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My thesis examines the relationship between Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus and the Frankenstein myth as it has come to be known because of film. I propose that present-day readers, in addition to having a repository of literary knowledge, also have a reservoir of filmic memories on which to draw when they read. These visual 'texts' can function, I argue, not only as inter-texts but also as signs, indicating to us how to read certain written texts. Building on reader-response criticism, I include these visual signs in my analysis of the reading experience of Frankenstein. After outlining a brief history of visualizations of the novel on stage and in film and commenting on the contributions these adaptations gave to the story, I focus on the James Whale classics of 1931 and 1935. It is to. these films that we owe the figures of the Karloffian monster, the hunchbacked assistant, the 'mad' scientist, and the monster's grotesque 'bride.' Having imitated the common order of our exposure to the myth --that is we know or know of Frankenstein films before we arrive at the novel I define and explain the theoretical concepts of narrative and filmic afterimages. then discuss their circulation in and revitalization through such agencies as advertisements, cartoons, and film and television remakes, illustrating how the Frankenstein story continues to be invoked and reworked in our culture. I then turn to the novel and focus, first, on its reception and treatment by literary critics. Next, I examine its questioning and, at times, subverting, of such institutions as science, marriage, and orthodox Christianity. I also examine the novel's questioning of such concepts as narrative closure, the unity of character, and the possiblity of knowing 'reality.' At the same time, I illustrate (1) how literary critics, in dismissing the novel as flawed, actually shield us from the novel's subversiveness and (2) how film versions of Frankenstein and their circulating afterimages not only work to diminish the dis-ease which the novel elicits but, in fact, inoculate us against this dis-ease. I conclude my study by relying on yet another metaphor --Freud's concept of "screen memory." We have, as my thesis illustrates, been effectively screened from Mary Shelley's novel. The version of the myth as it has come to be known by today's reader is not only tame (and tamed) by comparison but is, in some instances, antithetical to the novel. What I propose is both an acceptance of filmic afterimages of novels which have been visualized and a critical reading of these images. In the case of Frankenstein, once we become aware of how certain filmic afterimages are operating, we can work towards a "cleansing of the doors of perception," so that in removing the film from before our eyes, we may see yet another, darker side of the myth. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

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The Subject of this thesis is English/Teaching. / This project examines modem pedagogy in Ontario in the critical light of traditions established by Renaissance Humanist thinkers on education. From the Renaissance to the present day, the project highlights aspects and theories of education in the nineteenth century, with special emphasis on Mary Shelley's cautionary tale, Frankenstein. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

Hybrid beings have been a part of the artistic imagination since art was first made on cave walls and rock faces. Yet their visual makeup and symbolic meanings have changed over time from deities, demons, and oddities of nature to unconscious states of being and the socially and culturally marginalized. This dissertation will examine a history of hybrid beings and the work of Australian artist Patricia Piccinini. Her silicone sculptures, photographs, installations, and videos are hyperrealistic representations of composite beings that appear to have blended rather than fragmented characteristics of human and animal, which sets them apart from their historic precedents. Piccinini suggests that her hybrids are products of genetic engineering, ostensibly created to serve human beings as comforters, nurturers, protectors, and surrogates for humans and endangered species alike. I argue that Piccinini's hybrids shed light on the hubris and commercialism inherent in bioscientific advances, yet they also reveal a kind of societal ambivalence regarding the posthuman era. Her works suggest utopian aspirations for the future while mourning the loss of humanity as it has been known. Examining Piccinini's art through the lens of liminality and the body, I will contextualize her hybrids within cultural and art historical models from ancient Egypt and Greece through the Victorian eras. In particular, I will establish common ground with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818), which served as an early inspiration for Piccinini's images and conceptual aims. I will also highlight hybrid imagery in Dada and Surrealism and feminist art to reveal the similarities and differences in their approaches and intent. Piccinini's works operate within Donna J. Haraway's notion of the cyborg; therefore, I will also analyze her art within that theoretical model. In addition, I will compare and contrast Piccinini's art to early hyprerrealist sculptors and contemporary artists working in this manner. Piccinini's hybrids establish that both humans and animals are social constructs, and that society has a responsibility for the life forms it creates. Ultimately, this project demonstrates that Piccinini's hybrids are not cautionary tales of a dystopian future but representations of the biotechnological sublime.

Mary Shelley's gothic novel Frankenstein has traditionally been read by critics as a cautionary tale and social responsibility for their creations. However, like many of its gothic sisters, the novel also contains other substantial lodes which can be mined by the twentieth century literary critic.One largely ignored and potentially rich vein in the novel is the compulsive and self-destructive behavior of Dr. Frankenstein himself. No critic has yet borrowed Freud's black bag of psychoanalytical tools and used them to plumb the subterranean depths of the young scientist's labyrinthian unconscious.After the death of his mother, and despite his protestations to the contrary, Dr. Frankenstein's real desires are unconscious, the primary one being the need for closure of the family circle. These repressed desires are fulfilled by his alter ego, the homicidal monster he stitches together in an obsessive effort to reconcile life and death. The study seeks to reveal Dr. Frankenstein as an allegorical figure representing the dark side of man's nature.

This paper uses narrative theory to take a look at how speech is represented in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and how speech is connected to the characterisation of Frankenstein's Creature. The paper also looks at how the Creature's characterisation changes when he is made non-speaking in Richard Brinsley Peake 1823 stage play Presumption and the 1931 film Frankenstein. In these two adaptations, the Creature's characterisation is changed to make him less complex, and simultaneously both more innocent and more monstrous. By connecting this change to Disability Studies, this paper finds that using disabled traits to dehumanise disabled people is not uncommon in fiction, and that using an autistic trait in a fictional monster can reinforce harmful stereotypes about autistic people.

Master's thesis presents comparison of motifs and images of fantastic appearance and terror in the novel Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley and its film and theatre adaptations, and studies their changes. It deals not only with theoretical problems of fantastic appearance, terror (horror) and adaptation, but especially the Frankenstein myth and its influence on creating these images in given texts. Thesis describes the development of fantastic and horrific images from the literary text towards visual and performance media. The thesis studies the transformation of these images within three film adaptations made by directors J. Searlse Dawley (1910), James Whale (1931) and Kenneth Branagh (1994), and one play written by Nick Dear and directed by Danny Boyle (2011). Key words: Frankenstein, Frankenstein myth, fantastic appearance, fantastic, terror, horror, adaptation

Magister Artium - MA / This thesis will examine the representation of the figure of Percy Shelley in the text of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818). My hypothesis is that Percy Shelley represents to Mary Shelley a figure who embodies the contrasting and more startling aspects of both the Romantic Movement and the Enlightenment era. This I will demonstrate through a close examination of the text of Frankenstein and through an exploration of the figure of Percy Shelley as he is represented in the novel. The representation of Shelley is most marked in the figures of Victor and the Creature, but is not exclusively confined to them. The thesis will attempt to show that Victor and the Creature can be read as figures for the Enlightenment and the Romantic movements respectively. As several critics have noted, these fictional protagonists also represent the divergent elements of Percy Shelley’s own divided personality, as he was both a dedicated man of science and a radical Romantic poet. He is a figure who exemplifies the contrasting notions of the archetypal Enlightenment man, while simultaneously embodying the Romantic resistance to some aspects of that zeitgeist. Lately, there has been a resurgence of interest in the novel by contemporary authors, biographers and playwrights, who have responded to it in a range of literary forms. I will pay particular attention to Peter Ackroyd’s, The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein (2011), which shows that the questions Frankenstein poses to the reader are still with us today. I suggest that this is one of the main impulses behind this recent resurgence of interest in Mary Shelley’s novel. In particular, my thesis will explore the idea that the question of knowledge itself, and the scientific and moral limits which may apply to it, has a renewed urgency in early 21st century literature. In Frankenstein this is a central theme and is related to the figure of the “modern Prometheus”, which was the subtitle of Frankenstein, and which points to the ambitious figure who wishes to advance his own knowledge at all costs. I will consider this point by exploring the ways in which the tensions embodied by Percy Shelley and raised by the original novel are addressed in these contemporary texts. The renewed interest in these questions suggests that they remain pressing in our time, and continue to haunt us in our current society, not unlike the Creature in the novel.

Denna uppsats ämnar med hjälp av av teorier från ekokritik och posthumanism besvara frågorna hur Mary Shelley i sin roman skildrar relationen mellan natur och människa, samt hur man med utgångspunkt i Frankensteins monster (i uppsatsen refererad till som Skapelsen) kan diskutera begreppet människa. Med ekokritik menas här att studera det mänskliga jämfört med det ickemänskliga samt att också diskutera detta mänskliga, vilket är en av huvudpoängerna inom posthumanism. Den vetenskapssyn och natursyn som var gällande på Mary Shelleys tid var antropocentrisk, en världsåskådning som alltid utgår ifrån människan, och som oftast ger människan högre status än allt annat. I romanen skildras detta genom Kapten Waltons syn på sitt upptäcktsresande, och Victor Frankensteins önskan att besegra döden, eller naturen, genom att skapa en ny varelse, för vilket han får plikta med sitt liv, då han inte klarar det hårda klimatet vid Nordpolen. Det blir alltså naturen som dödar honom. I detta kan ses Mary Shelleys kritik mot ett oansvarigt utforskande av naturen och dess processer. Vid försök att diskutera konceptet människa kan upptäckas att en definition lätt motarbetas genom att inte alla människor passar in på denna definition, och att det också kan finnas andra varelser som helt eller delvis gör det. Saken kompliceras dessutom av att en maskin, en robot, eller en artificiell intelligens, numera kan fungera mycket likt en hjärna, och att den mänskliga hjärnan beskrivs som en serie elektrokemiska impulser. Vi leds att acceptera Derridas tanke att människa inte är något som går att definiera. Även denna diskussion kan ses som antropocentrisk, vilket är en av svårigheterna; att bortse från sin egen kulturs världsåskådning. / The main focus of this essay is to attempt to answer the questions of how Mary Shelley, in her novel Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus, portrays the relationship between man and nature, and how Frankensteins creature can serve as a starting point in a discussion of the term human. The theories of ecocriticism - here described as the study of the relationship between human and nonhuman - and poshumanism, which contains the premisses for discussing this human, reveal many interesting things about the novel. The scientific approach to the world, and by extension, nature, can in Shelleys novel be considered anthropocentric, which is portrayed as a damaging world-view. Attempts to discuss the concept of human reveals that any definition can be met with resistence and objections. Not all humans meet the criteria of a certain definition, and there may be other creatures that do. The conclusion here may be that the human simply cannot be defined properly.