Sorry if this is an obvious question, but what is your opinion on clervalstein? I know you don’t like when people render Victor as useless or overly dependent on Henry in certain people’s readings or if they ship clervalstein but also hate Victor, and I totally agree with that. I personally read their relationship as romantic, because of how much they care for/are soft on each other and how Victor clearly views Elizabeth in a very familial way where his view of Henry is much different. Additionally, I feel like the queer undertones of the story are kind of innate because of Shelley’s own queerness. Anyway, I respect a lot of your opinions on the story and was just curious what your reading was on this topic :)
Also if you haven’t read/watched it already, I think you would like The Summer Hikaru Died. It’s a manga/anime about grief, life, and love. It’s similar in many ways to Frankenstein, but at the same time is very different. All the characters are also very nuanced. The queer themes are woven into the narrative beautifully, and Yoshiki is canonically gay. It’s a queer story, but it isn’t a romance. A lot of people here ship Yoshiki and Hikaru, but they canonically have an undefined/qpr type of relationship that’s really lovely to see
the relationship of henry clerval and victor frankenstein is doubtlessly drowned in queer subtext. however, i would not personally say that their care or "softness" for each other is something that can quite serve as evidence for an implied romance; such a notion, i believe, is one that does devalue the care that is within friendship. it is only sensible for one's closest companion to choose to care of them when they are disabled, and for them to talk of said companion with tenderness. additionally—though more nitpicky of me—i don't think it's "clear" that victor views elizabeth familially; i do believe he does on a subsconscious view her as family as opposed to romantic partner, despite having been arranged to marry, however his perception is to wrapped in their grooming for this fact to be particularly obvious (and when it comes to writing, this is a good thing).
clerval's character is sometimes interpreted as mary shelley's idealised version of percy shelley during and after her pregnancy(/ies). by extension, victor is sometimes interpreted as mary shelley herself. analysing fiction with too much biography—especially by woman writers—is a mode i tend to discourage as more often than not it appears to be a mad scramble to figure out which figure of x author's life is secretly the fictional character they wrote, but percy shelleyan figures are not uncommon in the stories which MWS wrote (in frankenstein, it is arguably both clerval and victor but we focus on clerval for now). in both frankenstein and her later work, The Last Man, which is more intentionally "autobiographical," these figures are the companions of a character who appears to lean to being more like mary shelley, despite these characters also being male themselves. thus, undoubtedly, it would be considered rather queer when two fictional characters of the same sex are based off married people.
shelley's own queerness as bisexual—in the terminological assumption of the 21st century—is something that could have very well easily influenced her work, yes. i once had a friend, who is now too busy with the tumult of life to keep in contact now, who said there was evidence of gender queerness with her as well, and had supplied some primary sources and essays to it. regrettably i am unable to locate them now, and might be speaking with hazy memory. take it with a grain of salt. girlenstein forever. (in the analysis of transfemininity in frankenstein, we argue that clerval takes the role of The Husband, but i digress.)
departing from biographical application, there is not a lack of allusions to "romantic" tales when it comes to clerval and victor in the novel. only two come to mind immediately at this moment: quoting leigh hunt's The Story of Rimni—which is about the love of The Divine Comedy's paolo and francesca despite francesca's loveless marriage—in regards to henry clerval ("He was a being formed in the “very poetry of nature.”"), alongside the 1831 revision which, though i do not quite like as much as the original 1818 editions, alludes to the symposium and the myth of the circular man:
we are unfashioned creatures, but half made up, if one wiser, better, dearer than ourselves—such a friend ought to be—do not lend his aid to perfectionate our weak and faulty natures. I once had a friend, the most noble of human creatures, and am entitled, therefore, to judge respecting friendship.
this allusion is one that i've "written" more about in this post.
so yes, i would agree that there is a certain queerness in clerval and frankenstein's relationship, and romance between them is something i have doubtlessly entertained. i do not mind it. victor frankenstein is my favourite character, and in the realm of dreams and fiction i enjoy finding ways to make him happy, and very often clerval is the perfect device for it. however, i am not as interested in it as i was when i was younger; i've become aromantic, quickly bored of romance, so i myself like to alternate between the romantic and (queer)platonic :) tthey are all the same to me, usually.
