Construct me like one of your machines

Lui || 22 || she/her || being human is not for me, thanks || my body is 80% anxiety 20% pure lust for science

[8nin]

“what’s stopping you from-“ listen i am so so sleepy

[necrofuturism]

the real importance of being ernest is that you get to survive the events of frankenstein (1818)

[agardenandlibrary]

I should be able to both read for 8hrs a night and sleep for 8hrs a night. That I cannot is very rude and, frankly, poor design.

[twofaceforever]

Change My Mind : Victor Frankenstein did nothing wrong during Justine's trial

I encourage anyone to respond to this post and debate the points I will raise below. I am open and always ready to discuss. That said, I would argue here that Victor's actions during Justine's trial (and I am limiting the conversation to the trial, and not the original sin of creating life). Even among Victor's apologists, many consider this moment to be one of his lowest, most selfish, and immoral acts. This view is even reflected in some adaptations, and I think it is not only simplistic, but also fails to reflect the reality of the scene and the characters.

I. Victor's mental health

This point may seem to come out of nowhere and appear unrelated to the topic, but I think it’s essential to establish this before moving on to the other arguments. A question I often see pop up is the following: how on earth could Victor have known that the creature killed his brother? The last time Victor had seen the creature was a year and a half earlier, in Ingolstadt, hundreds of kilometres away from Geneva, when the creature showed no signs of cognition. It’s a huge leap, and to understand it properly, we must first understand Victor’s mental state at that point of the novel.

Throughout the book, Victor experiences numerous hallucinations of the creature, the first one occurring when he returns to his apartment with Clerval. During the fever that follows that incident and even afterwards, Victor continues to have visions of the creature.

I imagined that the monster seized me; I struggled furiously, and fell down in a fit.

The form of the monster on whom I had bestowed existence was for ever before my eyes, and I raved incessantly concerning him.

My friend @frankingsteinery wrote a wonderful post about Victor’s delusions, and I recommend anyone reading this to pause and read his. Anyway, there is a common denominator in these visions, and tht is the perception of the creature as a threat. Only after fleeing his apartment, Victor already refers to the creature as his “enemy.” Even before having any indication that the creature could be dangerous, Victor already had the irrational belief that he intended to hurt him, and his mere presence caused him physical distress. Victor is experiencing persecutory delusions.

No sooner did that idea cross my imagination, than I became convinced of its truth; [...] He was the murderer! I could not doubt it. The mere presence of the idea was an irresistible proof of the fact.

And the nuance must be understood. I’m not saying that the creature’s existence is a delusion (contrarily to what some scholars would have you believe. God, I hate this theory), but that the firm belief that he wants to harm Victor is. When Victor learns of William’s death, he is only able to conclude that the creature must have killed him based on a preconceived and unfounded idea that the creature wanted to harm him, and therefore, by extension, wanted to harm his family. Of course, this conclusion is based on the creature’s appearance in Geneva, but this would not be the first time Victor had visual hallucinations of the creature. Even if Victor really had seen the creature, mere presence is far from proof of any misdeed.

The creature’s culpability seems so obvious to us, the audience, that we forget that in a realistic context, the odds that the creature was the culprit were exceptionally low. Victor’s conviction that he killed William is the product of delusion, and not reason.

As rational as this “evidence” seems to him, Victor is perfectly aware that it would sound insane to anyone else. This mirrors my own experience with psychosis and persecutory delusions (surprisingly similar to Victor’s, I might add) : as convinced as I was of my delusional ideas, I knew that if I expressed them out loud, I would be considered crazy. Being perceived as insane and irrational would not benefit his own cause or Justine's innocence, which brings me to my next point.

II. Victor would not have been believed

Even if we accept the absurd supposition that the creature Victor created in Germany could somehow develop the ability to travel all the way to Victor’s hometown, find his brother, strangle him, and then frame the family’s servant, another problem arises: the very existence of the creature. I plead the 8-ft homunculus I made out of corpses in my apartment! What the hell was Victor supposed to do?

If even his best friend dismissed his monster talk as “the wanderings of my disturbed imagination,” who’s to say a court would have believed Victor? He cannot prove the creature is real, no one knows of his existence besides him, and he no longer has the notes from his experiment! His testimony would simply have been rejected as insane ramblings. Even if the court believed in the creature’s existence, they would then have to assume that the hypothetical scenario outlined earlier is true—one that is entirely speculative, compared to the circumstantial evidence pointing to Justine. Not only would his confession have been useless in Justine’s case, it would only have incriminated him further and possibly cost him his own life.

We now move into a more speculative section. Maybe Victor didn’t need to talk about the creature. Many argue that Victor could have mentioned seeing a stranger near Geneva, but three problems arise. The first is the same as before: the evidence against Justine is much stronger than anything pointing to some unnamed suspect. Second, Justine’s trial was not meant to find WHO committed the crime, but to determine whether that someone was Justine. The court was not searching for a new suspect, so testimony about a stranger’s presence would have been completely superfluous. Lastly, Victor could very well claim he saw a suspicious stranger in the area where William was killed, but Victor has been absent from Geneva for six years! Who says this man is a stranger, and more importantly, who says this man is THE murderer? After all, Victor arrives in Geneva a month after the crime; who's to say the man didn't arrive later?

All of this would have been seen as a flimsy accusation and would be dismissed in court.

III. Victor doesn't have enough information

 As I mentioned earlier, the purpose of Justine’s trial is not to find other potential culprits, but assessing Justine’s guilt based on, keyword here, evidence. Any testimony must provide information about the crime or about Justine herself. Victor has neither, and therefore is not a witness. He was not present at the time of the murder, everything he knows about the case comes from his father, he did not know Justine very well (Elizabeth having to remind him who she is in one of her letters), and he has not set foot in Geneva for the past six years, i.e. since William was an infant. Victor has nothing useful to share with the court except his certainty of Justine’s innocence, but opinions are not admissible. Facts are. Victor may proclaim Justine’s innocence—as he does repeatedly—

“You are mistaken; Justine is innocent.”

“She is innocent, my Elizabeth.”

“Poor, good Justine is innocent.”

—but this does not change the fact that these suppositions carry no real weight, because they rest on his persecutory delusion. The creature wants to harm me = the creature must have killed my brother = Justine is therefore innocent. Once again, Victor barely knows Justine and hasn’t seen her in six years ; he does not have the same foundation to assert her innocence as, say, Elizabeth.

It is Elizabeth who ends up being a character witness for Justine. Although this testimony carries less weight than if it had been delivered by a man, it is still more relevant than one from Victor, because she was actually close to both the victim AND the accused. If even this could not save Justine, I struggle to see how Victor could have changed anything.

IV. So, who is in the wrong?

I think the problem with this discussion is that it shifts the blame for the actions of others onto Victor. We must not forget that, at the end of the day, he had a minimal role in Justine’s execution, excluding the monster's creation. But even then, the decision to frame Justine was entirely the creature’s, and one not motivated by her connection to the Frankensteins (which he wasn't even aware of), but by the possibility of future romantic rejection. Justine is killed because she is a young attractive woman and because the creature cannot have her.

Although Victor calls himself her murderer, it is ultimately reductive for the audience to label him as such, because it ignores all the other parties who played a role in her death. The murderer of Justine IS the man who framed an innocent woman with full knowledge that she would be condemned to death.

[...] thanks to the lessons of Felix, and the sanguinary laws of man, I have learned how to work mischief.

The murderer of Justine IS the man who threatened an exhausted and starving servant girl into confessing to a murder she didn’t commit just to speed up the procedure. 

The murderer of Justine IS the justice system that executed an innocent woman based on circumstantial evidence.

It would be easy to point to Victor's guilty internal thoughts as definitive proof of his guilt. His inner monologue is self-pitying, sure, and takes away the pain that characters like Elizabeth and Justine are currently experiencing. Elizabeth is also convinced she is to blame for the death of William and the following execution of Justine? As for Justine, the poor girl is about to be killed! His worst offence is his self-absorption, but that is not a crime, nor does it matter in this situation. Why is the creature's self-centredness not emphasized in the same way as Victor's, when he claims that he has suffered more than any of his victims?

[pseudonemisis]

So after reading Frankenstein (1818) I would like to throw my hat into the ring as to what the creature should be called. I can see naming him after his creator, I can also see Adam, however, and I quote, "Like Adam, I was created apparently united by no link to any other being in existence; but his state was far different from mine in every other respect. He had come forth from the hands of God a perfect creature, happy and prosperous, guarded by the especial care of his Creator; he was allowed to converse with, and aquire knowledge from beings of a superior nature: but I was wretched, helpless, and alone. Many times I considered Satan as a fitter emblem of my condition; for often, like him, when I viewed the bliss of my my protectors, the bitter gall of envy rose within me."

And so according to this I would like to suggest the name Lucy Frankenstein as a potential moniker. Thank you and good night.

[luixiv]

I agree so much with you OP. This is what I have been calling him!! (Well Lucia, which is more gender neutral form of Lucy in my first language, but it's still the same name.)

I also like this name for him, because the name Lucia means light, and in the beginning of his journey, he has a moment when he is taken aback by the beauty of a sunrise, so I thought that was nice little symbolic thing.

[offwegointothewildblueyonder]

when a child goes to Build-A-Bear and constructs a teddy from the parts available no one bats an eye, but when I, Victor Frankenstein,

[justallthecolors]

when you want to HOOK UP but you are in the middle of THE ARTIC in a scientific mission but then you find a HOT MEN in agony and take care of him until he’s a bit healthy and you learn EVERYTHING about him and you could LOVE HIM but he has GIVEN UP on life and it’s being pursued by THE CREATURE he created in defiance of god, that he feels he should kill now to save humanity and YOUR TRIPULATION is about to conduct a MUTINY, but he is smart and convinced them that THEIR MISSION is not useless but rather an act of BRAVERY, so you start writing EVERYTHING to your sister that is worried about you, but you are NOT FINE because one day YOUR MAN decides to LEAVE and you are heartbroken and believe he is DEAD and then, you see that on his deathbed, there is THE CREATURE, that is regretful, because he finally got his revenge but he still knows he IS DAMNED, and you begin to understand his MOTIVES AND FEELINGS and in that way, become the FIRST HUMAN to show some kind of empathy and then he DISAPPEARS somewhere in the polar sea

[teaboot]

Wait what's a buildings fire evacuation plan if you aren't supposed to use the elevator to get down

[lazodiac]

You go down the stairwell/fire escape. Is that weird?

[teaboot]

But what if you have a walker or a wheelchair??

[durpacerangerrogjro]

in america at least, in this situation, there isnt one. either your loved ones or the firemen can get you out using the emergency fire escapes or stairs, or you die 

[teaboot]

That's fucking horrific, thank you

[official-lucifers-child]

“fun” little story:

last summer my friend who is an amazingly talented artist and i were in this super tall building, and she’s in a wheelchair and i’m pushing her around the room. it’s an art exhibit and some of her art was chosen to be showcased there and so it’s all fine and dandy until suddenly an alarm starts going off

a FIRE ALARM

everyone starts running for the stairs and my friend just looks at me with this forlorn look on her face

“i can’t go down the stairs”

but i’m a stubborn bitch “i’ll carry you”

“what about my chair? it’s too expensive for me to be able to get another one if i can’t get this one back”

“i’ll carry that too”

and i did. we went to the stairs (by then most people from our floor were gone) and i lifted her up in a fireman’s carry over my shoulder and then lifted her chair up and used the ridiculous amount of adrenaline that was coursing through my veins to make it down approximately 20 half-flights of stairs until we met some people exiting lower floors, one of which who kindly took the chair. I changed positions so i was holding my friend bridal-style which was, somehow, easier and the person who took her wheelchair (with her permission to handle it of course) accompanied me to the ground floor and then out the doors

basically there is no real protocol for people who can’t use the stairs in an emergency. it’s up to the people with them, if anyone, to help them or the person to somehow make it down the stairs alone, unassisted

thank fuck that it was just a faulty alarm system, because if i was unable to carry her down those stairs and the building was on fucking fire???? then i don’t know what would have happened to her, but i don’t think it would have been very good.

it’s fucking ridiculous and ableist to the absolute max.

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

I use a cane. When I did a day-long fire safety training at my northeast American university (UMass Amherst), I asked that exact same question: “what am I supposed to do if the fire alarm goes off and I’m in my lab on the twelfth floor?” 

the fire marshal hemmed and hawed for a while and then said to take the elevator- you’re supposed to leave it free for the fire department to use and they want able-bodied people out fast not waiting for elevators. if the fire alarm has just gone off the building probably hasn’t suffered enough structural damage to make using the elevator dangerous, and modern elevator wells are heavily reinforced. many large and high-trafficked buildings on my campus have fire rated elevators that link in with the fire alarm system so they won’t let you off on a floor with a possible fire. 

if the elevator isn’t working, wait in the stairwell and call the fire department to let them know where you are. modern stairwells are also heavily reinforced- it might not be pleasant but modern building code usually requires fire-resistant stairwell doors in office and big residential buildings, also to help firefighters get in and out safely. older buildings’ stairwells may or may not be retrofitted with fire-resistant doors but a stairwell is generally the safest place to wait if you can’t get out. 

what happened to your friend was horrible, and i’m very glad you were there to help her out, but you can absolutely use the elevator to evacuate if it’s not shut down. those don’t-use-the-elevator rules are for abled people.  

[tisfan]

This is GOOD TO KNOW. why do they not tell people this??

[ravynfyre]

Okay, firefighter here. If you are not physically able to use the stairs, and the elevator is NOT compromised, use the elevator. But you MUST be ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that the elevator is NOT compromised before you get into it, because there is always the chance that once you get into it, you may not exit it. Power could go out. The elevator may actually BE compromised and you just couldn’t tell from where you were until you were in there, and it suddenly shuts down on you. Something else could happen. 

Understand that once you enter the elevator, you could POTENTIALLY be taking your life into your hands there.

It is NOT LIKELY, to be perfectly honest. It’s only in a pretty catastrophic scenario - think the Twin Towers, USA, on September 11th - that the elevators will be compromised and out of service. But there is a NOT ZERO PERCENT CHANCE and you need to understand that and accept it.

As for leaving the elevators free for the firefighters, okay, here’s the deal. Unless your nearest fire station is literally right next door? Your first on scene fire truck is NOT likely to be there on scene and needing that elevator before you get to the ground. It takes us TIME to find the address, gear up, and drive to the building. Then we need to hoof it into where the elevators even ARE, so YOU HAVE TIME to use the elevator to get down to the ground floor... BUT ONLY IF THERE’S NOT A RUSH ON THE ELEVATOR! And THAT is WHY we don’t tell people this shit. That’s WHY we tell people to NEVER USE THE ELEVATOR... because every self-entitled asshole will use it because they don’t feel like walking, and then put YOU in danger by delaying the elevator’s arrival to you.

IF, however, the elevator IS compromised, or you just can’t get it to come for you, or whatever, and you either don’t have anyone with you who has the adrenaline fueled BALLS to be able to toss you over their shoulder and hoof it down the stairs with you - because, let’s face it, that is RARE AS FUCK, then HERE IS WHAT YOU DO:

You call 911 and tell the call taker that you are in the building that has a fire alarm going off, and you are not able to evacuate because of a physical disability, and you tell them what floor you are on, and EXACTLY what stairwell you are waiting at. And the very FIRST thing that the firefighters are going to do once they arrive, if it is, indeed, a REAL emergency, and not a false alarm, is come get your ass and bring you down. Whether that means carrying you down the stairs, or whether that means locking out the elevators so that no one else can override them and coming to get you themselves, they WILL come get you FIRST THING if it is a real event. And if it is a false alarm? You will probably be the first person who is not involved with the building to know, because the call-taker is going to stay on the line with you until you are under someone’s care and out of danger, or until the scene has been sorted out as real or false, and you are out of danger that way.

These are pretty standard operations in the fire service throughout the United States. There may be some minor variations based on specific municipalities, but, for the most part, this is pretty typical: LIFE BEFORE PROPERTY. So, as long as SOMEONE knows where you are - hence why you call 911 - Firefighters will come get you. You are NOT alone, and you have NOT been abandoned. I PROMISE. It’s like, our whole reason for doing the shit we do: to save lives and to break shit. Sometimes, we get lucky enough to do both at the same time.

High rise fires suck ass, and I always hated them. But the very FIRST thing I asked anytime we got one was if we had “any entrapments” - which is what we call anyone who could not self-evacuate for ANY reason. We ain’t leaving you behind. And yes, your friend who doesn’t have the stamina to carry you down can stay with you, too. Because I would never ask that of someone, honestly. 

Also, just a little FYI... MOST fire alarms are false alarms. Not to make anyone complacent or anything, but, yeah. Most of them are either system malfunctions, someone accidentally hit a pull station, or someone burned popcorn in a break room. So don’t let a fire alarm freak you out until you need it to - by smelling or seeing smoke or flames. 

[gentle--riot]

i have had multiple nightmares about this very thing because NOBODY BOTHERS TO ACTUALLY TELL WHEELCHAIR USERS THIS STUFF

[downwiththebad]

I am loving these additions!

If you're disabled, this is worth the time and focusing energy to read through!!!

[shuploc]

Warming up for Arcane's anniversary with a Jayce drawing!

[fuckyeahisawthat]

I like how The Blanket just immediately becomes non-Euclidean once it's on Viktor's shoulders.

There it is on the chair, perfectly normal. Little does it know how much symbolic weight it's about to be carrying.

It's a robe, it's a cape, it's a cunty wrap dress.

None of these are the same shape. Blanket does what it wants.

If you ever owned one of those infinity dresses in the early 2000s you will know that they are not a rectangle. Blanket don't care.

Kudos to whoever figured out how to make the blanket also look dead here.

Someone got out the magical Cricut machine while he was in the egg. Sure why not.

Anyway I love that fuckass blanket. Symbol of all time. Goes through as many costume changes as Viktor does. Iconic.

[panthermouthh]

“My limbs now tremble and my eyes swim with the remembrance; but then a resistless, and almost frantic, impulse urged me forward; I seemed to have lost all soul or sensation but for this one pursuit.”

Victor's small moment of joy, before he realises what he's done

Prints

Referenced, of course, from the wonderful work on Bernie Wrightson

[speciesbarocus]

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein manuscript.

[criminalizegolf]

> read library book

> it's good

Thank you library

[fiercestpurpose]

> read library book

> it's bad

Thank you library for saving me from buying it :)

[beif0ngs]

In all timelines… In all possibilities…  Only you… can show me this.

[m0nt3cr15t0]

Henry Clerval makes me so sad.

You've been best friends with this one dork since you two were little kids; he's always been arranged to marry his cousin-sister. The two of you would spend days and nights together sharing your interests and laughing and crying. Eventually he has to go to college. You try to get your father to let you join him, but he refuses. For all those years that your best friend hardly contacts you or his family, you're desperately trying to get permission to go to college. After lots of hard work and lots of persuasion, you finally get there, but he's feverish and distant even when you're now reunited. Hoping to help this man you've grown to care so much about, you spend your time nursing him back to health instead of pursuing your own education. He still refuses to tell you what plagues him, but it's okay, what matters is that he eventually heals up and the two of you can at last go to college together in peace, right? But he acts strangely whenever his old pursuits and passions are mentioned. He still shivers and gets dizzy and he's riddled with an anxiety you've never seen. There's sudden death and loss in the family, and you just have to sit and watch as he grows progressively more anxious, cold, closed off, and depressed. There's nothing you can do to help. Even when he finally seems to be happier, even when he invites you to travel with him, he's so cut off and empty. He's a husk of himself. He's slipping from your fingertips before you can even hold him to your heart. His wedding is getting more imminent, a reminder that you'll always just be his 'close friend'. He's asking to be alone to attend to urgent matters and saying all sorts of other cryptic things.

Your entire life you are there for him, knowing you'll never be able to be with him. Your entire life you do everything in your power to be as close as you can to this man, but no matter what you do, he shuts you and everyone else he loves out. You can do nothing but sit and watch the person you love as they go into a downward spiral and lose themself. They're paranoid, ill, and they refuse to tell even you anything. And you just die young. You give your life to a love you know will never give back to you, will never be able to, and it crumbles apart until you die with and for it. Henry spent so long chasing after love that he followed Victor off a cliff.

Henry deserved so much better

[dathen]

Fascinating trend I’ve noticed from lurking in Frankenstein-related tags:

If there’s a male construct, people frame him as the creator’s child. He has full agency and personhood and deserves to be raised in a family. The most obvious example of this is Frankenstein’s Creature, but you’ll see echoes of it with creators of robots, Pinocchio, etc.

If there’s a female construct, people frame it as expected that she’s created to be a romantic/sexual object. I saw a few posts that Pygmalion is morally superior to Victor Frankenstein because he fell in love with his creation, for instance. I don’t need to go into the dozens of “make a female robot and fall for her” tropes.

The most uncomfortable intersection of this dichotomy are the countless posts insisting that it was Victor’s duty as a father to create a female to gift to his son—and that the “wait but she’ll be an actual person of her own” reservations Victor had in the book were immoral. He owes his son (male construct = family, agency, personhood) the gift of a person (female construct = object, no agency, not family). She wouldn’t be a daughter, just “the Bride.” Nothing about Víctor owing her happiness, but the exact opposite: that she must be custom-designed to be miserable and rejected so she’d be trapped with the male-creature.

For a piece of literature where personhood is such a central theme, it’s a disturbing and disappointing trend.

[victorfreakenste1n]

I stand firm that it was an act of feminism, and a turning point for Victor, to realize that the female Creature would be owed as much as he owes the male Creature, including but not limited to agency.

[frankingsteinery]

victor is one of the most psychotic characters i have ever read in literature and it all feels both surprisingly accurate and relatable given the time period; i have been meaning to make a proper analysis on victor's psychotic symptoms for awhile now, but have, ironically, been delayed due to my own psychotic symptoms, so here's more of an informal list--

i'll be breaking down victor's: 1. negative symptoms (loss of functioning)

2. positive symptoms (hallucinations)

3. disorganized thinking and speech/behavior

victor's psychotic symptoms, as well as his initial psychotic break during the creation of the OG creature, are brought upon by the stressors of creating the creature(s), both before, during and after the creation process. the first of these symptoms were negative symptoms.

negative symptoms of psychosis are a loss (thus--"negative") or reduction of normal functioning, and can include restricted emotional expression, lack of speech or monotone speech, difficulty thinking, reduced motivation and/or desire to initiate activities, reduced socialization and social withdrawal, and an inability or decreased ability to experience pleasure. they most commonly occur in the prodromal (initial) phase before the acute phase (characterized by hallucinations, delusions, and confused thinking) and in the recovery phase, which is true of victor's case.

andehonia (lack of pleasure):

"...but I did not watch the blossom or the expanding leaves—sights which before always yielded me supreme delight, so deeply was I engrossed in my occupation... But my enthusiasm was checked by my anxiety... I became nervous to a most painful degree" (paranoia, too) -- Vol I, Chapter III

"It was a most beautiful season; never did the fields bestow a more plentiful harvest, or the vines yield a more luxuriant vintage: but my eyes were insensible to the charms of nature" -- Vol I, Chapter III (1818)

"By very slow degrees, and with frequent relapses, that alarmed and grieved my friend, I recovered. I remember the first time I became capable of observing outward objects with any kind of pleasure..." -- Vol I, Chapter IV (1818)

asociality (social withdrawal) & alogia (impoverished speech):

"And the same feelings which made me neglect the scenes around me caused me also to forget those friends who were so many miles absent, and whom I had not seen for so long a time. I knew my silence disquieted them..." Vol I, Chapter III (1818)

"Study had before secluded me from the intercourse of my fellow-creatures, and rendered me unsocial..." -- Vol I, Chapter V (1818)

"This state of mind preyed upon my health, which had entirely recovered from the first shock it had sustained. I shunned the face of man; all sound of joy or complacency was torture to me; solitude was my only consolation—deep, dark, death-like solitude." -- Vol II, Chapter I (1818)

additionally, and in general, victor becomes incapable of initiating activities (avolition) while being cared for by henry at ingolstadt.

victor hallucinates several times throughout the novel. these hallucinations are almost exclusively visual, and primarily of the creature:

“'Do not ask me,” cried I, putting my hands before my eyes, for I thought I saw the dreaded spectre glide into the room; “he can tell.—Oh, save me! save me!” I imagined that the monster seized me; I struggled furiously, and fell down in a fit." -- Vol I, Chapter IV (1818)

"The form of the monster on whom I had bestowed existence was for ever before my eyes, and I raved incessantly concerning him..." -- Vol I, Chapter IV (1818)

"I saw around me nothing but a dense and frightful darkness, penetrated by no light but the glimmer of two eyes that glared upon me. Sometimes they were the expressive eyes of Henry, languishing in death, the dark orbs nearly covered by the lids, and the long black lashes that fringed them; sometimes it was the watery clouded eyes of the monster, as I first saw them in my chamber at Ingolstadt..." -- Vol II, Chapter IV (1818)

"All pleasures of earth and sky passed before me like a dream, and that thought only had to me the reality of life. Can you wonder, that sometimes a kind of insanity possessed me, or that I saw continually about me a multitude of filthy animals inflicting on me incessant torture, that often extorted screams and bitter groans?" -- Vol II, Chapter IX (1818)

"Sometimes I entreated my attendants to assist me in the destruction of the fiend by whom I was tormented; and, at others, I felt the fingers of the monster already grasping my neck, and screamed aloud with agony and terror." -- Vol III, Chapter IV (1818)

beyond that, victor's positive symptoms also include delusions of guilt, grandeur and persecution. however, this is complex enough that it warrants its own separate post. for another time... (edit: find it here)

victor also experiences disorganized behavior, behaviors that are inconsistent, contradictory, or don't fit the situation; for victor, the most obvious of which is catatonia, a symptom of psychosis characterized by abnormal movements, behaviors, and withdrawal. he demonstrates both akinetic (staying still, appearing unresponsive, staring blankly, lack of speech) and excited/hyperkinetic (moving in a pointless/repetitive way, appearing agitated or delirious, pacing, etc) catatonia.

"Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created, I rushed out of the room, and continued a long time traversing my bed-chamber, unable to compose my mind to sleep...I took refuge in the court-yard belonging to the house which I inhabited; where I remained during the rest of the night, walking up and down in the greatest agitation, listening attentively, catching and fearing each sound as if it were to announce the approach of the demoniacal corpse to which I had so miserably given life." -- Vol I, Chapter IV (1818)

"...my spirits became unequal; I grew restless and nervous. Every moment I feared to meet my persecutor. Sometimes I sat with my eyes fixed on the ground, fearing to raise them lest they should encounter the object which I so much dreaded to behold." -- Vol II, Chapter II (1818) 

"Then the appearance of death was distant, although the wish was ever present to my thoughts; and I often sat for hours motionless and speechless, wishing for some mighty revolution that might bury me and my destroyer in its ruins." -- Chapter 21 (1831)

he also displays inappropriate/unusual reactions, another example of disorganized behavior:

"I was unable to contain myself. It was not joy only that possessed me; I felt my flesh tingle with excess of sensitiveness, and my pulse beat rapidly. I was unable to remain for a single instant in the same place; I jumped over the chairs, clapped my hands, and laughed aloud... my loud, unrestrained, heartless laughter, frightened and astonished [Clerval]" -- Vol I, Chapter IV (1818)

victor shows disorganized speech through his "ravings" several times and there's quite a few examples of this but i can't be bothered to pull more quotes. here's just one:

"A fever succeeded this. I lay for two months on the point of death: my ravings, as I afterwards heard, were frightful; I called myself the murderer of William, of Justine, and of Clerval." -- Vol III, Chapter IV (1818)

as a side-note, in the 1800s, the term "fever" was used loosely in comparison to its modern definition, and the health of the mind and body was often viewed as interconnected--thus victor's "fevers" after periods of high stress that triggered psychosis—while being nursed back to health by henry, during his time in prison, etc.—could easily be viewed as mental illness rather than an actual physical sickness, or some combination thereof.

lastly, victor experiences disorganized thinking, which includes racing thoughts, flight of ideas, confusion, trouble keeping track of thoughts, difficulty concentrating, time processing disturbances, etc.

in general, victor experiences dream-like perceptions that leads to difficulty being present, concentrating, and processing reality, what he himself refers to as “strange thoughts” (Vol II, Chapter IX, 1818). for example:

“All pleasures of earth and sky passed before me like a dream, and that thought only had to me the reality of life.” – Vol II, Chapter IX (1818)

additionally, victor is known to lose time and “awaken to understanding” weeks or months later several times:

“What then became of me? I know not; I lost sensation, and chains and darkness were the only objects that pressed upon me…by degrees I gained a clear conception of my miseries and situation, and was then released from my prison. For they had called me mad; and during many months, as I understood, a solitary cell had been my habitation.” – Vol II, Chapter VI (1818)

“But I was doomed to live; and, in two months, found myself as awaking from a dream, in a prison…It was morning, I remember, when I thus awoke to understanding: I had forgotten the particulars of what had happened, and only felt as if some great misfortune had suddenly overwhelmed me.” — Vol II, Chapter IV (1818)

“I seemed to have lost all soul or sensation but for this one pursuit. It was indeed but a passing trance, that only made me feel with renewed acuteness so soon as, the unnatural stimulus ceasing to operate, I had returned to my old habits.” — Vol I, Chapter III

he also demonstrates flight of ideas, a thought disorder that involves rapid shifting of thoughts that are expressed in language. people with flight of ideas may speak quickly and jump between ideas that are not connected in a way that is difficult to follow, illogical, or nonsensical. this occurs just before alphonse visits him in prison:

“I know not by what chain of thought the idea presented itself, but it instantly darted into my mind that the murderer had come to mock at my misery, and taunt me with the death of Clerval, as a new incitement for me to comply with his hellish desires… “Oh! take him away! I cannot see him; for God’s sake, do not let him enter!’” — Vol III, Chapter IV

to which mr. kirwin “regards [victor] with a troubled countenance” in response.

aaand that's a wrap.

there's no real point to all this i just wanted to outline most of his symptoms so i could have it all in one place. i'll probably expand on this sometime with more actual thoughts and ideas of substance as well as building on the implications of a reading of frankenstein where victor experiences psychosis (and how actually acknowledging victor's mental illness forces a much more sympathetic interpretation of victor... which is why people tend to talk around it). do with this what you will!