Frankenstein: A Racial Analysis
The world, which was predominately English, was flooded with math and literature, but more importantly to Dr. Frankenstein, sciences. In Frankenstein, Shelley write, “new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me. I might in process of time (although I now found it impossible) renew life where death had apparently devoted the body to corruption” (Shelley 36). This reveals the true motivation behind the creation of Frankenstein. Life is a matter of life or death. One either lives life or survives and then dies. Victor’s goal was to cheat his way out of this, bringing more life and new life to the world. This is followed by his disgust in the monster, for the monster is ugly and different. This is when the monster is identified as a social other.
At the time the novel was written, approximately a quarter of the world was imperialized by England. While governing people, the British made it their goal to keep the Great Britain look and manner. To maintain an unassimilated world, they harassed, belittled, segregated, and victimized social others, anyone who was different. The most blatant comparison in Shelley’s Frankenstein is when Victor creates the monster, “Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes…” (Shelley 35). In this, Victor describes the monster as a yellow-skinned, horrifying monster. The monster is practically abandoned just from these words alone, with Victor showing disgust solely based on the appearance. This reference to the monster’s yellow skin depicts the same behavior conducted in modern racism. To further separate the monster from British society, Anne K. Mellor writes in “Frankenstein, Racial Science, and the Yellow Peril”, “A yellow-skinned man…with long black hair and dun-coloured eyes…most would have recognized the Creature as a member of the Mongolian race…” (Mellor 481). Mellor discusses how the monster could have been identified with another race, the Mongolians in this example. The Mongolians were not imperialized by the British, therefore making them social others.
Building upon the racism is the idea of miscegenation, which Shelley used to her advantage when it comes to the monster and his intertwining with society. The interbreeding of social other in society was the exact opposite of what the British wanted. In Frankenstein, Shelley writes, “I collected bones from charnel-houses and disturbed, with profane fingers, the tremendous secrets of the human frame” (Shelley 34).This is the exact moment the reader understands that Victor is not just taking a dead body from the ground and bringing him back to life, but rather taking parts of bodies from different bodies and putting them all together to create someone or something new. In “‘This Thing of Darkness’ Racial Discourse in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein”’, Allan Lloyd Smith writes:
Shelley chose not to give her scientist the arguably more straightforward route of reanimation of a dead body: her choice of an assemblage of various human and animals parts introduces the issues attached to cross-racial and even cross-species reproduction and thus engages with the anthropological and biological discourses… (211)
Smith’s insight to Shelley’s choice of what body to bring alive is important to understand the social context in which the novel was written around. As stated previously, Victor could have easily made his monster out of a body of an Englishman; however he chose to create a monster from animal and human bodies. It was his choice to create a monster that would be different from the rest of the world. The monster is a product of miscegenation.
Although racism and miscegenation are key to understanding how Shelley depicts her monster as the social other, they are also stepping stones to why. Again, historically, this was not a time period for being a non-Briton in Great Britain. One was definitely unwanted, no matter whom they were. A key example of this is when Victor and the monster meet again after the death of the little boy. The monster asks for an agreement and immediately Victor says, “Begone! I have answered you; you may torture me, but I will never consent” (Shelley 101). This is a key moment to the understanding of why Victor still hates the monster. The monster has become extremely intelligent and he is willing to stop the evil he has been doing if Victor does the simple task of making him a wife. Victor, still filled with disgust, views the monster as the yellow-skinned social other he perceives him to be, and with that, refuses to help not only the monster but his and his families’ safety. In “‘This Thing of Darkness’ Racial Discourse in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein”’, Allan Lloyd Smith discusses the creature as “terrifying” and “profoundly humane, if not also human” and “becoming monstrous” (Smith 215). Earlier on, he also compares the monster to a slave, quoting Frederick Douglass with, “I do not remember ever to have met a slave who could tell of his birthday” (Smith 213), as well as calling him a “house-nigger” due to his work in the households for free (Smith 211). Smith discusses the monster as scary because he is humane, but the actions of his creator are what truly turned him into a monster. Building onto this, his discussion of the monster as a slave is important to understand Shelley’s creation of the monster as a social other. The monster was created to represent the brutality towards the social others, and it was truly just a lack of understanding. The British (and later America) too people who were different and enslaved them, taking away their humanity and creating no ones.
Mary Shelleys’s Frankenstein can be viewed at as a science fiction novel with a political agenda. Using Victor and the monster, she tells the tale of miscegenation and racism in imperialized countries. The monster’s portrayal of the effects of the attitudes towards non-Britons in the nineteenth century shows peoples’ attitude towards appearances and accepting differences.
At the time the novel was written, approximately a quarter of the world was imperialized by England. While governing people, the British made it their goal to keep the Great Britain look and manner. To maintain an unassimilated world, they harassed, belittled, segregated, and victimized social others, anyone who was different. The most blatant comparison in Shelley’s Frankenstein is when Victor creates the monster, “Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes…” (Shelley 35). In this, Victor describes the monster as a yellow-skinned, horrifying monster. The monster is practically abandoned just from these words alone, with Victor showing disgust solely based on the appearance. This reference to the monster’s yellow skin depicts the same behavior conducted in modern racism. To further separate the monster from British society, Anne K. Mellor writes in “Frankenstein, Racial Science, and the Yellow Peril”, “A yellow-skinned man…with long black hair and dun-coloured eyes…most would have recognized the Creature as a member of the Mongolian race…” (Mellor 481). Mellor discusses how the monster could have been identified with another race, the Mongolians in this example. The Mongolians were not imperialized by the British, therefore making them social others.
Building upon the racism is the idea of miscegenation, which Shelley used to her advantage when it comes to the monster and his intertwining with society. The interbreeding of social other in society was the exact opposite of what the British wanted. In Frankenstein, Shelley writes, “I collected bones from charnel-houses and disturbed, with profane fingers, the tremendous secrets of the human frame” (Shelley 34).This is the exact moment the reader understands that Victor is not just taking a dead body from the ground and bringing him back to life, but rather taking parts of bodies from different bodies and putting them all together to create someone or something new. In “‘This Thing of Darkness’ Racial Discourse in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein”’, Allan Lloyd Smith writes:
Shelley chose not to give her scientist the arguably more straightforward route of reanimation of a dead body: her choice of an assemblage of various human and animals parts introduces the issues attached to cross-racial and even cross-species reproduction and thus engages with the anthropological and biological discourses… (211)
Smith’s insight to Shelley’s choice of what body to bring alive is important to understand the social context in which the novel was written around. As stated previously, Victor could have easily made his monster out of a body of an Englishman; however he chose to create a monster from animal and human bodies. It was his choice to create a monster that would be different from the rest of the world. The monster is a product of miscegenation.
Although racism and miscegenation are key to understanding how Shelley depicts her monster as the social other, they are also stepping stones to why. Again, historically, this was not a time period for being a non-Briton in Great Britain. One was definitely unwanted, no matter whom they were. A key example of this is when Victor and the monster meet again after the death of the little boy. The monster asks for an agreement and immediately Victor says, “Begone! I have answered you; you may torture me, but I will never consent” (Shelley 101). This is a key moment to the understanding of why Victor still hates the monster. The monster has become extremely intelligent and he is willing to stop the evil he has been doing if Victor does the simple task of making him a wife. Victor, still filled with disgust, views the monster as the yellow-skinned social other he perceives him to be, and with that, refuses to help not only the monster but his and his families’ safety. In “‘This Thing of Darkness’ Racial Discourse in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein”’, Allan Lloyd Smith discusses the creature as “terrifying” and “profoundly humane, if not also human” and “becoming monstrous” (Smith 215). Earlier on, he also compares the monster to a slave, quoting Frederick Douglass with, “I do not remember ever to have met a slave who could tell of his birthday” (Smith 213), as well as calling him a “house-nigger” due to his work in the households for free (Smith 211). Smith discusses the monster as scary because he is humane, but the actions of his creator are what truly turned him into a monster. Building onto this, his discussion of the monster as a slave is important to understand Shelley’s creation of the monster as a social other. The monster was created to represent the brutality towards the social others, and it was truly just a lack of understanding. The British (and later America) too people who were different and enslaved them, taking away their humanity and creating no ones.
Mary Shelleys’s Frankenstein can be viewed at as a science fiction novel with a political agenda. Using Victor and the monster, she tells the tale of miscegenation and racism in imperialized countries. The monster’s portrayal of the effects of the attitudes towards non-Britons in the nineteenth century shows peoples’ attitude towards appearances and accepting differences.
Works Cited
Mellor, Anne K. “Frankenstein, Racial Science, And the Yellow Peril” Norton Critical Edition. E Ed. J. Hunter. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc. 2012. 481-487. Print.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc. 2012. Print.
Smith, Allan Lloyd. “’This Thing of Darkness’: Racial Discourse in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.” Gothic Studies 6.2. (2004): 208-222. Print. 12 Sep. 2004.
3. Race and OthernessMellor, Anne K. “Frankenstein, Racial Science, And the Yellow Peril” Norton Critical Edition. E Ed. J. Hunter. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc. 2012. 481-487. Print.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc. 2012. Print.
Smith, Allan Lloyd. “’This Thing of Darkness’: Racial Discourse in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.” Gothic Studies 6.2. (2004): 208-222. Print. 12 Sep. 2004.
In Frankenstein, Shelley represents the monster not only as a grotesque figure, but also as a marginalized one. From the moment he comes to life, the monster’s physical differences mark him as an “other,” an opposite of the European ideals of beauty. Despite his attempts, the monster is unable to assimilate into the mainstream culture, becoming “other” because of his bodily characteristics.
In Black Frankenstein, Elizabeth Young makes an apt comparison between the novel and more modern racial politics, arguing for a parallel between the monster’s treatment and contemporary versions of racism. It is, of course, the monster’s appearance that terrifies Frankenstein at the first, as his initial reaction reveals: “His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of his muscles and arteries beneath...these luxuriances only form a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost the same colours as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shriveled complexion and straight black lips.” The sense of panic and horror, both typical conventions of the Gothic, is achieved by representing someone who merely looks different—a stark contrast from novels likeThe Mysteries of Udolpho and The Castle of Otranto, in which the villains actually are formidable foes because they are evil.
In Black Frankenstein, Elizabeth Young makes an apt comparison between the novel and more modern racial politics, arguing for a parallel between the monster’s treatment and contemporary versions of racism. It is, of course, the monster’s appearance that terrifies Frankenstein at the first, as his initial reaction reveals: “His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of his muscles and arteries beneath...these luxuriances only form a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost the same colours as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shriveled complexion and straight black lips.” The sense of panic and horror, both typical conventions of the Gothic, is achieved by representing someone who merely looks different—a stark contrast from novels likeThe Mysteries of Udolpho and The Castle of Otranto, in which the villains actually are formidable foes because they are evil.
On a more literal level, Frankenstein also “offers an oblique account of white anxiety in the face of slave rebellion” as the novel “presents a white protagonist who is haunted and undone by the rebellious monster whom he has created” (Young 21). As Young suggests, the monster does represent the threat of resistance against his own creator. But the argument is complicated by questions of whether the monster in Frankenstein is actually defined in terms of his race; although, he unquestionably is posed as the “other” in contrast to the white, European characters. In “Frankenstein’s Monster and Images of Race in Nineteenth-Century Britain,” Harold Malchow contends that the monster’s “dark and sinister” look echoes the “standard description of the black man in both the literature of the West Indies and that of West African exploration” (91). These sinister, dark qualities are very much a part of the monster’s “otherness,” and they—rather than lack of intellect or morality—are what bar him from society.
While Young frames her argument as a way to call attention to contemporary race issues, her case for the parallel also enables a reading of the novel as one that represents the hypocrisy of discrimination. In this sense, the novel’s horror stems as much from readings of society as a flawed world that brings about its own destruction as one based on a grotesque, stock Gothic villain.
Works Cited:
Malchow, Harold L. “Frankenstein’s Monster and Images of Race in Nineteenth-Century Britain.” Past and Present 139 (1993): 90-130.
Young, Elizabeth. Black Frankenstein: The Making of an American Metaphor. New York: New York UP, 2008.
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