Frankenstein In Children's Visual Culture | Sara Austin

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Download Free DOCX“Sometimes My Stitches Come Loose at the Worst Possible Moments”: Frankenstein In Children’s Visual CultureSara Austinvisibility

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Abstract

Elizabeth Young explains that since Frankenstein is such a visually evocative novel, early staged versions of Shelley’s monster, such as Richard Peake’s Another Piece of Presumption (1824), have dramatically influenced cultural conceptions of the work. Dwight Codr points out that cultural fears are also imposed on the monster, such as Boris Karloff’s polio-like gait. Such changes have degraded Shelley’s eloquent Prometheus into a shambling, mute object of pity. Contrary to how B horror movies or parodies present him, within contemporary children’s culture Shelley’s monster is the eternal optimist. Though little attention has been paid to Shelley’s legacy in children’s literature, I will argue that these adaptations preserve what Young describes as Shelley’s progressive philosophic vision.Works including Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich, Crankenstein, Frankenstein: A BabyLit® Anatomy Primer, Frankenstein: A Monstrous Parody, A Monsters’ Monster and the Monster High webseries show Shelley’s monster as happy and thankful to be alive. By highlighting the childlike qualities of the monster and preserving the monster’s voice, children’s adaptations of Frankenstein restore to the monster's narrative the opportunity for self-love and positive social change.

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Key takeaways

AI

1. Children's adaptations of Frankenstein restore the monster's narrative of self-love and social change.
2. Cultural adaptations emphasize the monster's childlike qualities, contrasting with traditional horror depictions.
3. Children's literature reinterprets Shelley’s monster as an optimistic figure, influencing cultural perceptions.
4. The character's evolution reflects a sampling of various texts rather than strict adaptations of the original.
5. Monster High's Frankie Stein embodies themes of acceptance and social representation, enhancing children's agency.

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Mary Shelley / Transmedia Creatures: Frankenstein’s AfterlivesChris Washington

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Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus-conceived by the author in Geneva in June 1816 in a literary contest also involving P.B. Shelley, Lord Byron and John Polidori, and published in 1818 ̶ was celebrated in 2018 by many conferences and seminars as an incomparable work of gothic, dystopian, feminist and science-fiction imagination. My paper, moving from an overview of the critical reception of the novel, aims to contribute to these celebrations by paying particular attention to Mary Shelley's reconceptualization of the body, with regard to its meaning in the societal structure of the time and, more generally, in power relationships.

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A trend to historicize the field of Disability Studies has emerged in recent years. However, little research has been done to place different societies and generations in conversation with one another. This thesis will utilize various adaptations of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein in order to explore shifting anxieties concerning non-normative embodiment through the vessel of the Creature. I examine the Creature's changing physical form next to scientific and medical literature of the period to explore connotations of disability and otherness within that society. I consider the manifestation of anxieties towards non-normative embodiment through Mary Shelley's 1831 Frankenstein, James Whale's 1931 film Frankenstein, and Victor LaValle's 2018 graphic novel Destroyer; the frequent reworking of Frankenstein's Creature allows for an examination of shifting and persistent anxieties concerning non-normative embodiment over time.

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also frequently acknowledged as the founding text of science fiction because of the way the eponymous Victor Frankenstein animates his monstrous creation. For unlike the golems of Jewish folklore and the clay men of the Prometheus plasticator myth who were brought to life via supernatural, magical, or divine means, the "galvanism" (43) of Frankenstein's Creature is rationally explicable as a product of modern scientific progress; a creature "infuse[d]

downloadDownload free PDFView PDFchevron_rightFrankenstein Performed: The Monster Who Will Not DieJeanne P Tiehen

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Utilizing Roland Barthes’s Mythologies, this paper surveys Frankenstein adaptions as a response to shifting cultural ideologies about progress. By comparing Shelley’s novel with theatrical adaptations ranging from the melodramas of the 1820s, unique adaptations in the twentieth century, and the celebrated 2011 National Theatre production, it is apparent how Frankenstein is a myth repeatedly used to address our social anxiety about progress. The Frankenstein myth epitomizes the modern age contradiction of wanting advancement but needing limitations, often depicted by the Creature, whose actions embody the dangers of uncontrollable progress. By understanding why we have dramatized Frankenstein throughout the last two hundred years it is evident that as our fears about scientific achievements continue, we will also continue to see Frankenstein on stage.

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FAQs

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What are the implications of using Frankenstein's monster in children's literature?add

The research indicates that using Frankenstein's monster in children's literature reflects societal views on childhood and agency, reifying the child's vulnerability while also suggesting autonomy. For instance, works like 'Crankenstein' portray monstrousness as a temporary state of childhood rather than a permanent identity.

How does the visual representation of Frankenstein impact its cultural significance?add

The paper reveals that visual symbols from the 1931 film shape children's perceptions of Frankenstein's monster, influencing adaptations over time. Specific iconographic elements, like neck bolts and scars, serve as immediate cultural references that bypass the original literary text’s depth.

What novel insights do recent children's texts provide about the monster-child relationship?add

Texts such as 'Frankie Stein' explore the monster-child dynamic, portraying both as marginalized figures seeking acceptance. In contrast to traditional narratives, these modern iterations emphasize empowerment and agency amid social conflict.

When did the transition from adaptation to literary sampling begin for Frankenstein's monster?add

The transition to literary sampling is traced back to the enduring influence of the 1931 film and subsequent sequels, which emphasize iconic imagery over direct textual adaptation. This shift reflects a broader trend in American culture where the monster becomes a mythic symbol rather than a character bound to Shelley's original narrative.

What methodologies were employed to analyze the children's interpretations of Frankenstein?add

The analysis synthesizes cultural studies and literary criticism, focusing on textual and visual analyses across various children's media. It draws upon Hutcheon's theoretical framework on adaptations to distinguish between direct adaptations and cultural reinterpretations.

Sara AustinKentucky Wesleyan College, Faculty MemberaddFollowmailMessage

I am an Assistant Professor of English at Kentucky Wesleyan.

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"'It's Alive': Popular Culture Commodification of Frankenstein's Monster"Natalie Neill

Critical Insights: Mary Shelley, edited by Virginia Brackett, Salem Press, 2016

Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus was published in the spring of 1818. A few months afterward, a friend of Shelley's husband observed that the book "seems to be universally known and read" (Peacock 147). Two centuries later, Shelley's cautionary tale about Victor Frankenstein and his monster continues to attract interest. Even to those who have not read the novel, the story is familiar because it has been adapted into myriad different forms: it has inspired plays, films, comic books, television shows, songs, games, theme parks, and consumer products. Frankenstein's many permutations in popular culture show that it has attained the status of modern myth. Just as Shelley updated the classical story about the overreaching Titan, Prometheus, for Romantic-era readers, her story has been continually updated for new audiences. For George Levine and U.C. Knoepflmacher, it is the "inexhaustible quality" of the narrative that explains the book's enduring popularity (xiii). In other words, Frankenstein rewards rereading because it accommodates so many interpretations. It continues to be adapted because the story can be used to understand a wide range of contemporary issuesfrom the ethics of stem cell research and genetically modified foods, to the effects of technology on identity and interpersonal relationships. However, the cultural industry that surrounds Frankenstein's monster is also driven by the profit motive: Frankenstein's rich afterlife in many of us have in our minds originates in this film. In Shelley's novel, the monster is described as having "yellow skin [that] scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath" and "lustrous black and flowing" hair, which "formed a […] horrid contrast with the shrivelled complexion, and straight black lips" (85), yet most of us picture the monster as performed by Boris Karloff-a green-skinned, long-armed, lumbering creature with a flat head, prominent stitches, and neck bolts. That now iconic image owes much to Universal make-up artist Jack Pierce. In his own words, Pierce made the monster's head "square" with "a big scar across his

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A dApting FrAnkenstein approaches the seemingly endless adaptations, appropriations and re-appropriations, the prolific progeny of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus, as inextricably intertextual pieces of popular culture. Arguably, Frankenstein 1 has a greater presence in popular media than any other single narrative over nearly two centuries, 2 only growing more extant and cogent as the popular culture machine begins to ever more resemble the patchwork monster which Shelley's precocious student created. In the context of this perpetual-motion phenomenon Frankenstein invites a reading of itself in relation to what amounts to a potentially infinite network of intertexts, or what we have termed the 'Frankenstein Network'. Unlike other popular texts which generate adaptations periodically, Frankenstein has reached a critical mass, to the point that adaptations flow forth continually at an unparalleled rate. 3 Perhaps this is because Shelley touches the central nerve of our ambivalence toward a modern world that interrupts the notion of the human. Or perhaps it is simply her novel's recognition that any time a created thing becomes a sentient being, capable of thinking for itself, complications will inevitably arise. Shelley could not have imagined, however, the technology-saturated culture we now live in or the ways it has forced us to adapt ourselves, and, in turn, continually to adapt Frankenstein. Understanding the proliferation of Frankenstein adaptations, including many made for young audiences, demands a creative and broad approach. Totalising mythic and topical readings of Frankenstein, popular in the past, have addressed important issues and cultural and historical themes such as sexual politics (Picart), race (Young), and literary politics (Baldick). But mythic and topical approaches, as helpful as they have been to Frankenstein studies, usually limit possible meanings by defining carefully circumscribed parameters of text (typically having a clear relationship to Shelley's novel), genre (primarily literature to film), and criticism (often cultural criticism's focus on race, gender, and class). But these approaches may not be comprehensive enough to account for the Frankenstein Network. As Kamilla Elliott notes, scholars have rarely 'considered that the failure of adaptation studies to conform to theoretical paradigms might arise from the inadequacies and limitations of the theories' (20). She goes on to argue that adaptations are a special case in textual studies and that they may 'require make-up, German-Expressionist Gothicism, and dazzling electrical creation scene. Mary Shelley's novel itself paves the way for the obsession with adaptation that has followed. Published in 1818, the title page, in fact, references texts that it adapts: the Prometheus myth noted in the title, three lines quoted from Milton's Paradise Lost, and the mention of Caleb Williams in the book's dedication to Mary's father, William Godwin. Among the most adapted texts in literature, Frankenstein was an immediate literary phenomenon upon publication, leading to fifteen different stage adaptations before 1851-five in 1823 alone. Interestingly, Shelley revised her novel in 1831, making several significant changes that virtually amount to a minor adaptation. As

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downloadDownload free PDFView PDFchevron_rightMary Shelley and the Rights of the Child: Political Philosophy in Frankenstein, by Eileen Hunt BottingCole Heinowitz

Women's Studies, 2018

The creature of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818) may have led a solitary life ostracized and unloved, but these days he has plenty of friends in the countless imitations, adaptations, and interpretations he has provoked. The present study by Eileen Hunt Botting adds to the growing body of political readings sustained by the novel in recent years, including the work of Marxist, feminist, postcolonial, and disability scholars, to a name a few prominent types. Devoted exclusively to Frankenstein and written by a political theorist, Mary Shelley and the Rights of the Child attests to the novel's ongoing salience. Seeking to convince her colleagues in political science of literature's evidentiary value, Botting makes the sort of grand case for fiction that we literary scholars are no longer much used to making: "The novel form allows for this sort of big and open-ended philosophical question to be entertained by readers from a variety of temporal contexts, cultural backgrounds, and political perspectives" (8). With this philosophizing remit, Botting presents Frankenstein as a mental laboratory for running a series of "thought experiments" about children and the rights they are due. Literature, in this view, seems a good way to experiment on humans without having to obtain IRB approval. Botting asks that we "see the Creature for who he really was: a stateless orphan, abandoned by family, abused by society and ignored by the law" (xi). By casting the creature as "a giant baby" (13), his tale can be read as a parable on the perils that lie in the abandonment and abuse of children. Dismissing the Gothic apparatus that surrounds this archetypal "monster," Bot-Modern Philology, volume 116, number 3.

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Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus (1818) is an amalgam of contradictory discourses. As the first science fiction novel, it shocked the contemporaries with its secular paradigm. Yet, both Shelley’s and Frankenstein’s creations are steeped in Gothic horror and supernatural romanticism. Although the dramatic imagery of dreams and isolated glaciers suggest fantasy and mystery, Frankenstein’s science is uncannily methodical – so methodical, in fact, that he refuses to reveal any details of his process, lest someone might repeat it. This denial of explanation has launched a frantic search for explanation through popular cultural adaptations. The still-cumulating popular cultural sediments have provided ever-new perspectives to reanimation, which has, however, obscured and destabilized the meanings of the tale even further. Moral panics, visual monstrosities and pulp horror tropes have trampled over Frankenstein’s intentions, fears and methods in popular imagination, turning a tale of education and betterment into a superstitious warning against scientific advancement. In my presentation, I demonstrate that these mismatched tendencies of explanation and mystification are also evident in comics and graphic narratives that recycle the myth, including Frankenstein’s Womb (2009) by Warren Ellis and Marek Oleksicki, and The Heart of the Beast (1998) by Dean Motter, Sean Phillips and Judith Dupré.

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The Wenshan Review of Literature and Culture, 2024

This paper explores the way in which Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus (1818) illuminates the physiological dimension of the sublime experience and its profound impact on the subject. Frankenstein's creature presents provocative implications of how the unruly physiological functions of the body can defamiliarize the Enlightenment understanding of an ideal human being anchored in rationalism. My perspective adds to the aesthetics of the sublime, specifically the postmodern ideas of dissonance and immanence demonstrated by the creature's signs of bodily unruliness, from instincts of self-preservation to carnal desires, which cause the spiritual effects of shock and horror in the creator. I argue that not only does Shelley provide a lens through which to perceive the defamiliarized world where the modern subject consistently encounters the unknown other as represented by the creature, but she also kindles a new kind of sympathy that can be enacted through the compromise of the self and the other's disruptive physiological responses. In this respect, this paper employs the notion of the "physiological sublime" to explore Shelley's incorporation of the sublime into the physiological dimension of interpersonal relations, and on the manifestation of sympathy as arising from the subject's acknowledgment of their own physiological otherness as it develops through direct encounters with the other.

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