Commentary upon Mary Shelley's statement: "What terrified me will terrify others"

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In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, the Creature in itself is not what is the most terrifying. Indeed, in her dream and in the novel afterwards, if Doctor Frankenstein is afraid at the sight of his creature, it is also its coming to life which creates fear: how can an amount of bones, skin, muscles- a dead body- actually ' come to life'. Does it have a soul or at least, a conscience of itself? The very question, here, is: where does life come from? This must be the essential questioning of mankind. Even stronger than our wish to know what comes after life, is our curiosity about where we come from. We want to know where we come from, where conscience appears, and where it all starts. The fear of what we see plays a part in fantastic literature, but it is not the main factor: the unknown has a much greater power. As a matter of fact, it creates a terror which is rather felt than directly perceived by sight or otherwise. Of course, our five senses participate in this perception of fear but we can only catch a glimpse at the unknown, otherwise it would be called horror.

Extraits

[...] Commentary upon Mary Shelley's statement: “What terrified me will terrify others” In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, the Creature in itself is not what is the most terrifying. Indeed, in her dream and in the novel afterwards, if Doctor Frankenstein is afraid at the sight of his creature, it is also its coming to life which creates fear: how can an amount of bones, skin, muscles a dead body actually come to life? Does it have a soul or at least, a conscience of itself? [...]

[...] The uncanny doesn't appear here around the protagonist but in his own view on the world. The clash with reality is thus at the origin of fear: we don't like what we don't understand; or rather our curiosity of what we are ignorant leads us to fear. What can't be understand is regarded as abnormal and thus, dangerous. The same thing happens in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Minister's Black Veil: this is not a real fantastic story but the fact that the parson differs from the social standards provokes the fear of the others. [...]

[...] We must also notice that Mary Shelley's statement “What terrified me will terrify others” was made in the preface to Frankenstein and deals with the fact that the idea of the story came to her mind after a dreadful dream at night. She also explains the importance of dreams in general: her writings, when she was a young girl, were mere imitations but her dreams were “refuges” and “dearest pleasures”. If she wrote imitations, it was because she had models of fantastic stories, where “soon a gate swung back, a step was heard, the door of the chamber opened, [ ] the shape was lost the shadow of a castle's walls”. [...]

[...] It is a projection of our utmost wish to know, to understand and at the same time our own necessity of creating obstacles on the way to knowledge. We want to taste of the forbidden fruit, not only to discover something beyond it but to feel the fear of something that happens out of natural and cultural laws. oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown”, H. [...]

[...] Then, when Mary Shelley writes “what terrified me will terrify others”, we can't only see in it a need to show, but rather a need to suggest, a need to create something universal, which can apply to everyone and at any time. Her wish to write story] which would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature, and awaken thrilling horror, one to make the reader dread to look round, to curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of the heart” shows that terror is not only in the text but in our imagination as we can share all the different elements of a same questioning: can it occur? [...]