justice and thereby the Möbius strip of mourning and justice. But neither of them is able to seek restorative justice and reconciliation.