User:BornUnderPunches/Frankenstein's Monster

In discussing the physical description of the monster, questions inevitably arise about the potential his design is rooted in common perceptions of race during the 18th century. Several scholars have noted that Shelley’s description of the monster seems to be racially coded, and some contemporary scholars argue that, “Shelley's portrayal of her monster drew upon contemporary attitudes towards non-whites, in particular on fears and hopes of the abolition of slavery in the West Indie.” Of course, there is no evidence to suggest that the Monster’s depiction is meant to mimic the racial other, and such interpretations are based in an examination of Shelley’s text rather than remarks from herself.

In her article “Frankenstein, Racial Science, and the Yellow Peril,” Anne Mellor claims that the monster’s features share a lot in common with the “Mongoloid” race. This term is used by early proponents of racial science to describe those they defined as morally and intellectually inferior to the “Caucasian” or white races. To support her claim, Mellor points out that both Mary and Percy Shelley were friends with William Lawrence, an early proponent of racial science and someone who Mary “continued to consult on medical matters and [met with] socially until his death in 1830.” While Mellor points out to allusions to Orientalism and the yellow peril, John Malchow in his article “Frankenstein's Monster and Images of Race in Nineteenth-Century Britain” explores the possibility of the monster either being intentionally or unintentionally coded as black. Malchow argues that the Monster’s depiction is based in an 18th century understanding of ”popular racial discourse [which] managed to conflate such descriptions of particular ethnic characteristics into a general image of the "Negro" body in which repulsive features, brute-like strength and size of limbs featured prominently.” Malchow makes it clear that it is difficult to tell if this racial allegory was intentional on Shelley’s part or if it was inspired by the society she lived in, and he states that “There is no clear proof that Mary Shelley consciously set out to create a monster which suggested, explicitly, the Jamaican escaped slave or maroon, or that she drew directly from any person knowledge of either planter or abolitionist propaganda.” In addition to the previous interpretations, Karen Lynnea Piper argues in her article, “Inuit Diasporas: Frankenstein and the Inuit in England” that the symbolism surrounding Frankenstein’s monster could stem from the Inuit people of the arctic. Piper argues that the monster accounts for the “missing presence” of any indigenous people during Waldon’s expedition, and that he represents the fear of the savage, lurking on the outskirts of civilization.