Title: Dr. Frankenstein’s Daughters
Author: Suzanne Weyn
Date of First Publication: 2013
Place of Publication: Scholastic
Type: Novel
Characters: Victor Frankenstein, The Creature, Mary Shelley, Lord Byron, Percy Shelley
Themes: ANDROID; BYRONIC HERO; MAD SCIENTIST/FRANKENSTEIN MONSTER; RACE/POLITICS; SYMPETHTIC MONSTER; WOMEN WRITING MONSTERS
Critical Summary: Dr. Frankenstein’s Daughters is told from diary entries by Victor Frankenstein, and then his unknown twin daughters, Ingrid and Giselle. It starts with a recap of Victor’s experiences with the monster in the original Frankenstein, but with the addition of the information that he had a wife in Ingolstadt before Elizabeth, Hildy, who had died giving birth to his twin daughters. He chose to protect his daughters from the Creature by keeping them secret and allowing them to be raised by their maternal grandfather. The daughters are unaware of their parentage until Ernest Frankenstein informs them they have inherited a fortune and a castle after the recovery of Victor’s body from the Arctic. The girls are polar opposites in that Ingrid takes after her father’s inquisitive mind and Giselle is “the beautiful one,” even though they are identical, because she cares more for her appearance. We follow Giselle’s run-ins with men mistreating her and her sleepwalking problems, while Ingrid discovers her father’s scientific journals and follows in his footsteps to attempt to cure her sickly neighbor Walter Hammersmith – whom she has fallen in love with. Men start to die and disappear around the girls and we come to find out in the end that Giselle has a traumatic memory from her childhood of the creature attempting to kidnap her and Ingrid. This memory has been buried so deeply that whenever she feels threatened, she goes back to that night and attacks the threat to protect her and her sister. It is only through hypnosis that it is confirmed that Giselle was the culprit in the missing and murdered men. Also, at the party Giselle organizes as a coming out party for the girls, Ingrid discovers the final key to saving Walter whom she has been working to cure. It is through the help of Mary Shelley, Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, and Dr. Sarlandière’s help that she is successful in her endeavor to heal Walter. In the end, Giselle is placed in an asylum for women, drugged with laudanum constantly, while Ingrid is waiting for Walter to heal in order to marry her when she imagines she sees a large, misshapen form of a man in front of the castle.
While the characters of Victor Frankenstein and the Creature are not directly involved in the action of the story, their framing of the story makes them significant contributors to the plot. Also, Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, and Lord Byron are only ever seen for a small portion of time at the party, but it is through their help that the conflicts of the story are resolved. The theme of the Android is reflected in the augmentation of Walter Hammersmith in replacing his leg and arm, as well as the electric healing of his diseases. The themes of women writing monsters and mad scientists intersect in Ingrid’s obsession with science, her father’s work, and curing Walter, as well as the fact that this novel was written by a woman. The Byronic hero and sympathetic monster intersect in Walter Hammersmith with his bouts of depression and sickly condition, but could also be reflected in Ingrid’s dark obsession with cadavers and the science of life where there is a role reversal at the end in which she becomes the hero in following her obsession as opposed to the negativity associated with Victor doing the same. Finally, there are references to race and politics in how the daughters interact with the inhabitants of the island, as well as any other lower-classes they encounter, especially once they acknowledge their title of Baroness.
Administrative Notes: Marissa Brown, CSUF; Amanda Howard, CSUF (editing)