The monstrous science in 'Frankenstein': aspects of the posthuman

Authors

  • Anderson Soares Gomes Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro (UFRRJ)

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.22409/gragoata.v23i47.33606

Keywords:

Frankenstein, science, posthuman.

Abstract

The objective of this work is to investigate the ways in which the discoveries and the scientific thought in the end of the 18th century and beginning of the 19th century (the period known as the Second Scientific Revolution) influenced the writing of Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein (1818), as well as to analyze how this work presents aspects which contribute to the study of the posthuman. Frankenstein was written during a period of profound revolutions in philosophical and scientific thought that informed several elements present in the novel: the social theories of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, Erasmus Darwin’s hypotheses about the origin of life, Luigi Galvani’s experiments with electricity, among others. On the other hand, in a contemporary perspective, Frankenstein is a work that inaugurates many aspects that would be read through the prism of the posthuman. When describing the possible (and terrible) consequences of the connection between the human sphere and those of the animal and of the technological, the novel problematizes the privileged position of man in nature. Considering the physical and biological features of the monster, Frankenstein’s wish in overcoming the limits of nature, and the complex relation between both characters regarding the binomial desire/freedom, the novel can be read as one of the greatest representatives of the concept of posthumanity in literature.

 

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.22409/gragoata.2018n47a1173

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Author Biography

Anderson Soares Gomes, Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro (UFRRJ)

Professor adjunto do Departamento de Letras da Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro. Graduou-se em Letras pela Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro em 2001. Tem mestrado em Literaturas de Língua Inglesa, também pela UERJ, e doutorado em Estudos Literários pela Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro. Concluiu seu pós-doutorado, sobre a influência da imagem técnica no cinema e na literatura contemporânea, também pela PUC-Rio. É membro dos seguintes grupos de pesquisa do CNPq: "Literatura e Comparativismo", "Discursos: História, Literatura e Memorialismo em interfaces contemporâneas" e "Habitando Modernidades: (crise da) memória, hierarquias opressivas e utopias possíveis". Tem experiência na área de Letras, com ênfase em Literatura Comparada, atuando principalmente nos seguintes temas: literatura contemporânea de língua inglesa, ficção científica, romances distópicos, interface discurso literário/discurso histórico e teorias contemporâneas da narrativa.

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Published

2018-12-29

How to Cite

Gomes, A. S. (2018). The monstrous science in ’Frankenstein’: aspects of the posthuman. Gragoatá, 23(47), 848-872. https://doi.org/10.22409/gragoata.v23i47.33606

Issue

Vol. 23 No. 47 (2018): Monstrous Organization

Section

Literature Articles

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