ThAct: CS and Frankenstein

Frankenstein through a Cultural Studies Lens: Revolution, Otherness, Science, and Popular Culture

Introduction

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is much more than a Gothic story about a scientist who creates a strange living being. Published in 1818, the novel emerged from a period of political revolution, scientific development, social change, and intellectual debate. Shelley transforms these concerns into the story of Victor Frankenstein and the Creature. The novel asks important questions about human ambition, social responsibility, exclusion, identity, knowledge, and the consequences of creating life.

A Cultural Studies approach allows us to read Frankenstein not simply as a story of horror but as a text connected with society, politics, science, class, race, empire, and popular culture. The Creature can be understood as a figure representing the oppressed and excluded. Victor can be viewed as a figure of unchecked scientific ambition and privilege. At the same time, the novel's continuing presence in films, television, popular language, science-fiction narratives, and discussions about artificial intelligence shows how adaptable its ideas remain.

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The thinking activity on Frankenstein therefore raises an important question: has popular culture transformed the revolutionary meaning of Shelley’s novel, or has its ability to adapt to different historical moments itself made the novel revolutionary? Through the following discussion, Frankenstein can be understood as a work that continues to challenge the cultural assumptions of its readers.

Part I: Revolutionary Births

The Creature as Proletarian

The Creature can be interpreted through the idea of the proletarian or oppressed social class. He is created by Victor but receives none of the privileges enjoyed by his creator. Victor possesses education, family, social status, scientific knowledge, and economic security. The Creature begins life with nothing except his body and his desire to understand the world.

This difference is significant from a Cultural Studies perspective. The Creature is not born evil. His earliest experiences show curiosity, sensitivity, and a desire for human connection. He observes the De Lacey family from a distance and gradually learns language, history, social relationships, and moral ideas. His education makes him more conscious of his situation. He begins to understand that society judges him according to his appearance rather than his inner qualities.

His tragedy therefore develops through exclusion. He wants companionship, but people respond to him with fear and violence. He asks Victor to create a female companion because he believes that another being like himself might provide the acceptance that human society has denied him.

Image Source: The Creature from frenkenstein

The Creature is consequently both innocent and violent. His violence cannot be separated completely from his social experience. After repeated rejection, he turns towards revenge. This creates the central paradox of his character: society fears the monster, but society also participates in creating the conditions that make him monstrous.

This can be connected with revolutionary fears. The oppressed person may initially desire recognition and equality, but continuous exclusion can transform that desire into anger. The Creature's movement from sympathy to revenge therefore reflects a larger social question: what happens when a society continually refuses to recognize the humanity of an individual?

Shelley does not provide a simple answer. The Creature is capable of terrible actions, but Victor is also responsible for abandoning his creation. The novel consequently makes the reader question where responsibility begins and ends.

A Race of Devils: Otherness, Race, and Empire

Another important Cultural Studies issue is the idea of the “Other.” The Creature is repeatedly treated as something outside normal humanity. His physical appearance becomes a cultural sign through which other characters judge him. He is not given an opportunity to define himself before society defines him as a monster.

The concept of Otherness is useful in discussions of race and imperialism because dominant cultures have historically created distinctions between “us” and “them.” Those who appear culturally, physically, or socially different can be represented as inferior, dangerous, uncivilized, or threatening.

The Creature's experience resembles this process. His appearance becomes more important to society than his language, emotions, intelligence, or moral consciousness. Even after acquiring knowledge and developing sympathy, he remains excluded.

Victor can also be read through the language of imperial power. He enters spaces of knowledge with the confidence that nature can be discovered, controlled, and transformed according to his desires. His scientific ambition resembles a form of possession. He wants to cross boundaries that have traditionally separated human beings from nature and life itself.

The novel therefore becomes relevant to discussions of privilege. Victor has the privilege to experiment, but the Creature must live with the consequences. The creator possesses knowledge and social power, while the creation possesses neither. This imbalance demonstrates how power determines whose voice is heard and whose suffering is ignored.

The question remains relevant today. Modern discussions of migration, race, colonialism, technology, and social inequality often involve the problem of deciding who belongs and who is treated as an outsider. Frankenstein reminds us that the label of “monster” may reveal as much about the society using it as about the person receiving it.

From Natural Philosophy to Cyborg: Science and Technology

Perhaps the most recognizable modern meaning of Frankenstein is its relationship with scientific advancement. Victor's desire to discover the secret of life begins as intellectual curiosity but gradually becomes an obsession. His scientific achievement is extraordinary, yet he does not prepare himself for the ethical responsibility that follows creation.

This distinction between scientific ability and moral responsibility is central to the novel. Victor succeeds in doing something that appears impossible, but he fails to care for what he has created. His scientific achievement therefore becomes a human and ethical disaster.

The novel is especially relevant to contemporary discussions of genetic engineering, cloning, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, and other forms of technological creation. Modern science can alter life in ways that earlier generations could not imagine. Yet technological possibility does not automatically mean ethical justification.

The Creature can also be connected to the modern idea of the cyborg or artificial being. Although the Creature is not literally a cyborg, he represents the cultural imagination of a being produced through human intervention. The novel asks a question that remains important in technological society: if humans create a new form of intelligence or life, what responsibilities do they have towards it?

The lesson of Frankenstein is therefore not simply “science is dangerous.” Shelley presents something more complicated. Knowledge itself is not necessarily evil. The danger appears when ambition becomes separated from responsibility, compassion, and ethical reflection.

The Creature's Education: Knowledge as Empowerment and Alienation

The Creature's education is one of the most important parts of the novel. By observing the De Lacey family, he learns language and gradually develops an understanding of history, society, relationships, and human values. He also reads important literary works, which influence his understanding of himself and humanity.

Education initially empowers him. It gives him language through which he can understand and express his experience. Without education, his suffering would remain largely inarticulate. Knowledge gives him a voice.

At the same time, education increases his pain. The more he understands human society, the more clearly he recognizes his exclusion from it. Knowledge therefore becomes both liberation and suffering.

This paradox is significant in Cultural Studies. Education does not exist separately from society. Knowledge can provide power, but it can also make inequalities more visible. The Creature learns what family, friendship, beauty, companionship, and belonging mean, only to discover that these things are denied to him.

His education consequently does not make him accepted. It makes him more conscious of his rejection.

Part II: The Frankenpheme in Popular Culture

From Frankenstein to the “Frankenpheme”

The activity introduces Timothy Morton's idea of “Frankenphemes,” referring to cultural elements derived from Frankenstein that continue to circulate through different forms of media and public discussion. The concept helps us understand why Frankenstein has become larger than the original novel.

Today, the word “Frankenstein” is frequently used outside literary discussions. It can describe scientific experiments, technological inventions, political situations, genetically modified organisms, artificial intelligence, and creations that appear to escape the control of their makers.

This cultural afterlife demonstrates the flexibility of Shelley's novel. Different generations can use Frankenstein to express their own fears.

Film Adaptations and Popular Retellings

One reason for the continuing popularity of Frankenstein is its extraordinary adaptability. The story has been transformed into theatre, cinema, television, comedy, science fiction, animation, and other forms of popular entertainment.

Early cinematic versions established visual images that became more famous than many details of Shelley's original novel. Later films such as Bride of Frankenstein expanded the story by exploring the possibility of another creature. Mel Brooks's Young Frankenstein transformed the Gothic material into comedy, demonstrating that the Frankenstein story could even become a source of parody.

The cultural significance of these adaptations lies in their differences. Every adaptation selects certain aspects of the original and changes others. Some emphasize horror, some science, some comedy, some romance, and others the question of identity.

Blade Runner, although not a direct adaptation of Shelley's novel, can also be considered within the larger Frankenstein tradition because it explores the relationship between creator and created being. Its artificial beings raise questions about humanity, identity, memory, freedom, and responsibility.

These adaptations show that Frankenstein survives because its central questions are not limited to the nineteenth century. Each generation can discover a new “monster” created by its own anxieties.

Frankenstein and Contemporary Technology

The modern world has created new versions of the Frankenstein question. Artificial intelligence, genetic modification, robotics, biotechnology, and cloning have changed the meaning of artificial creation.

When people discuss whether artificial intelligence may become independent from human control, the Frankenstein metaphor frequently becomes useful. The creator creates something powerful and then discovers that creation has consequences that cannot easily be controlled.

However, a modern Cultural Studies reading should avoid reducing Frankenstein to a simple warning against technology. The deeper issue is the relationship between power and responsibility. Victor's failure is not merely that he creates life. His deeper failure is that he refuses to take responsibility for the life he creates.

This distinction is important for understanding modern technological culture. The question should not simply be whether humans can create something. We must also ask who creates it, for what purpose, who controls it, who benefits from it, and who suffers its consequences.

Conclusion

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein continues to be culturally significant because it refuses to remain a single kind of story. It is a Gothic novel, a science-fiction precursor, a philosophical narrative, a social critique, and a cultural symbol. Through the Creature, Shelley explores exclusion, loneliness, class, Otherness, and the human desire for recognition. Through Victor, she explores ambition, privilege, scientific curiosity, and responsibility.

The Creature as a proletarian figure reveals the consequences of social exclusion. The idea of the “race of devils” opens the novel to discussions of Otherness, race, empire, and privilege. The movement from natural philosophy to biotechnology and artificial intelligence demonstrates the continued relevance of Shelley's questions about scientific power.

At the same time, the history of adaptations demonstrates that Frankenstein has become a cultural language of its own. Films, television, comedy, science fiction, and contemporary technological debates repeatedly recreate the Frankenstein idea for new audiences.

The most important lesson of the novel may therefore be found not in the question “Who is the monster?” but in the question “Who creates the conditions in which monstrosity develops?” Shelley complicates the distinction between creator and creation, human and monster, knowledge and responsibility. That complexity is precisely why Frankenstein continues to live in literature and popular culture.

Rather than losing its revolutionary character through adaptation, the novel's ability to change according to different historical circumstances demonstrates its continuing cultural power. Every age creates its own version of Frankenstein because every age must confront the consequences of its own creations.

Works Cited

Guerin, Wilfred L., et al. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. 5th ed., Indian ed., Oxford University Press, 2007.

Levine, George, and U. C. Knoepflmacher, editors. The Endurance of Frankenstein: Essays on Mary Shelley's Novel. University of California Press, 1979. 

Morton, Timothy, editor. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: A Routledge Study Guide and Sourcebook. Routledge, 2002.

Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft. Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. Project Gutenberg, 1993, www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/84.

Smith, Johanna M., editor. Frankenstein: Complete, Authoritative Text with Biographical, Historical, and Cultural Contexts, Critical History, and Essays from Contemporary Critical Perspectives. Bedford Books, 2000.

Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “Three Women’s Texts and a Critique of Imperialism.” Critical Inquiry, vol. 12, no. 1, 1985, pp. 243–261.