Thinking Activity: A Cultural Studies Approach to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

This blog is Thinking Activity assigned by the Dilip Barad Sir. Here is the article for background reading: Click. 

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818) is not merely a Gothic novel about a scientist and his monstrous creation; it is a profound cultural text that reflects the anxieties, revolutions, and ideologies of its age. Written during a period of scientific experimentation, industrial transformation, and political unrest, the novel engages deeply with questions of creation, power, identity, and responsibility. Through the lens of Cultural Studies, Frankenstein can be read as both a product and critique of its historical moment a narrative that exposes the tensions between enlightenment rationality and moral responsibility, human ambition and social alienation, civilization and the “Other.” 

The story’s enduring presence in popular culture, from early film adaptations to modern reimaginings in science fiction, testifies to its ability to evolve with changing cultural contexts. Thus, studying Frankenstein through Cultural Studies allows us to explore how literature not only mirrors society’s fears and desires but also shapes the very discourse of modernity, technology, and ethics.

Part One: Revolutionary Births

Introduction 

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818) was conceived during an era of profound historical transformation  politically, intellectually, and scientifically. The novel emerged in the shadow of two major revolutions: the French Revolution (1789), which redefined the structures of power and human rights, and the Industrial Revolution, which mechanized life and reshaped social hierarchies. Within this context, Shelley’s text becomes a cultural artifact  a site where the tensions of modernity, science, and moral responsibility intersect.

Through a Cultural Studies lens, Frankenstein is not merely a Gothic tale of horror but a critical reflection on how culture, ideology, and power operate within modern society. Shelley’s narrative dramatizes the consequences of unregulated ambition, the social construction of otherness, and the alienation produced by class and technological change. Her work critiques the dominant ideologies of Enlightenment rationality and patriarchal authority, while also anticipating modern debates on identity, marginality, and ethical creation.

Thus, Frankenstein can be understood as a revolutionary birth both literally, in its depiction of unnatural creation, and symbolically, as a product of a world being reborn through upheaval and discovery.

1. The Creature as Proletarian

Mary Shelley, the daughter of the political philosopher William Godwin and feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft, inherited a strong intellectual tradition of social critique. Her father’s radical text An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793) and her mother’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) shaped Shelley’s understanding of oppression, inequality, and moral responsibility. In this light, the Creature in Frankenstein can be interpreted as a symbol of the proletariat the marginalized laboring class born out of industrial capitalism.

Victor Frankenstein’s act of creation parallels the process of industrial production: he assembles the Creature piece by piece, much as workers were assembled in factories, stripped of individuality and autonomy. Yet, once his “creation” comes to life, he rejects it in horror a metaphor for how capitalist society creates the working class but denies it humanity. The Creature’s pleas for recognition (“I ought to be thy Adam; but I am rather the fallen angel”) reflect the voice of the oppressed demanding justice and belonging.

From a Marxist cultural perspective, Shelley’s novel anticipates the dialectic of class struggle: the oppressed (Creature) revolts against the oppressor (Victor). The Creature’s transformation from an innocent being into a vengeful rebel mirrors the historical transformation of the working class from submission to resistance. His confession “I am malicious because I am miserable”  encapsulates the psychology of alienation: society’s rejection breeds rebellion.

Shelley’s sympathy for the Creature suggests her critique of the moral blindness of the bourgeois intellectuals, represented by Victor, who pursue progress without compassion. Thus, Frankenstein becomes an allegory of social injustice, portraying the “monster” not as inherently evil but as a product of systemic neglect and inequality.

2. “A Race of Devils”: Race, Empire, and the Other

Shelley’s text also engages with the racial and imperial ideologies of the nineteenth century. When Victor fears that the Creature might reproduce and create “a race of devils,” he expresses a deeply colonial anxiety the fear of the racial “Other” multiplying and overthrowing the European order. In this moment, Frankenstein mirrors the imperialist mindset that sought to dominate and “civilize” the non-European world.

The Creature’s appearance described as grotesque and unnatural can be read as a metaphor for racialized otherness. Like colonized subjects, he is constructed as monstrous, inferior, and unworthy of sympathy. His exclusion from human society reflects the mechanisms of dehumanization through which imperial power justified domination.

From a postcolonial cultural studies perspective, Victor’s desire to control nature and to “play God” symbolizes the imperialist urge to subjugate and reshape the world according to Western ideals of order and progress. Yet Shelley’s narrative undermines this authority: the supposed master loses control, and the “Other” returns to confront him.

The Creature’s eloquence and moral depth qualities Victor himself lacks invert the racial hierarchy implied in colonial discourse. In this way, Shelley’s novel anticipates later critiques of empire found in works by Frantz Fanon and Edward Said, questioning who truly embodies humanity: the so-called civilized man or the dehumanized Other.

Thus, the “race of devils” Victor fears is not a biological threat but a moral revelation a reflection of Western guilt and the inescapable consequences of oppression.

3. From Natural Philosophy to Cyborg: Technology, Ethics, and the Posthuman

In the early 19th century, “natural philosophy” the precursor to modern science sought to uncover the secrets of life and matter. Mary Shelley’s narrative captures the spirit of scientific curiosity that defined her age, but she simultaneously warns of its ethical dangers. Victor’s experiment in reanimating life embodies the Enlightenment ideal of human mastery over nature an ideal that Cultural Studies critiques as a form of epistemic dominance.

When viewed from a modern perspective, Victor Frankenstein becomes the prototype of the technocrat, a figure driven by rationality and ambition but devoid of empathy. His creation anticipates the cyborg a hybrid of human and machine that blurs the boundaries between organic and artificial life. In this sense, Frankenstein foreshadows contemporary debates about biotechnology, cloning, genetic engineering, and artificial intelligence.

From a Cultural Studies standpoint, Shelley’s novel questions not only the pursuit of knowledge but also the ideology of progress itself. The Creature’s tragic isolation illustrates how technological power, when detached from moral responsibility and human connection, perpetuates domination rather than liberation.

In the 21st-century context, Victor’s act of creation parallels modern scientific projects from AI development to synthetic biology where creators grapple with the ethical implications of “playing God.” Shelley’s insight remains prescient: science without compassion leads to monstrosity, not advancement.

Therefore, Frankenstein stands as an enduring cultural critique of modernity a warning against the unchecked union of intellect and power, and a call to ground all creation, whether mechanical or biological, in empathy and ethical awareness.

Conclusion 

Part One of Frankenstein reveals how Mary Shelley’s work emerges from and critiques the revolutionary changes of her time. Through the figures of Victor and his Creature, the novel dramatizes the contradictions of industrial capitalism, the moral blindness of imperialism, and the dangers of scientific hubris.

By reading Frankenstein through the Cultural Studies framework, we see how literature becomes a site of ideological struggle exposing the mechanisms of power that shape society. Shelley’s genius lies in transforming the Gothic tale into a profound meditation on class, race, and technology concerns that remain as urgent today as they were in 1818.

Part 2: The Frankenpheme in Popular Culture

Introduction 

The endurance of Frankenstein across centuries demonstrates its transformation from a Romantic-era novel into a cultural myth. The concept of the “Frankenpheme,” coined by scholar Timothy Morton, describes how the central ideas, images, and anxieties from Mary Shelley’s text have evolved and circulated through modern media, technology, and political discourse. From the fear of scientific overreach to the ethics of artificial life, the Frankenpheme signifies the way Frankenstein continues to be reinvented to express contemporary social concerns. Its adaptability across film, literature, television, and even bioethical debates underscores its role as a cultural language through which societies articulate their fears about creation, identity, and power.

Shelley’s narrative has thus become a metaphor for the modern condition the human tendency to create forces that eventually exceed our control. Whether the creation is industrial machinery, nuclear energy, or artificial intelligence, the Frankenpheme allows culture to explore the consequences of innovation without conscience. In doing so, it bridges literature and popular culture, ethics and entertainment, making Frankenstein not just a novel, but an ongoing cultural dialogue about modernity itself.

1. First Film Adaptation and Popular Retellings

The 1931 Universal Pictures film Frankenstein, directed by James Whale, marks the first major adaptation that shaped the public imagination of Shelley’s novel. The film’s iconic imagery — the stormy laboratory, electrical machinery, and Boris Karloff’s square-headed Creature — redefined the myth for the 20th century. It shifted the story from a philosophical meditation on creation to a visual spectacle of horror, yet retained the central theme of humanity’s dangerous ambition to control nature.

Subsequent retellings such as Bride of Frankenstein (1935), Young Frankenstein (1974), and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994) each reinterpret the narrative through the lens of their own time.

In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, the story reflected anxieties about industrial technology and loss of human control.

The Cold War era reimagined Frankenstein as a symbol of nuclear power and the fear of annihilation.

In the 1990s, Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation emphasized emotional trauma, identity, and the ethical implications of scientific experimentation.

Through these retellings, the Frankenpheme acts as a cultural mirror, reflecting each generation’s struggle with technology, morality, and human limits. Shelley’s warning about creation without responsibility thus remains alive in the shifting forms of mass media.

2. The Frankenpheme in Film, Media, and Technology

In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, the Frankenpheme expanded beyond traditional horror cinema into science fiction and digital culture. Films like Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982) and Alex Garland’s Ex Machina (2014) reimagine Shelley’s myth in futuristic contexts. Both portray artificial beings replicants and androids who confront their creators with the same existential questions the Creature asked Victor Frankenstein: Why was I made? Do I have a soul?

These films echo the novel’s critique of instrumental reason, showing how technology, when divorced from empathy, produces alienation and violence. The Frankenpheme here becomes a metaphor for artificial intelligence and posthuman identity. The Creature’s yearning for belonging mirrors the plight of modern AI entities seeking recognition in a world that views them as tools rather than beings.

The idea has also permeated political and scientific discourse. The term “Frankenfood” emerged in debates about genetically modified organisms (GMOs), expressing public fear that human tampering with nature could lead to uncontrollable consequences. In this way, Frankenstein continues to serve as a rhetorical shorthand for cultural anxiety about innovation without ethical reflection. Similarly, in biotechnology and robotics, phrases like “playing God” evoke Shelley’s original warning about the moral cost of creation.

Furthermore, digital culture has transformed the Frankenpheme into an interactive myth. In memes, video games, and internet discussions, Frankenstein’s story symbolizes the fragmented, hybrid nature of postmodern identity a collage of constructed selves, echoing the Creature’s patchwork body. Thus, the myth adapts to new cultural technologies, reflecting both fascination and fear toward the evolving human condition.

3. Cultural Reinterpretations and Critical Resonance

The Frankenpheme continues to inspire diverse reinterpretations in literature, television, and art. Works like Jeanette Winterson’s Frankissstein (2019) and the television series Penny Dreadful (2014–2016) blend Gothic tradition with postmodern commentary, exploring themes of gender, sexuality, and artificial life. Through such retellings, Shelley’s text becomes a site for examining cultural hierarchies, power relations, and marginal identities.

From a Cultural Studies viewpoint, these reinterpretations demonstrate how Frankenstein operates as a discursive field a space where meanings are negotiated and redefined according to social needs. The Creature can signify the colonized, the worker, the woman, the cyborg, or the excluded other. Its identity shifts, but the core anxiety remains: What happens when the boundaries between creator and creation collapse?

In a broader sense, the persistence of the Frankenpheme illustrates the democratization of culture itself the way elite literary texts are absorbed into mass media and popular imagination. This transformation aligns with Cultural Studies’ central aim: to dissolve the divide between “high” and “popular” culture and to examine how both participate in shaping social consciousness.

Conclusion 

The Frankenpheme demonstrates that Frankenstein is not merely a product of the Romantic imagination but a living cultural process. It evolves alongside human civilization, adapting to new fears industrial, nuclear, digital, and posthuman. Each new retelling renews Shelley’s central question: What are the ethical limits of human creation?

By analyzing Frankenstein through its cultural afterlives, we see how literature functions as an ongoing conversation about power, technology, and identity. The modern world, with its dependence on machines, genetic manipulation, and AI, continues to reenact Shelley’s moral drama proving that her creation has indeed become immortal, not only as a story but as a symbol through which humanity continues to examine itself.

References : 

• Barad, Dilip. “Thinking Activity: A Cultural Studies Approach to Frankenstein.” ResearchGate, Nov. 202AD, https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.24589.76005.

• Brooks, Mel, director. Young Frankenstein. 20th Century Fox, 1974.

• Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. 5 Nov. 2024, www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/84/pg84-images.html.

• Whale, James, director. Frankenstein. Universal Pictures, 1931.
• Whale, James, director. The Bride of Frankenstein. Universal Pictures, 1935.