Modern Criticism on Frankenstein

Commodity Culture and Social Structure (Marxist Theory)

The literature of terror is born out of the terror of a split society, and out of a desire to
heal it
The split is between the haves and have-nots
the monster expresses the anxiety that the future will be monstrous
Frankenstein expresses his present; complacent nineteenth century mediocrity
The struggle is between a race of devils and the species of man
The monster is denied a name and an individuality he belongs wholly to his creator,
much like a worker belongs to the company
The monster is the limbs of the poor collected and reanimated to serve the ego of
the the rich
Science offers the poor a future, but only as an artificial construct from which the
scientist draws back in horror
The Monster wishes for the rights of citizenship among men, but denied this turns to
crime

Gender Theory (Feminist Theory)

The monsters tragedy is his confinement to a one-on-one relationship with his

creator; he is denied other relations of family or a female counterpart
When the primary bond of paternity unites a scientist with his creation, women who
get in the way must fall victim to the struggle
James Whale is the famous 1935 film The Bride of Frankenstein cast Elsa Lancaster
as both Mary Shelley and the demonic female monster
Mary Shelleys book is the dismembered corpse of male influences (Milton, Percy
Shelley, Coleridge, Godwin, Rousseau) re-animated to thrill the (male) establishment
with horror
Frankensteins dream combines sexual desire with death and desire for the mother
(even incest as the 1818 text makes Elizabeth more explicitly Frankensteins sister);
the dream matches Frankensteins unnatural desire to penetrate the secrets of nature
in charnel houses
The monster fantasizes about acceptance by a female but imagines being rebuffed
(Justine) and this makes him malicious
This blaming of women by the monster the crime had its source in her: be hers the
punishment is a parody of the Fall, where Eve is blamed

Language and Psyche

Frankenstein is striking for its avoidance of the question of femininity

Females are gentle, beautiful, boring nurturers who are completely unable to be
monstrous
The novel is not about the sin of presumption, the Promethean stealing of fire, but
about the internal failure of a Promethean project, a demonstration of the failure of
prevailing social conditions and individual psychology
Frankenstein steals fire only to play God
The creature knows the naturalistic reformist code (the path to a better society) better
than his creator