Session 5: Frankenstein and the Creature's Request for a Companion

The Reading: The Creature Makes His Request

Read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Volume II, chapters 2 and 9 in the original three-volume structure, corresponding to chapters 10 and 17 in many modern editions. The Creature's request appears in chapter 17 of the commonly used 1818-derived chapter numbering. Readers should use chapter references rather than page numbers because editions and introductions vary.

The surrounding chapters matter. The Creature describes his encounters with human beings, his growing awareness of language and society, and the rejection he experiences despite his desire for companionship. By the time he speaks to Victor, he has developed an argument about his circumstances. He asks for a female companion who will share his nature and live beyond the reach of the society that has rejected him.

• Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, chapter 17 in common modern editions.
• Read chapter 16 first for the Creature's account of rejection.
• Continue to chapter 20 for Victor's decision about the second creation.

Plain Gloss: A Request for Companionship

The Creature's argument begins with loneliness. He presents himself as a being who has been denied ordinary human companionship because of his appearance. He tells Victor that his attempts to approach others have ended in fear and violence. His request is therefore more than a wish for entertainment or conversation. He wants someone who can recognise his experience and share a life with him.

The Creature also makes a claim about responsibility. Victor brought him into existence and then abandoned him. The Creature argues that his maker has a duty to address the conditions that followed from this act. In his account, creating a companion would offer a way to reduce suffering and prevent further hostility towards humanity. He promises that the two of them would withdraw from human society.

Victor's position is more complicated. He is troubled by the suffering of the Creature, but he fears the consequences of making another being. He cannot know how the proposed companion would behave, whether she would accept the Creature, or what might happen if the two beings had children. The possibility of creating a new life introduces responsibilities that extend beyond the immediate request.

The request also raises a question that the Creature cannot answer on behalf of another person. A female companion would have her own experiences and preferences. She might reject the Creature, reject the proposed isolation or refuse the role Victor has been asked to give her. Her absence from the negotiation is significant. The discussion is partly about the needs of an existing being and partly about the imagined future of someone whose consent cannot yet be obtained.

Responsibility After Creation

Shelley's novel invites readers to distinguish responsibility for creating a being from responsibility for every action that being later performs. Victor has a special relationship to the Creature because he brought him into existence. The extent of his obligations is contested within the novel. Some readers emphasise the abandonment that follows the creation. Others point to the Creature's later violence and argue that suffering cannot remove responsibility for harming others.

This distinction is useful when thinking about artificial companions. A developer or organisation may create a system that people come to rely on emotionally. Questions can then arise about truthful descriptions, predictable risks, access to support and the effects of withdrawing a service. The analogy has limits: Shelley's Creature is presented as a living, conscious being with experiences and moral agency. Current artificial systems should not automatically be assigned those characteristics because they produce human-like conversation.

The Uncreated Companion and the Problem of Consent

Victor's hesitation becomes especially important when he considers the second creation as an independent being. The proposed companion is discussed as a solution to the Creature's suffering, yet she has no voice in the request. Her imagined preferences are supplied by the two male characters. The reader must therefore consider whether a compassionate response to one person's loneliness could create an unfair obligation for another.

A practical discussion can begin with a simple example. Imagine that a designer creates a conversational companion intended to reassure users and discourage disagreement. The design may meet an immediate demand for comfort. It may also shape expectations about how a companion should behave. Shelley's story encourages questions about who defines that role, who bears its consequences and whether the person or being placed in the role has any meaningful freedom.

Five Questions for the Reading Group

These questions begin with the Creature's own reasoning and gradually introduce the perspectives of Victor and the proposed companion. Ask participants to distinguish what the novel states from what they infer about the characters.

• 1. What does the Creature say he needs from a companion?
• 2. Which parts of his argument depend on Victor's responsibility as creator?
• 3. What are Victor's strongest reasons for hesitating to create another being?
• 4. Can the Creature reasonably request a companion without knowing whether that companion would want the relationship?
• 5. When does responsibility for something one has created require continued care, and when might creating something further increase the original harm?

Counter-Reading: Turing and Weizenbaum

Alan Turing's 1950 paper Computing Machinery and Intelligence offers a useful contrast. Turing proposes the imitation game as a way to frame questions about machine intelligence. His argument shifts attention towards observable conversational performance and away from some traditional attempts to define thinking directly. Readers can use the paper to ask what counts as evidence of intelligence, while keeping separate the questions of intelligence, consciousness and moral responsibility.

Joseph Weizenbaum's 1966 paper ELIZA: A Computer Program for the Study of Natural Language Communication Between Man and Machine provides another perspective. ELIZA was designed to imitate aspects of a conversational exchange through pattern-based responses. Weizenbaum later discussed the ethical dangers of treating computer systems as though they possessed forms of understanding that had not been established. His book Computer Power and Human Reason extends that concern. Read together, Shelley, Turing and Weizenbaum offer different questions about creation, apparent understanding and the obligations of those who design interactive systems.

Where the Room Might Split

One reading gives priority to the Creature's suffering. From this perspective, Victor's responsibility begins when he creates a dependent being and then refuses the relationship that creation makes possible. Another reading gives greater weight to the danger of producing a second being without knowing its wishes or future actions. A third position distinguishes the duty to care for the existing Creature from the separate question of whether Victor should create another life.

Readers may also disagree about how far the novel can be applied to artificial companions. Some may see the Creature as a useful analogy for the obligations attached to creating interactive systems. Others may consider the differences in consciousness, embodiment and vulnerability too significant for a direct comparison. Both approaches can be explored through the text's specific language and events.

Questions readers ask