Monsterising the Other: Monstrosity in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus and Jeanette Winterson’s Fran-kiss-stein: A Love Story

Abstract

In this study, two science fiction novels, Mary Shelley’s Gothic classic Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus (1818) and Jeanette Winterson’s Fran-kiss-stein: A Love Story (2019), which opens the door to a new era in technology, are analysed in the context of Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s monster theory. Cohen’s theory suggests that the fear of monsters and all monsterised beings represents some rooted cultural anxieties that pervade societies. Science fiction is associated with the effects of an actual, possible or completely imaginary scientific development on individuals and societies, and it presents futuristic concepts, unimaginable developments and nonhumans such as aliens, vampires, zombies and monsters. All these fantastic elements can also be interpreted as symbols that mirror inner dynamism in societies when viewed from a different perspective. Considering monstrosity as a symbol that stands for the Other in societies, Shelley’s notorious modern monster with his hideous appearance and Winterson’s posthuman monsters, projected through the concept of disembodiment, such as artificial intelligence and full brain emulation, can be scrutinised in the context of the fear of the Other existing society at that very moment, rather than approaching them as anxieties arising from mere technological developments. In addition to the highlighted monsters that emerge in the novels, the individuals who are marginalised, alienated and monsterised can also be deciphered, over the issues of gender, race, ethnicity, gender identity and disembodiment. It is emphasised in the study that one of the main factors that fuel all kinds of othering within society is the traditional rhetoric based on binary thinking that hinders diversity and polyphony. Accordingly, these two novels illustrate that while the Others of the nineteenth and the twenty-first centuries differ to some extent, the ostracisation of the victims and the suppression of female voice, diversity, nonconformity and hybridity remain unchanged. In this regard, this comparative study that focuses on Shelley’s Frankenstein and Winterson’s Fran-kiss-stein through the lens of Cohen’s monster theory argues that monsters created by society are significant in reading people’s fears, desires, prejudices and limits, regardless of the era, as Others in societies have always been labelled as the monster upon any transgression of cultural boundaries imposed on them.