There are two modes into which the figure of the mad scientist falls; the “Promethean” and the “Faustian”. The former usually depicts a scientist who is morally ambivalent and ultimately degrades the moral sensibilities it comes in contact with; he has noble goals but fails through human weakness. The latter, however, depicts a scientist as morally flawed as his means of discovery, and will nonetheless use any methods, no matter how unethical, to obtain dangerous knowledge. Regardless of its characterization, the mad scientist is distinctly a gothic phenomenon, as seen in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818) and Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886).
As the title indicates, Shelley’s Victor Frankenstein is very much the Promethean version of the mad scientist, whereas Stevenson’s Dr. Henry Jekyll takes the form of the Faustian. However, both novels are cautionary tales of how science can lead to degeneration of society. This is represented through an unethical invention in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and through the neglect of one’s creation in Frankenstein. It is vital to initially describe what it means to be a “mad scientist”, and then equally important to address the notion of “degeneracy”, before one evaluates how and why these terms relate to the Gothic novel.
I. The Mad Scientist as a Degenerate
One must consider these two modes of the mad scientist, Promethean and Faustian, in regard to their original context. According to Greek mythology, Prometheus created man out of clay, defied the gods by bestowing upon humanity progress and civilization through the gift of fire, and then was subsequently punished for this act with eternal torment. Faust, the protagonist in classic German legend, was a successful but dissatisfied scholar who exchanged his soul to the devil for unlimited knowledge and pleasure. In both tales, the acquisition of knowledge led to damnation, although the intentions differ. 19th century writer, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, wrote epic poems on both figures. What Goethe exemplified in each was what he called the “demonic impulse”, the unquestioning trust in the correctness of one’s instincts and emotions, regardless of the laws of morality and society. This impulse is undoubtedly common in the mad scientist, which mirrors Max Simon Nordau’s definition of a “degenerate” as someone who exhibits “no law, no decency, no modesty,” (174).
A useful definition of the mad scientist is a scientific genius who conducts experiments, invents something specific, or does original research, all while suffering from psychological and/or moral insanity. However, the term “genius” implied something much different in the era these novels were written than it does presently, and to say then that a scientific genius is mentally unstable would be redundant. Genius originally meant a guiding spirit, but the Romantics of the late 18th century began to portray the popular poetic genius not as someone possessing extraordinary intellectual ability, but rather as a rebel whose brilliance was more important than the rules of society. By mid-century, the idea of the scientific genius emerged, and was innately characterized by insanity. It was argued that intelligence came at the expense of strength (specifically moral strength).
Continuing to keep the historical context in mind, science was still very much experimental during the 18th and 19th century. The basis of much experimental science was “materialism”, meaning all that exists is matter and nothing exists which is not matter. This notion contradicted society’s strongly religious notions of morality and the soul. Experimental scientists, or “alchemists” as they were referred to in fictional literature, were regarded as pointlessly destructive, blasphemous, and an outright threat to society.
The fear society felt towards experimental science was deeply rooted in the cultural obsession with degeneracy, which, according to Nordau, is regarded as “devolution across successive generations” (173), a “morbid deviation from an original type,” (174). Similar to that of Prometheus and Faust, the acquisition of knowledge by means of experimental science was believed to lead to damnation, primarily through a perverse redirection of human progress. Nordau further illustrates a degenerate as such:
The two psychological roots of moral insanity, in all its degrees of development, are, first unbounded egoism, and, secondly, impulsiveness… Another mental stigma of degenerates is their emotionalism… there is to be observed in the degenerate a condition of mental weakness and despondency… he rejoices in his faculty of imagination… and devotes himself with predilection to all sorts of unlicensed pursuits by the unshackled vagabondage of his mind… and is unhappy when his inquiries and ruminations lead, as is natural, to no result. (175-6)
With that, the mad scientist is overwhelmingly a degenerate. The combination of all these factors equates to a scientific genius (keeping in mind the historical connotation of insanity) that, due to his demonic impulse to acquire knowledge, is a destructive and blasphemous threat to civilization. The creation of the mad scientist figure in literature was a direct response to society’s apprehension to experimental science. That being said, it is easy to see how the mad scientist is inherently a Gothic phenomenon, a genre notorious for romanticizing the dread and disgust felt by society.
II. The Mad Scientist in the Gothic Novel
Victor Frankenstein’s creature and Dr. Jekyll’s Mr. Hyde were both intentional creations that grew more violent through the narrative, largely playing on the classic Gothic trope of the “double”. But what is exemplified in these two novels if the figure of the mad scientist. Both scientists tried to exceed human restraints without thinking of ramifications, although their reflections differed; Frankenstein abandoned his work, where Dr. Jekyll became increasingly fascinated with his newfound evilness and power. Each protagonist’s scientific achievements speaks to different methods in which the degeneration of society would be caused by “bad science”; Frankenstein in the neglect of his invention, and Dr. Jekyll in the unethical use of his intelligence. Knowledge is a powerful tool, one that must be used morally and must be nurtured throughout its development regardless of the achievement(s) it yields.
Shelley’s novel, regarded not only as a Gothic but also as the first work of Science Fiction, depicts the archetypal mad scientist, portraying the pitfalls of experimental science when its monstrous results, defined either by society or by circumstance, are abandoned. By the end of the narrative, Victor Frankenstein is very conscious of the ramifications of his scientific achievements. However, what makes Frankenstein the Promethean mad scientist is his initial intentions:
When I considered the improvement which every day takes place in science and mechanics, I was encouraged to hope my present attempts would at least lay the foundation of future success. Nor could I consider the magnitude and complexity of my plan as any argument of its impracticability. It was with these feelings that I began the creation of a human being. (Shelley, 80)
Victor Frankenstein, aptly named the “Modern Prometheus” by Shelley, has noble goals but his accomplishment in reanimating a corpse is ultimately a failure because of the way society, Frankenstein included, views the creature: as a monster. Frankenstein, or Mary Shelley for that matter, never gives the creature a name—it’s always monster, fiend, devil, etc.—but in popular culture, maker and monster get confused; perhaps showing where the real horror at the heart of the book lies. Nordau states that the degenerate is “incapable of adapting himself to existing circumstances,” (176).
Frankenstein is not inherently evil. However, upon witnessing his creation’s grotesque form come to life, he not only abandons the creature—which propels it to become even more monstrous and murder all of Frankenstein’s family—but his health deteriorates immediately after. Frankenstein was very much incapable of adapting to his creation, despite his industrious effort to complete the task. It was human weakness, as the Promethean mode of the mad scientist suggests, seen both in Frankenstein’s neglect and in society’s reception of the creature, that causes the experiment to fail and destruction to ensue.
Frankenstein was the iconic mad scientist text of the 19th century until 1886 when Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was published. Similar to the legend of Faust, Dr. Jekyll relinquishes his humanity in the pursuit of knowledge and pleasure. Contrary to Frankenstein’s intentions, however, evilness and power is what drives Dr. Jekyll to create Mr. Hyde. With that, Dr. Jekyll is very much of the Faustian mode of mad scientist due to his dangerous, unethical experiments, ones he was performing on himself no less. Dr. Jekyll characterized a much more sinister and eccentric side of experimental science, and is very much a psychoanalytical read of the mad scientist. In relation to Nordau’s concept of the degenerate, which he states that one “becomes more and more incapable of fulfilling his functions in the world; and mental progress, already checked in his own person, finds itself menaces also in his descendants,” (173-4), Jekyll very much becomes unable to function as a part of society, and is eventually wholly taken over by his evil descendant, Hyde: “I as slowly losing hold of my original and better self, and becoming slowly incorporated with my second and worse,” (115).
What makes Stevenson’s novel not only psychological or science fiction, but a work depicted Nordau’s concept of degeneration, is the horrors of experimental science that both Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde characterize—the notion that unethical science, especially when done for selfish gains, will literally destroy you and leave behind nothing but corruption.
Despite one’s intentions, as seen in the contrast between Shelley’s Victor Frankenstein and Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll, the mad scientist is an archetypal degenerate, whether through neglect or inherent evil, or whether as a Promethean or a Faustian figure, and will always belong to the genre of the Gothic.
Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge, and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow. (Shelley, 80)
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