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Graphic: Abandonment
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Child death, Misogyny, Stalking, Murder
Minor: Gun violence, Fire/Fire injury
Moderate: Body shaming, Child death, Confinement, Death, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Abandonment
Graphic: Body horror, Abandonment
Moderate: Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Murder
Minor: Suicide, Death of parent
Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Abandonment
Moderate: Suicide
Minor: Incest
Depressing pre-analysis and depressing post-analysis.
Graphic: Mental illness, Grief, Abandonment
Moderate: Body horror, Child death, Death, Suicide, Violence, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Forced institutionalization, Abortion, Fire/Fire injury
Frankenstein is a sweeping, gothic delight that provides interesting insight into human nature + the depth of human cruelty. I honestly found myself able to discuss it at length with lots of people around me because the themes presented are so engaging. It depicts what it means to be Othered through the creature and is an exploration of the conflict between all-consuming individualistic pursuits of greatness and the human need for community, connection and love. Victor’s rejection of community is what ultimately led to his downfall and that same lack of love and care is what he cursed his Creature child to. What I found particularly poignont and painful is Victor’s positioning as a failed parent and the Creature’s as his scorned child. It was so heart-wrenching and beautifully executed. I thought I enjoyed the sections centered on Victor, but when I first read from the Creature's perspective, I was utterly swept away. Reading about him lumbering through the forest awkwardly with the senses of a confused child cut deep and the depth of loneliness experienced by his character is rendered in dazzling clarity in Shelley's atmospheric prose. Something that stuck with me is the solace both characters found in the natural world, and I felt a pang of heartbreak thinking about how both father and cursed son wandered through the world with only the moon and the mountains for company.
This is one of my favourite books but I’m knocking off a star for the deeply orientalist portray of Safie sometimes called ‘The Arabian’ like she’s a sought after breed of horse and her father who is only referred to as ‘the Turk’, ‘the treacherous Turk’ or ‘the unfortunate Muhammadan’. I’d recommend reading Sauleha Kamal’s
‘ Muslim Women and the Victim/Seductress Binary in Frankenstein and “Alastor” ’ for more on this. As a Muslim woman, this subplot left a bad taste in my mouth but I don’t expect much from Mary Shelley considering that she’s an upper class, white Victorian woman whose mother was literally Mary Wollstonecraft (Wollstonecraft’s ideas of women’s liberation in relation to 'Eastern women' have racist, orientalist underpinnings).
Graphic: Child death, Xenophobia, Islamophobia, Murder, Abandonment
That said, I was enjoying it up to that discovery and as such will be purchasing and reading a copy of the 1818 text at some point in the future.
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Child abuse, Death, Emotional abuse, Infertility, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Sexism, Slavery, Toxic relationship, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Death of parent, Abandonment, Alcohol, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, Classism
Moderate: Stalking, Abandonment
Graphic: Body horror, Murder, Abandonment
Moderate: Incest, Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Animal death, Racism
Graphic: Body shaming, Death, Violence, Grief, Murder, Abandonment
Moderate: Body horror, Child death, Medical content
Minor: Confinement, Death of parent