LE3 .A278 2014

2014

Saklofske, Jon

Acadia University

Bachelor of Arts

Honours

English

English & Theatre Studies

For nearly two hundred years, the story of Victor Frankenstein and his unnamed creation has never been put to rest – although Mary Shelley’s tale has been condensed to reductive simplicity and misinterpreted in a vast number of ways, it has nonetheless been kept alive. Like the Creature – the composite being who is given life within Frankenstein – Shelley’s novel possesses an unnatural life, a peculiar vitality that has ensured its survival despite its many configurations and disfigurations over the past two centuries. Shelley’s use of the epithet “hideous progeny” in her 1831 introduction to Frankenstein likens her literary creation to the ugly Creature within the pages of her novel through an allusion to childbirth. In so doing, she weaves together the roles of author, mother, and creator, thus hinting at not only the composite nature of her novel and Frankenstein’s ugly creation, but also of creation itself. Shelley therefore refashions monstrosity as something made up of several pieces and embraces this composite interpretation of monstrosity in her visionary conception of creation. This thesis argues that Mary Shelley’s ideas and practices of creation that depend upon and produce composite monstrosity in the plot and in the creation of her novel account for the story’s overall vitality. More importantly, it anticipates our twenty-first century acceptance and celebration of composite creativity as shown through both the relation between the characters in the story and the interrelationships between Shelley’s novel and Danny Boyle’s 2011 theatrical adaptation.

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https://scholar.acadiau.ca/islandora/object/theses:1067