Lecture Outline LECTURE 1: Frankenstein and Gothic literature The problem of lecturing Frankenstein The pervasiveness of the Frankenstein myth in 20th-century culture (especially in film; see Terminator, The Incredible Hulk); the overwriting of the novel with its mythic refiguration. Origins: the Jewish myth of the golem. The appropriation of Mary Shelley by feminist criticism. The social context The historical context to the nineteenth century, as a time very aware of upheaval and change. Important factors include: - the French Revolution, and its effect on notions of class and identity; - Darwinism and his effect on religious thought; - the Industrial Revolution, with its ambivalence towards technology as both exciting and dangerous, and its profound effect on social class with the possibility for acquired rather than inherited wealth; - Colonialism, and the British Empire's expanding wealth and influence; - the influence of Romanticism as a unified intellectual movement. Gothic literature and Romanticism Neo-classicism and the Romantic reaction against social order and rationality. Gothicism as a lunatic fringe version of Romanticism's celebration of the emotional (terror as the most extreme form of emotion) Common themes: Nature, the emotions, the exotic, medieval nostalgia, a celebration of the self. The Gothic novel The function of Gothic as a cult literature of the late 18th and early 19th century A popular, romance form - stylised, non-realistic, idealised, with an adventure format Gothic as an extreme form of romance - the imagination run wild. The implications of Gothic as mostly a pulp genre, the equivalent of the modern horror movie. Jane Austen's parody in Northanger Abbey of the titillation of the "horrid". Some characteristics of Gothic MELODRAMA - stereotype, moral polarisation, one-dimensionality, excess. EXOTICISM - wild/remote locations, other cultures such as the Oriental. TRANSGRESSION - fear of barbarism, of unleashing human passion beyond social constraings. Gothic's operation as a literature of the unconscious, of transgressive desires. ALIENATION - the genre's interest in identity and subjectivity, but of an alienated self, set apart from society. LECTURE 2: Frankenstein as a novel of identity Romanticism and selfhood Shelley's position firmly within the Romantic movement The importance of the Romantic emphasis on the self as distinct from society The exaggeration of Romance's sense of individuality into alienation in gothic. Selfhood as a process of deliberate artistic construction. The distinction between the physical and spiritual selves. The family in Frankenstein The family as a representation of society. Physical and metaphorical orphans: the theme of alienation from the family. Excessive reactions against alienation: the theme of incest. The influence of Milton's Paradise Lost ...

1. Lecture Outline
LECTURE 1: Frankenstein and Gothic literature
The problem of lecturing Frankenstein
The pervasiveness of the Frankenstein myth in 20th-century
culture (especially in film; see
Terminator, The Incredible Hulk); the overwriting of the novel
with its mythic refiguration.
Origins: the Jewish myth of the golem.
The appropriation of Mary Shelley by feminist criticism.
The social context
The historical context to the nineteenth century, as a time very
aware of upheaval and change.
Important factors include:
- the French Revolution, and its effect on notions of class and
identity;
- Darwinism and his effect on religious thought;
- the Industrial Revolution, with its ambivalence towards

2. technology as both exciting and
dangerous, and its profound effect on social class with the
possibility for acquired rather than
inherited wealth;
- Colonialism, and the British Empire's expanding wealth and
influence;
- the influence of Romanticism as a unified intellectual
movement.
Gothic literature and Romanticism
Neo-classicism and the Romantic reaction against social order
and rationality.
Gothicism as a lunatic fringe version of Romanticism's
celebration of the emotional (terror as the
most extreme form of emotion)
Common themes: Nature, the emotions, the exotic, medieval
nostalgia, a celebration of the self.
The Gothic novel
The function of Gothic as a cult literature of the late 18th and
early 19th century
A popular, romance form - stylised, non-realistic, idealised,
with an adventure format

3. Gothic as an extreme form of romance - the imagination run
wild.
The implications of Gothic as mostly a pulp genre, the
equivalent of the modern horror movie.
Jane Austen's parody in Northanger Abbey of the titillation of
the "horrid".
Some characteristics of Gothic
MELODRAMA - stereotype, moral polarisation, one-
dimensionality, excess.
EXOTICISM - wild/remote locations, other cultures such as the
Oriental.
TRANSGRESSION - fear of barbarism, of unleashing human
passion beyond social constraings.
Gothic's operation as a literature of the unconscious, of
transgressive desires.
ALIENATION - the genre's interest in identity and subjectivity,
but of an alienated self, set apart
from society.
LECTURE 2: Frankenstein as a novel of identity
Romanticism and selfhood
Shelley's position firmly within the Romantic movement

4. The importance of the Romantic emphasis on the self as distinct
from society
The exaggeration of Romance's sense of individuality into
alienation in gothic.
Selfhood as a process of deliberate artistic construction.
The distinction between the physical and spiritual selves.
The family in Frankenstein
The family as a representation of society.
Physical and metaphorical orphans: the theme of alienation from
the family.
Excessive reactions against alienation: the theme of incest.
The influence of Milton's Paradise Lost
- the Promethean myth: the symbolic process of stealing fire
from the gods, and its invocation of
themes of pride, forbidden knowledge and the over-reaching of
boundaries.
- The Monster's attempt to establish an identity through
Paradise Lost - the opposite archetypes
of Adam or the fallen angel.
- Miltonian archetypes as patriarchal symbols. The
strong/interesting individuals are male, and
woman is the agent of the fall.

5. LECTURE 3: Frankenstein as a woman's text
Gothic literature and feminism
Gothic operates as a genre with particular significance for
women: it has a tendency towards
female writers and readership, but also embodies a peculiarly
patriarchal nightmare in which
violence is continually enacted on the female body.
- The importance of Mary Shelley's identity as the daughter of
Mary Wollstonecraft. She was a
woman living in a tradition of literary women who explicitly
criticised patriarchy; it is therefore
logical to look for criticism of Gothic and patriarchy in
Frankenstein.
- The maleness of Frankenstein is a particular problem here:
within the Miltonian archetypes,
men are dominant, women are weak and passive playthings and
possessions, or self-sacrificing
mother/nurture figures.
- Shelley's use of the exaggerated misogyny of the genre can be
seen as being in many ways

6. subversive and critical.
Birth in Frankenstein
Birth and procreation are concepts important for women and are
central themes in the novel.
- Mary Shelley's own experience of difficult pregnancies while
writing offers a psychoanalytic
perspective on some of the book's events.
- Also important is the contrast between Romantic ideals of
spiritual/artistic creation and the
gross physicality of the body in the novel.
- The implications of Shelley as woman writer who usurps the
male (spiritual) act of creation
- The horror of Frankenstein is Dr. Frankenstein's appropriation
of the intrinsically female birth
process, and his eradication of the need for women.
- Nature is presented as a feminine principle penetrated by the
male, but has the power to punish
the transgressive penetrator.
The monstrous and the female other
The female operates as the other to the patriarchal self. This is a
transgressive other: the figure of

7. Eve typfies all women as fallen. The novel deals with the notion
of female otherness in various
implicit ways.
- Both Frankenstein and Walden are also Eve figures in their
reaching after forbidden
knowledge.
- The monstrous other comes to stand for the feminine other -
the monster himself is a feminised
figure.
- The novel thus uses its patriarchal gothic structures
subversively - the horror elements of the
genre energise an attack on patriarchy.
LECTURE 4: Frankenstein as science fiction text
Science fiction and Gothic
Frankenstein is often claimed as the original science fiction
novel.
- Aldiss in Ch. 1 of Trillion Year Spree argues that in fact all sf
functions in the gothic mode. He
argues that the genres have numerous points in common:

8. - both are social genres, concerned with the individual's place in
society
- both are interested in the distant and unearthly
- both depend on a horrid revelation at the heart of the tale (I'd
disagree here - only some kinds of
sf do this).
But there is also a fundamental opposition between sf and
gothic, in that they represent the
opposing ideas of the rational and the irrational.
- Unlike gothic, sf projects the boundaries of knowledge but
does not necessarily violate them.
There are other obvious intersections between the genres:
- both are popular genres
- both are marginal, regarded as non-literary
- both tend to follow an adventure/discovery format
- both have an interest in identity and humanity
- both tend to marginalise/objectify women.
Frankenstein and science
Shelley demonstrates an overt interest in science for its own
sake.
- Much of this reflects the context of Industrial Revolution, and

9. the simultaneous excitement and
threat of new technology
- The danger of science is a classic sf theme, and here Gothic
provides the framework and tone
for the horror of failed science, the experiment gone wrong.
- This is in many ways opposed to Shelley's Romantic
influences - the Romantics tend to insist
on the value of emotion rather than rationality, and thus reject
the materialism of science.
Scientist as Promethean figure
The Promethean myth offers a paradigm for the self-destruction
of the scientist through reaching
after forbidden knowledge.
- The novel also deals in subtext with the Promethean myth of
Faust, although in inverted terms:
Shelley's painstaking denial of magic and rewriting magic as
science explicitly assaults the
Faustian archetypes.
- Her "modern Prometheus" is literally that - an updating of
magical to the science lab.
Science and identity: what is humanity?

10. Frankenstein's issues of constructedness, and exploration of the
nature of humanity are
precursors to modern sf's aliens, robots and AIs - the novel has
become a paradigm for
explorations of identity under science.
Science and feminism
Shelley's novel is particularly interesting in that it uses science
as way to think about issues of
sexuality and motherhood.
- This can be contrasted to more modern sf in which science is
seen as having the potential to
release women from biological determinism.
- In Shelley's view, however, technological birth is monstrous, a
further scientific appropriation
of women that is doomed to disaster.
One cannot deny the influence of Frankenstein on modern sf,
but in fact the Gothic implications
of the novel are probably not as important as Shelley's interest
in science for its own sake. While
the Gothic mode has inspired a powerful image of science as
threatening, Shelley's exploration
of the relationship between science and the individual is

11. probably more influential than Gothic
itself.