Frankenstein and Crary

Just Making an Observation

I went to the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia this past winter to see the Van Gogh exhibit. I recall waiting in a long line of people, because like everyone else in Atlanta, I decided a Saturday afternoon would be the perfect time to visit. Once inside, I quickly came to realize that not everyone goes to museums for the same reason I do. There were people just passing by, glancing at the painting and not really looking it. I, on the other hand, do not just look at art, but attempt to fully understand it before moving along to the next painting. I believe that this is what Jonathan Crary meant in Techniques of the Observer when he was explaining the difference between a person being a spectator and a person being an observer. I believe that the Monster in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was an observer and not a mere spectator when he was learning about the world around him, specifically when he lived with the cottagers.

In Techniques of the Observer, Crary discusses the effect of science and technology on humans during the nineteenth century. Crary states:

…The productivity of the observer, pervaded not only areas of art and literature but were present in the philosophical, scientific, and technological discourses. Rather than stressing the separation between art and science in the nineteenth century, it is important to see how they were both part of a single interlocking field of knowledge and practice (9).

Items such as the stereoscope or the camera obscura changed people’s views about art and science. They were not separating the two anymore, but were incorporating them in with one another. By integrating the two, people were no longer just looking at objects for aesthetic purposes. They were actually perceiving it and trying to understand it from almost a scientific standpoint. This applied to literature as well.

A spectator is someone who looks at something, while an observer is “one who sees within a prescribed set of possibilities, one who is embedded in a system of conventions and limitations” (6). In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the Monster exemplifies Crary’s “observer”. He comes across a cottage in the woods and takes up residence to shield himself from the elements in a small adjacent shed.

Fortunately for him, there is a crevice in the wall of the shed that enables him to see the cottagers in their home. He is not just a voyeur, watching them for entertainment reasons though. He is studying them. This is interesting because Crary discusses a point brought up in Discipline and Punish by Foucault that “human subjects became objects of