“…INTO SOMETHING RICH AND STRANGE”: INTERPRETING AND
TRANSFORMING MARY SHELLEY’S FRANKENSTEIN
by
Stephenie Faith Lundgren
B.A., St. Cloud State University, 2010
A Thesis
Submitted to the Graduate Faculty
of
St. Cloud State University
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree
Master of Arts
St Cloud, Minnesota
December, 2012
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Chapter 1
Introduction
Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, has spawned many stage and screen
adaptations, all appropriating the story to entertain, educate and/or enlighten
audiences. While her text presents many spectacular images fit for theatrical and
cinematic representation, this is not enough to account for its hold on society. That
this story has seen adaptations in every era since Shelley put pen to paper is the
subject of much academic discourse. Critics addressing the persistence of what has
been referred to as the “Frankenstein-myth” have expounded upon the novel’s interest
in elements of biological science, relating it to contemporary themes of abortion,
cloning, and gene manipulation: in technological science, relating it to hybridized
mechanical forms that exhibit artificial intelligence; and in familial obligations,
relating it to contemporary themes of parental responsibilities, paternal rights, and
untraditional methods of conception. While these themes and more are certainly found
in the novel and its many adaptations, discussions of them are often limited to a single
representation or a single medium of representation. While investigating these artifacts
on an individual basis allows for a thorough analysis of a separate and distinct text, it
obscures the connective threads that bind not only the adaptation to the source text, but
the adaptations to each other. An examination of Shelley’s text that includes a
discussion of its adaptations shows that something fundamental to the human
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condition links the novel to its theatrical and cinematic (and therefore visual) reimaginings. This thesis contends that language and its relationship to the cultural
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construction of monstrosity as presented in Frankenstein and its adaptations offers a
greater understanding of why the “Frankenstein myth” persists.
Defining Monstrosity
In any discussion focused on monstrosity, an understanding of the term
“monster” as a cultural construct is crucial. Monster, of course, has any number of
meanings and even within the Western tradition, the definition has undergone changes.
The OED has among its definitions two that touch on the objects of this investigation:
first noted in 1375, “monster” referred to “a mythical creature which is part animal
and part human, or combines elements of two or more animal forms, and is frequently
of great size and ferocious appearance…More generally: any imaginary creature that
is large, ugly, and frightening.” Traditionally, this is the definition that has most
closely resembled the interpretation of Dr. Frankenstein’s creation. A deformed, nonor extra-human appearance, and the reaction this construct elicits from its viewers, are
central to this concept. That a human being, through a deficiency or malformation of
character, could be considered a monster did not show up as a definition until two
centuries later: “A person of repulsively unnatural character, or exhibiting such
extreme cruelty or wickedness as to appear inhuman; a monstrous example of evil.”
Again, appearance plays an important role in determining who or what may be
considered monstrous. In 1715, the OED notes the first use of “monster” to refer to
any ugly, deformed being.
The ever evolving concept of “monster,” then, requires a discussion of the
monstrous being as it relates to any specific inquiry. In terms of the present
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investigation, missing from these definitions is any terminology that points to the role
language plays in the creation of a monstrous being. Such terminology has a direct
impact on a discussion of the monstrous in Frankenstein. The categories from the
above definitions – human, animal, and monster – are produced in the symbolic realm
of language. As language constructs the human subject, then, it also constructs the
monster, specifically by positioning the monster in a dichotomous relationship with
the human. A number of dichotomies are at work in these definitions, but all are set
against what it means to be human: inhuman/human, animal/human, monster/human.
These binaries, however, are less stable than what is allowed for by a dictionary
definition.
In fact, despite all attempts, monsters resist these types of categorization.
Because they are an aspect of humanity, they cannot exist purely as its antithesis.
According to Cohen, “In its function as dialectical Other or third term supplement, the
monster is an incorporation of the Outside, the Beyond—of all those loci that are
rhetorically placed as distant but originate Within” (7). Monsters are never
permanently banished or destroyed because they are a projection of humanity’s
“cultural, political, racial, economic, [and] sexual” difference. They cannot, then,
inhabit the singular space of opposition within any dichotomy that sets them against
the human.
Cohen finds that the monster indicates a category crisis. Drawing from
Derrida, he notes that the monster “breaks apart bifurcating ‘either/or’ syllogistic logic
with a kind of reasoning closer to ‘and/or,’ introducing what Barbara Johnson has
called ‘a revolution in the very logic of meaning’” (7). As a representation of cultural
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taboos, as that which is deviant or aberrant, as the Other that comes from Within,
monsters require a re-envisioning of the categories that insist on binaries and
hierarchies. As a “mixed category,” the monster, Cohen explains, demands “a
‘system’ allowing polyphony, mixed response (difference in sameness, repulsion in
attraction), and resistance to integration—allowing what Hogle has called with a
wonderful pun ‘a deeper play of difference, a nonbinary polymorphism at the ‘base’ of
human nature’” (7). Understanding this, then, makes any simple distinction between a
monster and a monstrous human unmanageable. We must, instead, read the monster
(human or otherwise) as a cultural signifier that allows for “a deeper play of
difference.”
Even when we accept this as an answer to the question of monstrosity—that
the monster is inherently human—human beings nonetheless remain driven to separate
and contain all monstrous elements. Though we recognize that the monster comes
from within, we also know that it is unquestionably dangerous. Cohen explains: “By
revealing that difference is arbitrary and potentially free-floating, mutable rather than
essential, the monster threatens to destroy not just individual members of a society, but
the very cultural apparatus through which individuality is constituted and allowed”
(12). To give the monster free reign is to witness the collapse of any and every
philosophical system that governs society. We need socially prescriptive boundaries
that tell us what it means to be human, but the philosophical system is as much in need
of the monstrous border patrol that contests the space within and beyond that border.
Critical analysis of Shelley’s novel reveals the reader’s difficulty in fixing upon the
monstrous. Who is the monster, Frankenstein or the Creature? What is it that makes
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him monstrous? This ambiguity presents itself precisely because of the impossibility,
despite our overwhelming need, of separating and confining the monster. Language,
as “the human action par excellence,” is the singular means of doing just that
(Felluga). However, Shelley’s text and the adaptations that would follow, demonstrate
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an ever present anxiety centered on the instability and fallibility of language’s
constitutive function.
Language and the Monster
Recognition that language is the sole source for humanity’s claim to
exceptionality is a recent development. The superiority of humankind was, from
antiquity, related to an identification with divinity which presents itself in the form of
an eternal soul. The presence of a soul allowed humankind to not only separate itself
from other earthly creatures, but to position itself above them. Born from the stuff of
Gods, human dominance on earth was beyond contestation, but as one religious
system after another fell beneath the press of progress, humanity required a new
theory on which to base its position of superiority. Throughout the 18th century,
scientific and technological advancements brought about an identity crisis for the
collective human endeavor. To question the existence of God was to question the
position of the human being. Answers needed to address more than the simple
question of what it means to be human. They needed to support human superiority in
such a way as to be beyond contestation. Working with theories posited in the 18th
century by Locke, Condillac, and Rousseau, Shelley reveals through her text a concern
with the developing notion that human exceptionality rests with language.
That the debate begun by Enlightenment theorists continues into the present is
evidenced by the numerous adaptations of Frankenstein. Their unanimous concerns
with the relationship between human subjectivity and language suggest the persistence
of cultural anxieties that have never been adequately settled. Taking up the debate in
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the 20 century, Percy Walker attempts to answer the plaguing questions of human
exceptionality. Known for his philosophical novels devoted to the exploration of
humanity’s place in the modern age, Walker developed a theory of man based on
humankind’s unique ability to produce language. He writes:
Where does one start with a theory of man if the theory of man as
an organism in an environment doesn’t work and all the attributes of
man which were accepted in the old modern age are now called into
question: his soul, mind, freedom, will, Godlikeness?
There is only one place to start: the place where man’s singularity
is there for all to see and cannot be called into question, even in a new
age in which everything else is in dispute.
That singularity is language. (7)
In his book, The Message in the Bottle: How Queer Man Is, How Queer Language Is,
and What One Has to Do with the Other (1975), Walker explains that the two
available methods for explaining language were formal (discussing language’s logical,
syntactical and grammatical elements) or behavioristic (discussing language as a
response to stimuli). Walker finds that the alienation of modern man can be related to
and explained in terms of the fact that man is a symbol-user. He argues that the “self”
resists “objectizing” (9). In other words, the self resists symbolic representation.
While this work is largely concerned with linguistic theory and the existential
dilemmas of the post-Vietnam War era, what Walker points to are the anxieties that
present themselves when humanity attempts to assert its dominance based on the
singularity of language.
As we have seen, a culture’s monsters emblematically embody its most acute
anxieties. The belief that language is “the human action par excellence,” that it offers
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the individual the privileged position of human subject, is a belief that carries with it a
degree of anxiety. This anxiety surfaces in theatrical and cinematic adaptations of
Frankenstein because, despite its instability, language constitutes the human subject.
It is the very essence of the human condition. The categories of human and monster
are produced in the symbolic realm of language, through which circulates the power of
The Name of the Father. The symbolic, through language, is, according to Freud, “the
pact which links... subjects together in one action. The human action par excellence is
originally founded on the existence of the world of the symbol, namely on laws and
contracts” (Felluga). These adaptations show how our monstrosity is inseparable
from our humanity. We create and recreate the monstrous through text, stage, and
film to express our own ambivalent desires for dissolution of the binary that separates
us from our monstrous selves. The limits of language, a theme readily apparent in the
novel, is a persistent motif found in representations of Frankenstein from Richard
Brinsley Peake’s 1823 stage production to the most recent adaptations in
contemporary cinema.
Concerned with the determining role of language in Frankenstein is Ashley J.
Cross’ “‘Indelible Impressions’: Gender and Language in Mary Shelley’s
Frankenstein.” Cross draws on Carol Cohn’s analysis of the “‘technostrategic’
language of defense intellectuals” to show how language not only constitutes the
subject but can also “transform and (re)constitute its users” (549). In her discussion,
which focuses largely on Mary Shelley’s own authorial voice and the dominant
discourse of patriarchal authority, Cross speaks of the “novel’s obsession with the
relation between the specular body and the text of identity, between being and
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meaning” (550). Central to her claim is the belief that a reading of Frankenstein
makes apparent Shelley’s “ambivalence about the ability of language to empower and
form its subjects” (550). In Frankenstein then, the Symbolic Order fails to function as
it should. It does not allow the creature to claim a position as human subject. Rather,
it makes evident his difference as, in Cohen’s words, a third term; identified neither as
human nor monster, but existing in a third position.
In this way, the Symbolic Order produces the monstrous and not the desired
human subject. In her analysis of the creature’s education at the De Lacey’s cottage,
Cross finds that Shelley explicitly works through the idea of the transformative effect
of language. The creature’s earliest experiences of humanity teach him only that the
inhabitants of the village that he had approached were barbarous. He did not, indeed
could not then attribute the meaning of their response to his own being. It is his
education at the De Lacey’s that makes possible his identification as ‘monster.’ It is
important to note that this is a self-identification. The reader has not, at this point,
attached such a label to the creature. What is apparent to the reader is how the
“monster” was constructed.
Cross explains Shelley’s interest in the relationship between language and
identity: “By making the reader see the process of the creature’s production,
education, and exclusion within the structures of language, Shelley foregrounds the
importance of discourse in producing and reifying social structures” (552). According
to Cross, language in Frankenstein must be understood as producing the creature’s
difference. In the novel, appearance clearly affects those individuals that have direct
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contact with the Creature, but his appearance does not directly affect the formation of
his identity. In his own words, the Creature comments upon his image:
I had admired the perfect forms of my cottagers—their grace, beauty,
and delicate complexions; but how was I terrified when I viewed
myself in a transparent pool! At first I started back, unable to believe
that it was indeed I who was reflected in the mirror; and when I became
fully convinced that I was in reality the monster that I am, I was filled
with the bitterest sensations of despondence and mortification. Alas, I
did not yet entirely know the fatal effects of this miserable deformity.
(Location 1389)
While he names himself “monster,” this is a comment reflecting upon his form only
and not upon his being. He recognizes his deformity and curses it as the cause of his
miserable circumstances but ardently believes that his mastery over language, a
distinctly human ability, will demonstrate to the cottagers that, despite his appearance,
he is human: “I easily perceived that, although I eagerly longed to discover myself to
the cottagers, I ought not to make the attempt until I had first become master of their
language, which knowledge might enable me to make them overlook the deformity of
my figure” (Location 1396). While in his reflection he discovers his disfigurement, it
does not establish his monstrosity. Instead, it is language—in this case, its absence—
that produces his subjectivity and positions him as the monstrous other.
His self-identification as “monster” forms only after he finds the three books
that, together with Frankenstein’s journal, combine to teach the Creature the nature of
his being.
As I read, . . . I applied much personally to my own feelings and
condition. I found myself similar yet at the same time strangely unlike
to the beings concerning whom I read and to whose conversation I was
a listener . . . My person was hideous and my stature gigantic. What
did this mean? Who was I? What was I? Whence did I come? What
was my destination? These questions continually recurred, but I was
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unable to solve them. (Location 1595)
It is significant that he finds himself in conversation with these texts. He is an active
listener to a conversation, the product of which is the initial development of the
Creature’s identity. This is followed by his reading of Paradise Lost, in which the
Creature identifies himself not with Adam, but with Satan as the “fitter emblem” for
his situation. Frankenstein’s journal completes his education. The questions inspired
by the Sorrows of Werter are answered by the journal: “The minutest description of
my odious and loathsome person is given, in language which painted your own horrors
and rendered mine indelible” (Location 1621). Through his interaction with these
texts, his position as a third term becomes apparent. Cross finds that “the creature as
subject comes to exist only as he is constructed within discourse—discourse that is
necessarily ideological. The creature ‘means’ only as he learns the discourse that
speaks him; and having learned it he realizes he means ‘monster’” (554).
Also writing on the role of language in Frankenstein is Jonathan Jones in
“Hidden Voices: Language and Ideology in Philosophy of Language of the Long
Eighteenth Century and Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein.” In an argument similar to
Cross’, Jones summarizes the philosophies of Locke, Condillac, and Rousseau to
highlight the critical debates circulating in the Eighteenth Century about the structures
and functions of language. Condillac and Rousseau both find that language begins
with emotion: a single body’s response to the suffering of another body. It is a shared
capacity for feeling that initiates signification rather than an awareness of self
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established through consciousness of an other. In his emotional response to the
cottagers, the reader recognizes the human potential of the Creature.
He raised her, and smiled with such kindness and affection, that I felt
sensations of a peculiar and overpowering nature: they were a mixture
of pain and pleasure, such as I had never before experienced, either
from hunger or cold, warmth or food; and I withdrew from the window,
unable to bear these emotions. (Location 1323)
Jones argues against David Marshal’s analysis of 18th-century conceptions of
sympathy. Marshal believes that sympathy represents an act of identification wherein
an individual leaves their own “place, part, and person’ to take the place of someone
else. According to Marshal, Jones explains, the individual is transported outside
themselves in “a moment of self-forgetting” (276). Jones, however, notes that “…in
this stage of the Creature’s psychological development he has no clear sense of self to
forget…” (276). What the Creature responds to is not as simple as sympathizing with
the cottagers. His response is based on the communication of feelings demonstrated
by the cottagers.
By degrees I made a discovery of still greater moment. I found that
these people possessed a method of communicating their experience
and feelings to one another by articulate sounds. I perceived that the
words they spoke sometimes produced pleasure or pain, smiles or
sadness, in the minds and countenances of the hearers. This was indeed
a godlike science, and I ardently desired to become acquainted with it.
(Location 1369)
Here, Shelley participates in the dominant discourse circulating in the 18th century on
the nature of language. The belief that emotion initiates language development was
central to Rousseau and Condillac. Shelley complicates these views, however, in her
portrayal of the human need to communicate emotions. As Cross has done, Jones
examines the two aspects of the creature’s linguistic education: the body as emotion
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and discourse as interpellation. Jones asserts that while the creature has a voice, it is
not his own. The creature, through the acquisition of language, is involved in “a
process of socialization that allows for the transmission of culture and ideology”
(274). In his argument, Jones demonstrates that while the creature shows emotion
which allows for nascent stages of language formation, it is the creature’s developing
understanding of language as discourse that teaches him the nature of his monstrosity.
According to Jones, “the Creature’s developing awareness that he is outside the social
world he is observing is a product of his immersion in the cultural dialogue he is
‘excluded’ from” (275). Through this aspect of language (discourse), the Creature is
formally called into being (human being), but cannot complete the process because he
is unable to reciprocate through the transmission of the dominant ideologies that have
constructed him. His attempt to communicate with his “protectors” is shut down and
the promise of language to unite all subjects in a single action proves false. “My
cottagers had departed and had broken the only link that held me to the world”
(Location 1731). Unable to claim a position as human subject, he adopts the only
position open to him: that of monster.
Adaptation and Transformation
Before moving into a discussion of how Shelley’s text becomes reimagined for
the stage and film, the terms for understanding such a transformation must be
established. The first step in a discussion of Shelley’s novel that centers on the
presentation of her text through a different medium is to establish why such an
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endeavor has been referred to as a “Frankensteinian project.” To recognize that few,
if any, visual productions of the novel remain faithful to the original text is an
understatement: most radically re-work the content and so change how the characters
are perceived. While some alterations are due to the nature of the medium, most
important thematic elements do not present a difficulty for either the playwright or the
director. That the construction of monstrosity changes from production to production
is related less to the nature of the medium than it is to the nature of translation. While
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often referred to as adaptation, the visual production of Frankenstein is better
understood if discussed in terms of translation.
Inherently involved with language and interpretation, translation moves a text
from one language to another. Though traditionally understood as a literary endeavor,
expanding the act of translation to include the theatrical and filmic text allows us to
examine how culture and ideology affect the changing nature of monstrosity with in
these productions of Frankenstein. As Pramod Talgeri and Satyabhūshaṇa Verma
point out, a word is “essentially a cultural memory in which the historical experience
of the society is embedded” (3). That a text is a cultural artifact and is dependent upon
other social systems for meaning would seem to point to the idea that any perfect
textual translation, outside the society for which a work was written, is all but
impossible. However, Andre Lefevere explains that to translate is to rewrite. The
central idea of this point of view is that the study of literary translation, while begun
with a study of the translated text, necessarily includes a consideration of its role,
function and reception within the culture for which it is translated.
Though translation and adaptation are not interchangeable terms, theories of
translation provide useful insight into the work done by playwrights who attempt to
translate the text of Frankenstein for a separate and distinct culture and/or adapt the
novel for a different medium. Linda Costanzo Cahir explores the merits of literaturebased films in her book, Literature into Film: Theory and Practical Approaches. She
notes that the term “adapt” means to change the “structure or function of an entity” so
that it is better suited not only to maintain itself in its new environment but to
reproduce. To adapt is to move “that same entity” into a new environment. Through
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adaptation, “the same substantive entity which entered the process exits...” (14). She
contrasts this with the term “translate.” She argues that translation is “a process of
language, not a process of survival and generation. Through the process of translation
a fully new text—a materially different entity—is made, one that simultaneously has a
strong relationship with its original source, yet is fully independent from it” (14).
Despite the visual production of the text, the translation of Shelley’s text is
accomplished through a process of language and this process creates a new,
independent entity. This investigation, focused on the defining role of language in the
changing cultural constructions of monstrosity presented through theatrical and
cinematic productions of Frankenstein, is best understood when Cahir’s three main
points are taken into consideration:
1.
2.
3.
Every act of translation is simultaneously an act of interpretation.
Through the process of translation, a new text emerges—a unique
entity—not a mutation of the original matter, but a fully new
work, which, in form and function, is independent from its
literary source.
Film [and we must include theatre] translators of literature face
the same challenges, dilemmas, interpretive choices, latitudes
and responsibilities that any translator must face. (14)
A privileging of the literary text often accompanies a critical response to literaturebased productions. Understanding them as products of translation allows for a
response that acknowledges the production as “…a cultural memory in which the
historical experience of the society is embedded” (Talgeri 3).
This thesis will examine three theatrical translations and three filmic
translations of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in order to show how language and its
role in the cultural construction of monstrosity is a theme that carries over from the
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novel into its visual renderings. The persistence of a cultural anxiety centered on the
ability of language to construct and maintain the human subject may be noted through
Frankenstein’s move not only into new media, but through time as well. Following
the introductory chapter on the novel, Chapter Two will investigate the theatrical
translations and will focus on Richard Brinsley Peake’s 1823, Presumption: or the
Fate of Frankenstein; Richard and Barabus Brough’s 1849, Frankenstein, or the
Model Man; and finally The Living Theatre’s 1969, Frankenstein. Chapter Three will
investigate the following filmic translations: James Whale’s 1931, Frankenstein; Paul
Morrissey’s 1974, Flesh for Frankenstein; and lastly, Kenneth Bragnagh’s 1994, Mary
Shelley’s Frankenstein. An analysis of Frankenstein that includes both the novel and
its alternative media translations allows for a greater understanding of how language
features in a cultural discourse that questions, through the construction of the monster,
“our place in history, and the history of our place” (Cohen 9).
Chapter 2
THEATRE
Presumption; or, the Fate of Frankenstein, 1823
Richard Brinsley Peak’s 1823 adaptation, Presumption; or, the Fate of
Frankenstein, changed how monstrosity is viewed while maintaining the novel’s
interest in the ability of language to offer the subject entry into the human community.
As contemporaries, Shelley and Peake were writing for the same cultural audience and
while on the surface, it would appear that the play presents the audience with a like
argument, the changes made by Peake alter how monstrosity is understood. That
Peake presents the audience with a voiceless creature who can communicate only
through gesture is the most notable change made by Peake in translating the novel for
presentation on the stage. The mute Monster, whose name would seem to point to a
default monstrosity, is unable to address his tormentors and argue for a human
position in society. Though he does communicate, his monstrosity is fixed by his
failure to pass into the Symbolic Order.
As with Shelley’s text, however, a consideration of the role of language in the
construction of the monstrous must include an examination of Frankenstein’s mental
and moral deterioration. Frankenstein slips, temporarily, into the role of monster as his
humanity is consumed by a drive that the audience perceives as inhuman. Though
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Frankenstein finds redemption and escapes from a permanent label as monster, the
mute Demon is afforded no such redemption and is forever condemned as Victor’s
monstrous progeny. Though the dissimilarities between text and stage are striking,
both display a cultural anxiety that centers on the ability of language to construct and
maintain the human subject.
Whereas the novel reveals how, despite the creature’s full development of
language, the Symbolic Order fails in its primary function of establishing human
subjectivity, Peake’s dramatization simplifies the creature’s development by removing
his voice. Human subjectivity is a point that becomes, like the creature himself, mute.
Without language, the creature cannot participate in the “social pact that links humans
together in a single action.” In a review written after Presumption’s first performance
at the English Opera House on July 29th, 1823, the London Morning Post reveals that
the viewer’s perception of the Monster’s monstrosity is less ambiguous than it had
been in Shelley’s text; “Though wearing the human form, he is incapable of
associating with mankind, to whom he eventually becomes hostile, and having killed
the mistress and brother of Frankenstein, he finally vanquishes his mortal creator, and
perishes himself beneath a falling avalanche” (Behrendt). The creature’s inability to
associate with humankind is a direct result of his deficiency of speech.
Some ambiguity does present itself, however, in the staging of the Monster’s
attempt to connect with humanity through gesticulation. Symbolic in nature, the
gesture can be read as communication. It is hard not to read a bent or bowing form
with outstretched arms as a symbolic representation of the act of pleading. Following
the creature’s animation, Peake writes in his stage directions, “The Monster looks at
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Frankenstein most intently, approaches him with gestures of conciliation.
Frankenstein retreats round to R. H., the Monster pursuing him” (Forry 144). While
an empathetic audience may sympathize with the Monster, they do not experience his
gestures as signifying human potential. The Monster’s attempts at communication are
seen again in a scene set at the De Lacey’s cottage. Having discovered the creature
following her, Agatha De Lacey faints and the creature carries her to the cottage where
he places her in her father’s care. Felix, entering upon the situation, grabs his gun:
The Monster retreats from L. H., and walks round to R. H., Felix
following him—discharges his gun—wounds the Monster in the
shoulder—who writhes under the agony of the wound from which
blood flows—would rush on Felix, who keeps the gun presented—he is
deterred by fear of a repetition of the wound...Enter Frankenstein
through the portico...The monster rushes up to Frankenstein, and
casts himself at his feet, imploring protection. (Forry 152)
Frankenstein replies with animosity and curses, shouting, “...thus I destroy the wretch
I have created!” The stage directions, once again, give the audience a sympathetic
rendering of the creature that appears more animal than human:
Frankenstein endeavors to stab him with his dagger, which the Monster
strikes from his hand—and expresses that his kindly feeling towards
the human race, have been met by abhorrence and violence; that they
are all now converted into hate and vengeance...(Forry 153)
Without language, not only is the creature unable to articulate his desire for
acceptance, he is unable to think in terms of human subjectivity. He wants no more
than what any creature inhabiting the mute order of the organic is capable of wanting:
shelter, warmth, protection, and affection. Gesture, as is shown through the portrayal
of the mute Monster, is not enough to establish an argument for the position of human
subject. He has, in fact, no understanding of his own position as third-term
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supplement to the human/animal dichotomy. The lack of language restricts him to a
form of communication that is not limited to humanity. That animals can signify
through gesture explains the moral reasoning behind Peake’s silencing of the creature.
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The effect on the audience justifies his textual revision as the London Morning Post
notes after the second performance:
Whatever may be thought of Frankenstein as a novel, or of the
principles of those who could indite such a novel, there can be but one
opinion of it as a drama. The representation of this piece upon the stage
is of astonishing, of enchaining, interest. In the novel the rigid moralist
may feel himself constantly offended, by the modes of reasoning,
principles of action, &c.—But in the Drama this is all carefully kept in
the back ground. Nothing but what can please, astonish, and delight, is
there suffered to appear. (Behrendt)
The meaning of monster becomes limited to a dichotomy that positions the human
against the animal. However, human/animal contamination was not a new aspect of
the philosophical dilemmas presented when attempting to codify human singularity.
Christian writings dating back to medieval doctrine argued for the divided nature of
human beings: they have both divine and animal attributes. Divinity presents itself in
the form of an eternal soul made in the likeness of God while animality presents itself
in the form of bestial appetites which require suppression. In this way, the human
being may be said to already exist in a hybrid state. This knowledge of animal
proximity speaks to the insistent desire to present the creature as lacking any human
potential. The notion of the human being’s inherent hybridity explains the moral
policing of the boundary that guards against contamination.
Frankenstein; or, the Model Man, 1849
In 1849, Richard and Barnabas Brough staged their burlesque production,
Frankenstein; or, the Model Man. Like their predecessors, the Broughs appropriate
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Shelley’s story to examine cultural anxieties. Tracing Frankenstein’s appearance in
political cartoons between 1832 and 1900, Steven Earl Forry notes that “[These]
cartoons lambasting the passage of the Reform Bill, labor unrest, and the Irish
Question were the most important mid-century influences on the myth before Boris
Karloff donned cement boots to play the creature for Universal Studios” (43). For
Victorian society, caricatures of the creature were used to depict a growing awareness
of social responsibility. Partisan debates on issues of political and social reform led to
a number of civilian protests which often resulted in mob violence. As a burlesque,
Frankenstein; or, the Model Man participates in a national conversation whose
rhetoric is steeped in fear and alleviated through comedy. Rather than negating the
novel’s attempt to engage philosophical questions on the nature of humankind, the
Brough’s comedic spin applies itself to the same fundamental concerns. What is the
role of language in the formation of the human subject? How is language used in the
construction of the monstrous other?
While both Peake’s and the Broughs’ productions participate in an
examination centered on the implications of humanity’s singular possession of
language, their aims are unique to the cultural anxieties they address. Apart from
snide comments upon the reform Bill and the Irish Question, the Broughs specifically
address education reform. The creature begins life with the expected pantomime that
had characterized the role prior to the Broughs’ production. Upon waking, the
Monster follows Frankenstein around the stage making “threatening motions” (Forry
238). Frankenstein retreats from his creation saying, “Avaunt and quit my sight. / I’ve
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made, oh gracious goodness, / A mull despite my shrewdness. / Sorry to have recourse
to rudeness” (238). The stage directions then read,
At the last line Frank has approached the door which he suddenly
disappears through, slamming it in the monster’s face who looks in
astonishment after him, standing still during the last of the music—
Music changes to the hurried melodramatic style. The monster rubs his
nose and goes through pantomime indicative of revenge to express a
sense of insult & injury at Frank’s treatment. (Forry 238)
This pantomime plays upon the audience’s expectations of the horror that the monster
is meant to embody. The Broughs quickly subvert this fixed notion, however, and
challenge the audience to re-think the nature of the category to which the creature has
been confined. Following his gestures of revenge, the monster stops to pontificate,
Well though I haven’t mixed much in society,
That seems to me an outrage on propriety.
Closing by such unceremonious plan,
The only opening for a nice young man
In life just begun, as one might say,
To look around him and to see his way.
But stop, Where am I, aye & likewise who?
How did I get here? That’s a poser too.
How is it too that in my situation,
With no advantages of education,
My thoughts in words an utterance are seeking,
Though unaccustomed quite to public speaking? (Forry 238)
Not only does this monologue establish his ability to speak, it also establishes his
sense of his position in relation to a social structure. Reproaching Frankenstein for his
abrupt departure, the monster laments his lack of guidance in learning how to navigate
the complex relationship of self to society. His speech effectively nullifies the
violence depicted in the pantomime and the audience becomes witness to the
monster’s human potential.
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After demanding an acknowledgment of the monster’s human possibilities, the
playwrights are free to return to images of the creature’s violent nature, for while the
possibilities exist for human subjectivity, language has not constructed him. He has
not been interpolated through language because language is positioned as instinctual.
The monster’s violent tendencies surface after he is left to find his own way.
Already in my brief perambulations
I’ve seen some life & made a few sensations.
Though I must own it scarcely can be said
That I’ve a favorable impression made…
As yet, but few adventures I have had,
These to begin with perhaps are not so bad.
They took my fancy, I took them in turn,
But I for deeds of more ambition burn.
Hah! Lights & Company! Unless I’m wrong
Here seems a chance to come out pretty strong. (Forry 240)
Without guidance, the monster’s interactions within his social surroundings are
predicated on his desire for sensation. Without the De Laceys, Goethe, Milton and
Plutarch, the monster has not actually participated in “the human action par
excellence.” He has not learned nor acquiesced to the laws and contracts that
language formation is meant to initiate. What the play posits is that while language
creates human subjectivity, the subject formed is not necessarily the desired subject.
Human, yes, but language cannot guarantee any of the characteristics essential to the
human being. The moral, ethical, just, and compassionate human being requires
education.
Far from using language to argue for the position of human subject as he had
done in the novel, the monster here plays the part assigned to him by society. He
operates beyond the borders of human civilization, not through an innate evil that
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justifies the label of monster, but because he has been excluded from any means of
participating in the social pact. When Frankenstein rebukes him for his “naughtiness”,
the monster responds:
Hang it! Young minds require occupation
And now and then a little relaxation.
Besides I feel I out’nt to suppress
My raging organ of destructiveness. (Forry 244)
Language, for the Monster, becomes a vehicle for expressing the human tendency to
place personal desire above the common good. The immediacy of pleasure through
sensation leads the individual to react against the confining structure of the social pact.
While language initiates human subjectivity, language itself is not enough to maintain
the social pact. To fully integrate into human society, the Monster requires an
education. Undine, a water sprite intent on helping the lovers, Otto and Agatha,
explains how, rather than running away together, they should win the right to marry by
performing a great service. When she suggests the slaying of a dragon, Otto asks
where he might find a monster to assist him. Undine answers with a statement that
baldly answers for the moral of the play:
There’s one you may immediately begin with.
Frankenstein, like so many a thoughtless creature
In blind attempts to better human nature,
Upon the world has let a monster loose,
Who breaks the peace & plays the very deuce.
So there’s a chance. Here take this magic flute
And seek him out the most ferocious brute.
Its notes will bring to calm subordination,
It plays a simple tune called Education. (Forry 246)
Educating the creature then becomes the means of “taming” him. However, education
does not, as one might suppose, lead to liberation. In at last gaining human
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subjectivity, the creature is shown to lose his voice. Otto, following the sprite’s
advice, bursts into Frankenstein’s trial wherein he is being prosecuted for disturbing
the peace. Frankenstein pleads with the court not to hurt the “wild” creature. Otto
reasurres him and explains the true effects of education: “Yes, by this weapon small, /
Whose unobtrusive power would conquer all / the ills that o’er the earth hold
domination / If people understood its application. / Behold its charm to sooth the
savage breast, / And lull the—everybody knows the rest” (249). In an era
experiencing wide spread social unrest and violent protests, Frankenstein; or the
Model Man argues for education as a means of “calming” the savage masses.
In the end, both Frankenstein and the Monster are absorbed by society and they
are shown embracing. Though the play holds to the comedic prescription for a happy
ending, the modern reader cannot help but feel that the creature has lost more than he
has gained. While the speaking subject has at last achieved the full measure of human
subjectivity, his education has resulted in the loss of his voice. Now fit for work, the
creature is shuffled downstage by Frankenstein who presents the tame Monster to the
audience:
A situation, one I’ll quickly send you to,
I’ve lots of friends that I can recommend you to,
Friends who can give you a most glorious berth,
Faith there’s no saying what their place is worth.
Come here I’ll speak for you. (To Aud) What d’ye say? (Forry 250)
Now viewed, without question, as human, this scene is reminiscent of the auction
block. Education has produced a calm, domesticated, and acquiescent subject. Born
with language but no guidance, the human being lashes out against perceived social
ills. Education, which embodies a national discourse that enforces nationalism and
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class structure, is shown to be the primary tool for maintaining the desired human
subject.
Of its place amongst the many Victorian political renderings of Frankenstein,
Forry notes of the Model Man that it was a high point of burlesque drama and avoided
many of the stereotypes; “…rather than a cartoon image brute, in this allegorical
setting the Creature appears as a figure of potential reform, his destruction the
consequence of society’s misdirected or abandoned responsibilities” (66). For Richard
and Barnabas Brough, the creature’s amalgamated body becomes the site on which is
written the possibility of and need for reform. The play posits that if language is
common to all of its human subjects, society errs when education is denied.
Frankenstein, 1969
Frankenstein again becomes a mechanism for reform when produced in 1964
by the Living Theatre. However, reformation in this period goes beyond the
questioning of a single institution. It confronts long held assumptions about society
and the individual within society. To this end, the conventions of established theatre,
as a representation of life and the individual, come under scrutiny. Experimental
theatrical groups of the sixties and seventies confronted the binaries under which
traditional theatre was constructed: text and performance, actor and spectator, actor
and character, action and dialogue, art and life. While traditional theatre privileged
one term, experimental theatre groups, such as the Living Theatre, challenged these
dichotomies. In contesting the dominant ideology, language itself becomes suspect in
the propagation of political and social injustice. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, then,
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with its consideration of language and subject formation, becomes the perfect vehicle
for the Living Theatre in its attempts to “break apart bifurcating ‘either/or’ syllogistic
logic” (Cohen). The monstrous, in this production, becomes language itself.
Pierre Biner, whose 1969 first-hand account of the play will comprise the
“text” for this investigation, describes the production as “a gigantic, irrational
spectacle” (114). Lacking any sustained dialogue (with one exception that will be
discussed below), the play consists largely of sound, movement, and image. As other
avant-garde theatrical movements had done, the Living Theatre draws heavily upon
Antonin Artuad’s Theatre of Cruelty. It was his belief that, as it stood, the theatre had
ceased to inspire and to be inspired. The world of the theatre had become irrelevant
and artificial. In an attempt to unleash an unconscious response in both audience and
performer, he called for a theatre that defied the rational. Albert Bermel describes
Artaud’s approach to a new, more radical theatre:
The kind of theatre Artaud envisaged would use the classics but only
after subjecting them to a radical overhaul. Lighting, sound equipment
and other technical means would no longer subserve the text; they
would partially replace it. The noises, music and colours that generally
accompany the lines would in places substitute for them. They would
be fortified by a range of human noises- screams, grunts, moans, sighs,
yelps- together with a repertoire of gestures, signs and other
movements. These would extend the range of the actor's art and the
receptivity of the spectator. To put it another way, they would enlarge
the theatre's vocabulary…They would surrender themselves to a
performance, live through it and feel it, rather than merely think about
it. (6)
Interpretation, then, relies on the emotional responses of both the spectator and the
performer. It is meant to be a transformative experience. Under the artistic direction
of its founders, Julian Beck and Judith Malina, the Living Theatre embraced the
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concepts established in The Theatre of Cruelty. Language, the defining and
organizing principle behind the corrupt and bankrupt institutions governing society,
could no longer be trusted as a primary means of signification. Kerstin Schmidt notes
in her book, The Theatre of Transformation: Postmodernsim in American Drama, that
through postmodern theatre’s interactive “agenda,” “new performative forms of
knowledge and perception emerge that are not primarily mediated through language”
(55). Schmidt goes on to discuss the implications of the postmodern dramatic form:
The devaluation of language and dialogue in postmodern drama paves
the way for a more improvisational, visual, gestural, and musical
theatre. Given the discrepancy and, quite often, unconnectedness
between the oral/lingual and the visual, it can be argued that
postmodern theatre in this way reinstates theatre as ritual. In a process
of retheatricalization the dramatic text is not discarded completely but
freed from the semiotic constraints of a fixed dialogue. The stage
becomes the space of a performance, and not primarily the location for
the representation of a preexisting text and its meaning. (58)
The Living Theatre’s production of Frankenstein exemplifies theatre as ritual. The
construction of meaning is dependent upon an emotional connection between
performer and audience that reaches beyond language to a point where the Symbolic
Order ceases to function as the primary means of signification. Language, when it is
used, is shown to be the agent of all human suffering.
All action takes place in, or upstage from, a three story structural frame divided
into fifteen cubed sections joined by gangplanks and ladders.1 Beginning at ground
level, from left to right, the cubes are designated as A1, A2, A3 with the second level
labeled as B’s (4, 5, and 6) and the third labeled as C’s (7, 8, and 9). B5 then, sits at
All descriptions of the Living Theatre’s production of Frankenstein are taken from The
Living Theatre by Pierre Biner (1972) who offers a first-hand account of the 1969 production as well as
reflective commentary upon selected elements of the performance.
1
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the center of the construction. Fifteen performers sit facing the audience. A woman
sitting in B5 with a microphone announces every five minutes in an “expressionless
voice” that these people are attempting to levitate the woman seated at the center.
This is then repeated in German, Italian, Spanish, and French. After twenty minutes, it
is announced that the final phase of the “meditation” is beginning.
According to
Biner, “The spectator awaits the impossible” (117). When the levitation fails, the
performers turn “menacingly” toward the woman meant to be levitating. Biner notes
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that this failure is the result of poor concentration on the part of the performers.
However, according to Biner, there must be a designated “victim” (117).
She tries to escape, she cries out, but the others drive her back. She is
trapped like a wild beast, and a strongly knotted net is thrown over her.
She is then placed in a coffin of black wood. [Her] cries [as] the living
dead penetrate through the coffin to the spectator’s ears. (117)
The emotionless voice issuing from the structural center of the world of the play is the
first indication of how language will be positioned. As an organizational “control
booth,” B5 is above and behind the action taking place. The operator’s position and
emotional disconnectedness effectively remove her from the collective endeavor: its
aspirations and its risks. The audience, on the other hand, experiences this scene as
both observer and participant. On an equal plane with those meditating, the viewer
inhabits the same space as the performers; the “control booth” gazes down upon both
stage and house. There is, then, no fourth wall separating the viewer from the event.
They are as invested in the outcome as the fifteen individuals sitting cross legged on
the stage. To ensure that no single individual escapes complicity, the announcements
coming from B5 are made in a number of languages.
Following the victim’s capture and entombment, the coffin is carried upon the
backs of the actors through the house. As the procession makes its way amongst the
spectators, a rebellion begins. Biner describes it as follows:
When the procession is formed, an actor cries out “No!” and flees into
the auditorium. It is a positive “No,” addressed to oppression, because
her recognizes the guilt of the group for the failure of the levitation.
The others search for the fugitive, directed by two actors using walkietalkies with the controlled calm of policemen. To have said “No” to
the law that permitted the extermination of the girl who could not
levitate is to automatically designated as victim. The actor is captured
and hanged in B3. Another actor, witnessing the scene, says “No” to
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the hanging, whereupon he himself is captured and executed. And so
on, one by one. (118)
Various forms of corporal punishment are acted out: quartering, beheading,
crucifixion, firing squad, electric chair, iron maiden, garrote, and guillotine. Watching
all of this is a thoughtful Frankenstein. Directly following this, Frankenstein
witnesses a scene wherein actors on level C wave portraits of Marx and Lenin and
recite Marxist maxims in “jerky, broken tones of voice” (120). In the control booth,
the black hooded spokesman for “international industries” reads capitalist slogans in a
monotonous, amplified voice. Biner insists that, “the total effect is that of an
unmilitant discussion among machines, each being given equal importance” (120).
All of this leads to Frankenstein’s desperate question, “How can we end human
suffering?” (121).
The inhabitants within the structure demonstrate the postmodern belief that
language had become removed from its emotional core. If, as Condillac and Rousseau
believed, language begins with emotion (through an individual’s response to the
suffering of another), then humans as machines no longer have a connection to the
language they employ. Language may unite civilization in a single action, but that
action is essential devoid of human connectivity. While Shelley may have been
ambivalent about “the ability of language to empower and form its subjects,” the
Living Theatre suffered from no such uncertainty. If we accept that human subjects
“mean” only as they “learn the discourse that speaks [them],” then the Living Theatre
presents subjects as alienated from their own humanity (Cross 554). Language is
monstrous because the subjects it produces (its progeny) are monstrous. What
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emerges is not the pristine human being but an amalgamated being: part human, part
animal, and part machine. To underscore the notion of a mechanical man, though the
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creature is made from human body parts, at the moment of creation Frankenstein cries
out, “Turn the creature on” (123). Biner describes the creation scene:
Long plastic tubes equipped with interior lights are now attached to the
bodies of the executed victims inside the structure, connected to the
laboratory…And then, it is as if the creature in the laboratory were
reproducing itself on the scale of Gulliver throughout the structures
three levels. Slowly, with a sort of whistling of lungs, reminding one
of some mythical beast or sounds such as might be produced by a
machine in another world, the dead begin to detach themselves from
the faintly lit ground, and create in Chinese shadow silhouette the effect
of a three-stories monster with red eyes. (123)
The account of this scene from a spectator’s perspective demonstrates the various and
combinatory terms used to depict the creature. He is at once, human, beast and
machine. In contrast, the creature’s self-perception establishes his human potential.
This potential is demonstrated when Act II opens with a display of the
creature’s inner life. Though he is sleeping, the structure becomes a representation of
the creature’s unconscious. Each compartment depicts a portion of his mental
development: Animal Instinct, Subconscious, the Erotic, Intuition, Vision,
Imagination, Death, the Ego, Wisdom, and Knowledge. He begins to dream of the sea
and a choir of “sirens” sings Ariel’s song from The Tempest to the tune of Beethoven’s
Symphony no. 9:
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Hark! Now I hear them—Ding dong bell. (127)
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Biner finds this song to be “a hymn to life,” but such a statement doesn’t go far
enough in explaining its significance. Its celebratory exhortation reflects the potential
of the human being. Certainly, it speaks to life but also to death and transformation.
The creature’s pre-language self-awareness, his burgeoning identity, exhibits a
connection to life so profound that it reaches beyond the limited scope of human
subjectivity. Schmidt discuses postmodern theatre’s interest in the construction of
identity:
Postmodern drama does not deny the idea of self, but interrogates a
concept of self that rests on unity, mastery, and completion, an idea of
self as independent historical agent fully in charge of its actions and
thoughts. It casts away the Romantic belief in individuality and the
genius. In its stead, the postmodern concept of identity is based on the
notion that the self is not a given entity but a construct and as such is
contingent upon its cultural context. (45)
Having yet to be constructed through language, the Living Theatre’s creature
represents the pristine being, limitless in its potential for transformation. Upon
waking, however, the creature can no more escape language and its ideological
constructs than can any other human being.
Two scenes depict the nature of the creature’s move into language and
subjectivity. The first comes as he achieves consciousness:
A girl in B5, seated behind a desk as the one in Act I, reads news items
taken at random from an English-language newspaper of the day of the
performance into a microphone. She stops each time an actor inside the
“mind” says something, then continues reading a new item without
finishing the one that was interrupted. The news reader reflects the
world we live in…(128)
The impartiality of journalistic discourses and the constant interruptions resulting in
useless information demonstrates the postmodern belief that language’s constitutive
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function produces “slaves” and “automatons.” Again, we see a disconnect between a
language whose developmental impetus relies on emotion and one which relies on an
abstract, institutional panopticon. Under the later, subjectivity is state sponsored.
The final scene marking the creature’s intellectual development presents
Frankenstein educating the creature:
Frankenstein is seated in A1, an elaborate set of earphones attached to
his head. The creature is wearing the same equipment in the
laboratory. Reading from cards, which he draws and turns over one by
one at an unvarying pace, he enunciates about a hundred words, each
consisting of twelve letters, in a voice that places equal emphasis on
every one. The choice of twelve letter words…allows for frequent use
of those with Greek or Latin roots, which creates an impression of
pseudoscientific, dry leaning—especially when they a intoned the way
Frankenstein intones them. (130)
Again, the language meant to construct the creature is devoid of human sentiment. The
scene ends with four actors depicting the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Biner
writes, “This image establishes the tone of what is to follow: the Creature is preparing
to inflict death for the first time. Having been trained, he is going to enter the world,
suffer rejection and mete out a cruel revenge” (131).
Chapter 3
FILM
In translating Frankenstein, film shares with theatre the concerns with what it
means to visually produce the monstrous. However, unlike theatre, which creates
meaning through both language and image, the construction of meaning in film
predominantly relies on the image. James A. W. Heffernan argues that film and film
theory privileges “the structure and sequence of images” (134). In Bazinian terms,
this is the language of cinema, and Heffernan finds that while “film has become more
explicitly linguistic, [it is] no less committed to the principle that the language of
cinema is fundamentally visual” (135). The “language of cinema” impacts how and to
what degree the audience is able to “read” monstrosity. As Heffernan notes, the novel
largely averts the audience’s gaze from the bodily representation of the creature (134).
The creature’s move toward language (when a filmic translation allows it) must now
battle against a gaze that insists upon his monstrosity. This complicates how the
screen writers, directors, and actors, translate the original text. As noted by Picart,
“the tense dialectic binding word and image, which is at the heart of the novel,
becomes radically reworked, particularly as we see the monster before we hear him
speak” (17). Language, however, is not completely cast aside. Beneath the image
40
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(and even through the image) lies the ever-present anxiety centered on the nature of
language and its ability to construct and maintain human subjectivity.
Frankenstein, 1931
As with the play upon which it’s based (Peake’s Presumption; or the Fate of
Frankenstein), James Whale’s 1931 Frankenstein features a speechless creature.
Whale’s production, therefore, situates monstrosity in a similar way. Like Peake,
Whale presents the audience with a Monster (so the credits name him) who can
communicate only through gesture and is, therefore, not only unable to address his
tormentors and argue for a human position in society, he is incapable of thinking in
terms of subjectivity. This, then, leaves him outside the collective human endeavor.
His monstrosity is fixed by his inability to pass into the Symbolic Order whose “laws
and contracts” govern the social pact.
For Shelley’s audience, the Creature’s eloquence creates a reading of
monstrosity that is ambiguous. Whale’s production all but nullifies that ambiguity by
silencing the creature and relegating him to the position of monstrous human-like
animal. Such a position, however, requires an examination of the human/animal
dichotomy. In one of the first scenes following the Monster’s creation, Whale
demonstrates the infantile-like innocence of the creature. Frankenstein, Dr. Waldman,
Clerval, and Elizabeth watch as the creature enters backward through a doorway.
Turning into the dimly lit stone chamber, the creature advances, following
Frankenstein’s simple commands of “come” and “sit down.” Glancing back at the
observers, Frankenstein says, “See, it understands.” He then opens a shaft in the
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ceiling and a large patch of light shines in. The creature stands and with a slow,
dreamy quality, reaches toward the light. Frankenstein then closes the shaft and
commands the creature to “go and sit down now.” The creature sits, but his hands,
hovering palm up above his knees, remain open in a gesture that speaks of longing.
These gestures are “read” by the audience and while the meaning of a gesture, like a
word, is embedded in the culture for which it is produced, it is not a sign system.
There is no signifying chain: no binary opposition.
Gesture is used again for communication when the creature displays a fear of
fire. Fritz, Frankenstein’s disfigured assistant, approaches the creature with a torch,
and the creature shrinks away, moaning and waving his arms. Though Frankenstein
reproaches Fritz and commands him to “get away with that torch,” Fritz quickly
returns still holding aloft the torch. The creature repeatedly lunges at Fritz, intent on
nocking the torch away but he is beaten back by Frankenstein. Dr. Waldman then
admonishes Frankenstein saying, “It’s a monster!” Gesture fails here to elicit the
proper empathetic response. His gestures, while evidencing his fear, do not clearly
articulate his intentions. Even the viewer has difficulty determining whether or not the
creature’s violent response would have been calmed by extinguishing the torch. While
an empathetic audience may sympathize with the Monster, they do not experience his
gestures as signifying human potential.
The Monster wants no more than what any creature inhabiting the mute order
of the organic is capable of wanting: shelter, warmth, protection, and affection.
Gesture, as is shown through the portrayal of the mute Monster, is not enough to
establish an argument for the position of human subject. Argued above in the analysis
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of Presumption, the creature has no understanding of his own position as third-term
supplement to the human/animal dichotomy. Which brings the argument back to
Olivier’s assertion that “once the subject has entered the symbolic order of language,
he or she has left the mute order of the organic, its ‘being’ or the ‘real’, behind
forever” (5). The “mute order of the organic” is inhabited by the animal and is the
position to which the creature is relegated. The meaning of monster becomes limited
to a dichotomy that positions the human against the animal. As with Presumption, the
Monster’s inability to enter into the symbolic makes it impossible to enter into a
dialogue with humanity. As with Peake’s production, Whale’s Frankenstein
demonstrates that the knowledge of humanity’s contaminated state speaks to the
persistent desire to present the creature as mute and therefore lacking any human
potential.
Flesh for Frankenstein, 1974
In the 1974 production, Flesh for Frankenstein, Paul Morrissey also uses the
speechless creations of the mad scientist to examine humanity’s monstrosity. Unlike
previous representations of Frankenstein, however, the creatures (in this case, both a
male and a female) do not draw pity from the audience. In fact, they are often referred
to as zombies. While they are not without the ability to speak, it is only in the last 15
minutes of the film that the male zombie communicates in language. To say that these
creatures have been silenced is an understatement as even gesture as a form of
communication is lacking. This change allows the audience an unconflicted view of
monstrosity. Frankenstein’s creations cannot occupy the position of monster because
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they do not present any qualities that place them within, or cause the viewer to
question, the human/monster dichotomy. This dichotomy is smashed by Morrissey
who presents monstrosity as specifically human. In this way, Morrissey maintains
Shelley’s concern with “the ability of language to empower and form its subjects”
(Cross 550). The nonsensical lines (delivered by Baron Frankenstein in complete
seriousness) point to the inability of language to maintain the human subject’s position
within society.
At the opening of the film, Baron Frankenstein, who has two children with his
sister/wife Katrin, has created a female human, for which he needs a male companion.
Frankenstein's aim is, with the help of his assistant, Otto, to mate his two creations in
the hopes of creating a whole new race of perfect human beings who will follow only
his commands. To complete his work he requires a head for the male body he has
constructed. Frankenstein finally finds the ideal, “Serbian” male whom he believes to
have an exceptionally active libido. It is in this scene that the viewer comes to
understand that Baron Frankenstein is mad and that language has not only failed to
maintain him as a human subject, it produces, through him, a chain of monstrous
beings.
Frankenstein as a mad scientist is in keeping with both Shelley’s novel as well
as its many adaptations. Also in keeping with these prior texts is Frankenstein’s
impetus for recreating life: the desire to perfect human kind. However, while
Shelley’s scientist may be seen as beginning from a benevolent desire to eliminate
death and thereby free humanity, Morrissey’s mad scientist is portrayed as a
megalomaniac. In an early scene, Frankenstein describes what he requires for the
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construction of his male zombie. “What we need now, is the perfect [nose].
Something that represents the finest features of the Serbian ideals.” When Otto
questions what he means by “Serbian ideals,” Frankenstein explains, “The Serbian
race comes in direct descent from the glory of the ancient Greeks.” Otto then asks
where he intends to find such a nose:
In town, Otto, in town. I remember when I went to school. My uncle
and my aunt were taking my sister and myself every day to school and I
saw these creatures on the road, but we were not allowed to play with
them because were something better. They were peasants. More than
once I escaped. Standing there for hours in the field watching these
creatures. Now our studies are come finally to an end. We’ve got a
beautiful female and I’m just sure that among these town people we
will find the perfect nose.
This speech evidences the early construction of Frankenstein’s own subject position,
which here, appears to be full of contradiction. Brought up in a discourse that
proclaims his superiority, he is nevertheless envious of the positions of those on the
road and in the field. He identifies the town’s people as creatures who exist below
him, but, at the same time, looks to them for his “Serbian” aesthetic ideals.
Constructed in a language that speaks of isolation, Frankenstein develops beyond the
borders of human connectivity.
In a later scene, Frankenstein again depicts his position as outside normal
human interaction. Frankenstein tells Otto that he has a plan for procuring a human
male with his ideal nose:
I know where to find such a man. I’ve once been to a house in town, a
certain kind of house…When I was in medical school, most of the boys
used to go to such a place. They always wanted me to go with them
knowing what kind of good student I was, never leaving my books, not
even for one hour and still I was foolish enough to want to be accepted
in their company. Once I left my books and I went with them…It was
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terrible. All these over-developed women with their large breasts and
shapeless and these kind of women supposed to give you pleasure with
their filthy movements and dirty talk. How these women even can
compare with a beautiful creation like mine…?
Having been constructed in a space outside humanity, he is as alienated from normal
human sexual intercourse as he is human discourse. His only connection is to his
equally isolated (and equally mad) sister/wife.
It is this isolation that leads to Katrin’s deviant sexual desires and
Frankenstein’s megalomania. Unlike Shelley’s initially benevolent Frankenstein, who
desired the betterment of humanity at large, Baron Frankenstein of Flesh for
Frankenstein, detests all of humanity. Having finally completed the male zombie,
Frankenstein expresses his eagerness:
I hardly can wait for the results…soon, here in Serbia, here in my
laboratory, perfection will become a reality. Yes, yes that’s right, the
true impartment of servant use will find expression. My work is a
continuation of the unfinished business of man on earth—a further
refinement but this time it must come to life… This is a threshold,
Otto, of a creation that will replace the worn out trash that now
populates and repopulates the planet. Their loyalty will be to me only.
I will be the object of their allegiance.
While this demonstrates Frankenstein’s madness, and reveals how language has
constructed him as the monstrous “other,” in the final assessment, his designation as
monster comes from the monstrous beings he creates: not the zombies he has stitched
together from human remains, but those who have been constructed through the
language of his madness.
Otto, saved from obscurity when recruited as a laboratory assistant by
Frankenstein, is, to use Cross’s terminology, “reconstituted” within the language
employed by the mad scientist. Otto has been privy to all of Frankenstein’s insane
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visions. Otto, even more so than the zombies, is created by Frankenstein. Life, death,
and the significance of the human being are redefined within a discourse that justifies
desires so deviant that they must be read by the viewer as monstrous. In a long drawn
out scene, Frankenstein opens the incision that runs across the stomach of his female
zombie. He climbs on top of her prone form and proceeds to sexually penetrate the
opening. Finished, he instructs his assistant, “To know death, Otto, you have to fuck
life in the gallbladder.” While this line seems ridiculous, it perfectly demonstrates the
role language plays in “reconstituting” Otto within the discourse of madness. If
language constructs human subjectivity, it also has the ability to construct the monster.
The Baron’s and Katrin’s children represent two more monstrous beings
constructed within this language. In all of the scenes shot in the laboratory, constant
cut-aways show the children eavesdropping on Frankenstein’s conversations. They
listen as Frankenstein instructs Otto in the dissection of murdered peasants; they listen
as Frankenstein exults the superiority of his creations; and, they listen as Frankenstein
talks of the degradation of the human species. Though the children appear to help
Nicholas (the male zombie’s friend and hero of the film), access the laboratory, the
final scene, wherein all have been killed, features the silent children advancing on the
captive Nicholas with scalpels raised. The children, whose subjectivity has been
formed within the language of madness, have become monsters themselves.
In Flesh for Frankenstein, Morrissey shows that language is “the human action
par excellence,” but as such, is capable of constructing not only the human, but the
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monster as well. The human/monster binary is shown to be a fallacy because the
monster is human.
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, 1994
In 1994, Kenneth Branagh capitalized on a sudden surge in popularity of films
purporting to be faithful to their literary progenitors. Such an idea would seem to
suggest that, in terms of this investigation, we would need a discussion that relied on
the concept of adaptation rather than one of translation. Going back to Cahir,
adaptation means to move a given “entity” into a new environment. She claims that
through adaptation, “the same substantive entity which entered the process exits...”
(14). Translation, on the other hand, produces a “fully new text—a materially different
entity…one that simultaneously has a strong relationship with its original source, yet
is fully independent from it” (14). However, despite Branagh’s claim to authenticity,
several changes were made by him that drastically alter Shelley’s story, the most
obvious being Frankenstein’s reanimation of his murdered bride. While this may
cause fans of the novel to roll their eyes in exasperation, of more import are the
changes that impact the development of the creature within language and the way this
affects his self-identification as ‘monster.’
Like the novel, the creature is abandoned after birth by Frankenstein and left to
face the world on his own. Also like the novel, it is Frankenstein’s coat that the
creature wraps himself in as he flees the laboratory. This is, of course, an important
thematic element as it contains Frankenstein’s journal. The creature, driven from
Ingolstadt, makes his way to the De Lacey’s where he observes and learns from the
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family. He does not, however, stumble upon a parcel of books. In the novel, it is the
creature’s developing understanding of language as discourse that teaches him the
nature of his monstrosity. The cultural dialogue as presented through Plutarch’s Lives,
the Sorrows of Werter, and Paradise Lost allow for an understanding of the human
being as a subject within a larger system. Following from this then, is the creature’s
knowledge that he is outside the system. Without Goethe, Plutarch, and Milton, the
creature’s education relies, not on a discourse that reflects the ideological constructs of
human subjectivity, but on the discourse of kinship. The difference between the two
lies in the formers exclusionary force, while the latter is inclusive. Having lost his
original “father,” hope remains for the creature that the De Lacey’s, whose familial
discourse speaks of compassion, will welcome him.
Branagh has, as effectively as those before him, silenced the creature. In
abridging the scenes at the De Lacey’s and casting aside an education that had
encompassed humanity’s larger social structures, his desire for human subjectivity is
limited to a position as “son.” This is made apparent when, during a scene set in the
forest outside the De Lacey’s cottage, the creature is heard to say his first words. In a
manner that appears to be recitation, he speaks the words, “Friend, Family, Father.” In
this way, what is lost when language fails to gain him his desired position is less about
the ideological formation of human subjectivity than it is about the familial obligation
to provide the means of establishing that subjectivity.
In the end, this is a minor deviation from Shelley’s text as the results of the
creature’s exclusion are the same. The creature vows revenge, kills William, frames
Justine, and demands that Frankenstein meet him on the “sea of ice.” There, “father”
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and “son” engage in a dialogue that differs substantially from the novel. When
Frankenstein says to his creation, “so, you do speak,” his creation responds, “Yes, I
speak. And read. And think. And know the ways of man.” This knowledge, he
claims, was gained from Frankenstein’s journal. The question left unanswered in
Frankenstein’s writing was, “Why?” The following dialogue drastically changes the
nature of language as presented and questioned by Shelley.
Frankenstein- There was something at work in my soul which I do not
understand.
Creature- What of my soul? Do I have one? Or was that a part you
left out? Who were these people of which I am comprised? Good
people? Bad people?
Frankenstein- Materials, nothing more.
Creature- You’re wrong. [picks up flute] Did you know I knew how to
play this? In which part of me did this knowledge reside? In
these hands? In this mind? In this heart? And reading. And
Speaking. Not things learned so much as remembered.
Frankenstein- Trace memories in the brain, perhaps.
These “trace memories” have a profound impact on our understanding of the nature of
language and its role in the formation of the human/monster. If, as the discussion on
Shelley’s text demonstrated, the individual is constructed within the ideological
construct of language, then the creature was born into an already established subject
position. No indication is given by Branagh as to the strength of these memories.
However, even “trace memories” of reading and speaking must leave behind a trace of
subjectivity.
Language, for the creature, is a cultural memory that insists upon his human
position but as he attempts to interact based on his memory of that position, he is
violently rebuffed. In (re)learning language, he is not constituted in that language, but
re-constituted. Returning to Carol Cohn’s discussion of the “technostrategic”
51
language of defense intellectuals, language is shown to have the power to redefine the
subject. Cross notes that “Cohn’s argument underscores how discourse works. Rather
than being a reflection of society, rather than merely adding to knowledge, language
determines knowledge and society: it transforms and (re)constitutes its users” (548).
Cohn had found that in learning to speak the dominant discourse, she could no longer
think “outside” it (Cross 548). So, while the creature is born into a human subject
position, his re-constitution closes down “interpretive possibilities (Cross 553). He is
no longer able to think outside the ideology of a discourse that excludes him as a
monstrous other.
Chapter 4
CONCLUSION
Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, has been involved in a variety of
academic discussions, largely because the themes it lends itself to are diverse and cut
across a number of disciplines. Recently, with the growth of cultural studies,
theatrical and cinematic adaptations of her novel have received similar critical interest.
However, critics attempting to make an account of these visual translations often focus
on a specific translation or a single medium for which it has been translated.
Investigating these artifacts together with the source text allows for a broader scope
that makes evident a single connective thread. As this investigation has shown,
language and its relationship to the cultural construction of monstrosity as presented in
these adaptations of Frankenstein offers a greater understanding of the persistence of
the “Frankenstein-myth”
When Cohen notes that the monster is “an embodiment of a certain cultural
moment—of a time, a feeling, and a place,” and that the body of the monster
“incorporates fear, desire, anxiety, and fantasy…giving them life and an uncanny
independence,” he could have been speaking directly to Frankenstein (4). Mary
Shelley’s novel, a work supremely interested in how language fails to distinguish
human from monster, has outlived its cultural moment. Both the novel and its
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53
adaptations demonstrate how the belief that language offers the individual the
privileged position of human subject, is a belief that carries with it a degree of anxiety.
Language, and its endless chain of signifiers, makes any designation inherently
unstable. This anxiety surfaces in theatrical and cinematic adaptations of
Frankenstein because, despite its instability, language constitutes the human subject
and because the category of monster exists only as it is positioned against what it
means to be human, to banish the monster is to banish our humanity. We create and
recreate the monstrous through text, stage, and film to express our own ambivalent
desires for dissolution of the binary that separates us from our monstrous selves.
WORKS CITED
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