FRANKENSTEIN AND POWER DYNAMICS: FROM TEXT TO CONTEXT
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Date
2024-04-21
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Plovdiv University Press “Paisii Hilendarski”
Abstract
This paper traces aspects of the dynamic power hierarchies in Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein (1818) and in Richard Brinsley Peake’s stage adaptation Presumption, or the Fate of Frankenstein (1823). It close-reads these two as interpretations of Satan challenging the omnipotence of the Maker and touches upon the Victorian burlesque Frankenstein, or the Model Man (1849), which features education as a civilizational tool. The discussion then moves to the realm of newspaper publications in the nineteenth century that make use of the Frankenstein metaphor. The power dynamics between the creator and the creation getting out of control may be wavering but monstrosity soldiers on. In the final instance, a recent tendency in the Bulgarian political discourse of inscribing the speaker into the inherent tension produced by the power hierarchies demonstrates that different contexts bend the metaphor in different ways.
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Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, Richard Brinsley Peake, metaphor, newspapers