Mr. Frankenstein's Creation and Mr. Cho's son - what two monsters share in common.

Gobucks ^ | 20 Apr 07 | Gobucks

[gobucks]

- G. K. Chesterson: The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason. -

The horror this week at Vtech is beyond what is found in monster novels ... but an explanation little talked about regarding 'why' can be found in one novel: Frankenstein.

' "Devil," I exclaimed, "do you dare approach me?" ' ... these are the first words of Mr. Frankenstein when he confronts his creation for the first time. This same creature who he failed to name.

The would-be doctor, scientist even, had been wandering in the wood, upset, for his 'son' had killed innocents. And the creation had just found his creator in that wood.

For the monster at his origin had awakened to find himself no father there at his birth, providing his name ... his future. Instead, after the misery, and later, after the violence, the now steeped-in-literature monster eloquently articulates to his creator his complaint:

"Oh, Frankenstein, be not equitable to every other, and trample upon me alone, to whom thy justice, and even thy clemency and affection, is most due. Remember, that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam; but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed. Everywhere I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably excluded. I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous.""

The very educated 'monster' sticks to this explanation of his motives, even at the very end of the book:

"But it is even so; the fallen angel becomes a malignant devil. Yet even that enemy of God and man had friends and associates in his desolation; I am alone."

And so he remains unnamed, even at the end. He points to the despair of being alone, but comments little about the lack of a name. Few murderers in prison talk of this either.

Frequently, we note that the men who fill our prisons ... the murderers ... are like this character (supposedly invented by an 18 year old woman, Mary Shelly). Utter violence, innocents killed, a local report on the news and that's it. The monster is captured, tried, and imprisoned. And there he reamins, alone, miserable, and still deadly. Why? Could it be that the man who created him failed to name him? The total fraction of murderers in prison who grew up with a Dad who named him from birth is what? 2 in 100? Maybe 3?

The fictonal monster is shouted at, and called 'Devil', as the first identifier he hears from Mr. Frankenstein. And he lives down to it.

What doesn't get much comment, to date, is that Cho wasn't content regarding his own given name either. For a brief time, the headlines referred to him as the 'Question Mark', referring to a time when he was required to write down his name, but placed a question mark there instead.

A man's name is important .... but especially if it is missing from his heart. A man's name is a man's fame, however humble or great, and if the son is not shown how and why that fame is worth something ... then his creator runs the great risk of creating a monster.

Cho's Dad has a lot of questions to answer. This is a man who is unusually old given the age of his now dead son. Cho, uses the name Ismail, if media reports are to be believed. "Question Mark & Ismail"

Ishmael was an illegimate son. Was Cho the natural son of his parents? Or was he a foundling? If the natural son, was he treated well and named, like a son expects? Was he shown that he was the future of the family? If he was adopted, was he 'really' adopted, in the sense he was spiritually adopted?

If Cho had killed just one person, the monstrosity of the crime would be no less, just 31 fewer times known. Cho's 'brothers' in prison ... they didn't do this 31 times, and thus, they are forgotten, unknown. Cho should have had the same ending to his story.

But now, we are treated to many many stories about his ill mental health. When the typical killer is put away, the local news usually doesn't check to see if the mental health clinic had him as a visitor. It is just not big news when the average frankentein kills the innocent. Now, however, Cho is 'evil', as we are told, and 'mentally ill'.

But we haven't heard from Cho's Dad. Just his sister.

Here is what I understand: if I, in this present moment, fail to name my sons, and fail to teach the naming responsibility my sons will bear, they, in later moments, will make me sorry, and God-forbid, others sorry for my omissions. One could argue that a woman naming a son should have the same effect, but prisons stats would look very different if that were true.

No, a boy needs a Dad to set the future via the name. And soon enough, I hope, we should be learning about how Cho experienced these lessons.

Two monsters: one in a book, the other in many books, both literate, both furious, both missing a healthy respect for preserving their reputation of thier name.

Shelly's monster wanted in the end what he got ... the destruction of not just Frankenstein the man, the creator, but Frankenstein the name ... why should it exist, when he, the monster, did not have one of his own? There was nothing to protect to begin with, and that made him mad, and he behaved like a madman.

Cho ... why should a man seek such a total complete destruction of his own name? He would know what this horror he did would do to his Dad, his relatives, their reputation. Why did he do the biggest thing he could to destroy it? For it is unlikely he forgot about the implications to the family name as he plotted for weeks this VT disaster.

Why did his Dad, Mom, sister .... why did their lives have so little value to him? The answer to this question, largely, lies firmly within the heart and mind of his father, Mr. Cho.