This blog is written as a task assigned by the head of the Department of English (MKBU), Prof. and Dr. Dilip Barad Sir. Here is the link to the professor's worksheet for background reading: Click here.
A Cultural Studies Exploration of Class, Otherness, Science, Technology and Popular Culture
Introduction
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, first published in 1818, is one of the most influential novels in English literature. At first glance, it appears to be a Gothic story about a scientist who creates a frightening creature. However, when I read the novel through the perspective of Cultural Studies, it becomes much more than a story of horror, science and supernatural fear.
Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein during a period of major political, social, scientific and intellectual change. Europe was still experiencing the consequences of the French Revolution. Ideas about liberty, equality, authority and social hierarchy were being debated. At the same time, the Industrial Revolution was transforming labour, production and economic relationships. Scientific discoveries were also challenging traditional ideas about nature and the limits of human knowledge.
The Romantic period in which Shelley wrote was particularly interested in imagination, emotion, nature, individual freedom and the limits of rational knowledge. Frankenstein brings many of these concerns together. Victor Frankenstein represents an intense desire for knowledge. His ambition is not simply to understand nature but to cross the boundary between life and death.
However, the novel also asks what happens after such a boundary has been crossed. Victor creates life, but he does not accept responsibility for his creation. The Creature is then rejected because of his appearance. He learns language, literature and human emotions, yet society refuses to accept him.
This makes the Creature particularly important from a Cultural Studies perspective. He can be examined through ideas of class, marginalization, Othering, race, empire, privilege, science, technology and identity.
The influence of Frankenstein has also moved far beyond the original novel. Films, television, cartoons, advertisements, science-fiction stories, artificial intelligence narratives and everyday language have repeatedly transformed the Frankenstein image.
Frankenstein remains culturally powerful because the Creature can be understood not simply as a monster but as a figure through which society expresses its fears about revolution, oppressed people, difference, scientific progress, technology and the “Other.”
1. Revolutionary Births: Frankenstein and the Politics of Its Time
Frankenstein emerges from a world in which old political, social and intellectual structures were being questioned. The French Revolution had created powerful debates about liberty, equality and authority. The Industrial Revolution was changing the relationship between labour and economic power. Scientific development was also creating new possibilities and new fears.
Shelley does not directly write a political history of these events. Instead, their anxieties can be seen indirectly in the structure of the novel. Victor's ambition, the Creature's exclusion and the repeated struggle between power and powerlessness can all be connected with the larger questions of the period.
1.1 The Creature as Proletarian
The word proletarian can be explained simply as a person belonging to the working or economically oppressed class. From a Cultural Studies perspective, the Creature can be connected with people who exist outside structures of privilege and have very little access to social power.
The Creature begins his existence with almost nothing. He does not have wealth, property, social status or education. More importantly, he does not have recognition. Society does not initially ask who he is or what he wants. People react to his appearance.
This is significant because the Creature does not begin as an evil character. His first experiences are connected with curiosity and a desire to understand the world.
This quotation is important because the Creature himself connects his later violence with his experience of suffering. This does not mean that Shelley asks us to excuse his crimes. Instead, she encourages us to examine the social conditions that surround his transformation.
The question shows that his greatest desire is not simply physical survival. He wants recognition and belonging. He wants to participate in human society, but society repeatedly refuses him.
His story therefore contains a powerful contradiction. He is both victim and aggressor. He is initially sympathetic, but he later becomes violent. He experiences injustice, but he also commits injustice.
This complexity makes the Creature culturally interesting. We cannot simply describe him as either good or evil. His character forces us to examine how identity can be shaped by social relationships.
1.2 The Creature as the “Other”: Race, Empire and Privilege
The idea of the Other is central to Cultural Studies. Othering occurs when one group defines another group as strange, inferior, dangerous or outside the accepted community.
The Creature experiences Othering because people judge him according to his physical appearance. Before they hear his story, they see his body and respond with fear.
His statement expresses his painful awareness that society does not recognize him as belonging to the human community.
This can be connected with questions of race, empire, colonialism and privilege. However, it would be too simple to say that the Creature represents one particular racial group. Instead, the novel can be read through the broader cultural process by which societies construct outsiders.
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s essay “Three Women’s Texts and a Critique of Imperialism” is useful for thinking about the relationship between literature and imperial structures.
Victor himself occupies a privileged position. He has education, family support, scientific knowledge, social mobility and access to intellectual resources. The Creature begins with none of these advantages.
Therefore, the relationship between Victor and the Creature can also be understood as a relationship between privilege and exclusion.
This issue remains relevant today. Migrants, refugees and minority communities can sometimes experience forms of social exclusion in which appearance, nationality, language or cultural background becomes a reason for being treated as an outsider.
1.3 From Natural Philosophy to Cyborg: Science, Technology and the Modern Prometheus
Victor Frankenstein represents the desire to gain knowledge beyond ordinary human limits. His interest in science develops into an ambition to discover the secret of life itself.
The subtitle The Modern Prometheus is important here. In Greek mythology, Prometheus steals fire from the gods and gives it to humanity. Victor similarly seeks knowledge that appears to cross traditional boundaries.
But Shelley does not simply suggest that science is evil. The deeper issue is the relationship between knowledge and responsibility.
Victor succeeds in creating life, but he fails to accept responsibility for the life he has created. His immediate rejection of the Creature becomes one of the most important ethical failures in the novel.
This makes Frankenstein relevant to contemporary technologies such as:
- Genetic engineering
- Cloning
- Artificial reproduction
- Biotechnology
- Artificial intelligence
- Robotics
- Cyborg technologies
- Genetically modified organisms
Just because humans can create something, does it mean they are ethically prepared to take responsibility for it?
The lesson of Frankenstein is therefore not simply “do not create.” A more useful interpretation is that creation must be accompanied by responsibility..
2. The Frankenpheme: From Mary Shelley’s Novel to Popular Culture
One of the most interesting Cultural Studies concepts connected with Frankenstein is Timothy Morton's idea of “Frankenphemes.”
In simple language, a Frankenpheme is an element of Frankenstein that is repeatedly taken from the original story, reproduced, changed and reused in later cultural forms.
This means that Frankenstein has become much larger than the original novel. The story now exists in films, television, cartoons, advertisements, science fiction, popular language and digital culture.
Today, Frankenstein may refer to a scientist, a monster, a laboratory, artificial creation, uncontrolled technology or something assembled from different parts.
There is also a famous misunderstanding about the name. People frequently call the Creature “Frankenstein,” although Frankenstein is actually the surname of Victor Frankenstein, the scientist.
This mistake is culturally interesting because it shows how popular culture can transform a literary text. Over time, the distinction between creator and creation has become less important in popular memory.
2.1 From Novel to Film
Cinema played a major role in transforming Frankenstein into a cultural icon.
The 1910 film Frankenstein represents one of the earliest cinematic adaptations. James Whale's Frankenstein (1931) became especially influential in shaping the familiar visual image of the Creature. Boris Karloff's performance helped establish the large, physically powerful monster that continues to appear in popular culture.
The 1935 film Bride of Frankenstein expands the story by introducing another important question: the Creature's desire for companionship.
The 1974 film Young Frankenstein changes the tone again. Mel Brooks transforms Frankenstein into comedy and parody. This demonstrates how popular culture can take a serious Gothic narrative and turn it into something humorous while keeping its recognizable symbols.
2.2 Popular Retellings and Cultural Transformation
Later science-fiction films have also developed themes that resemble Frankenstein even when they do not directly adapt Shelley's novel.
Blade Runner (1982), for example, explores questions about beings created by humans, identity, memory, mortality and the ethics of creation.
Contemporary AI stories also ask similar questions. Humans create systems that may behave in ways that are difficult to predict, control or understand.
2.3 Frankenstein and the Misunderstanding of the Monster
The popular image of Frankenstein is very different from Shelley's Creature.
In the novel, the Creature speaks, reads, thinks, remembers, argues and reflects. He is capable of philosophical thought. Popular culture, however, often reduces him to a silent monster.
When the Creature becomes only a monster, his questions about loneliness, education, social rejection and responsibility can disappear.
This transformation tells us something about popular culture itself. Complex literary ideas are often simplified into recognizable images. Yet even the simplified monster remains powerful because he represents fear of difference and uncontrolled creation.
3. Education, Language and the Making of the Creature
One of the most powerful sections of Frankenstein is the Creature's education.
He learns about human society by observing the De Lacey family. Through them he begins to understand language, family, labour, relationships and social behaviour.
He also discovers important books, including John Milton's Paradise Lost, Plutarch's Lives, and Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther.
The quotation captures the double nature of education. Knowledge can empower a person, but it can also make painful realities clearer.
The Creature identifies himself with both Adam and Satan in Paradise Lost.
Education gives the Creature a voice, but it does not give him belonging. This raises an important Cultural Studies question:
The Creature possesses knowledge but remains socially excluded. This suggests that education alone cannot completely remove marginalization. Recognition and social acceptance are also necessary.
4. Frankenstein and Contemporary Science and Technology
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence provides one of the clearest contemporary comparisons with Frankenstein. Like Victor, modern researchers create technological systems whose behaviour may become increasingly complex.
However, the comparison should not be reduced to the idea that AI is simply a new monster. The more important connection concerns responsibility, accountability, human oversight and consequences.
Genetic Engineering
Genetic engineering allows humans to alter biological characteristics. This raises questions about how far humans should intervene in biological processes and what responsibilities accompany such interventions.
Cloning and Biotechnology
Cloning and biotechnology remind us of the novel's concern with reproduction and creation. Shelley's fictional experiment imagines a scientist attempting to produce life through scientific knowledge.
Robotics and Cyborgs
Robots and cyborgs challenge traditional ideas about the boundary between human beings and machines. Frankenstein similarly asks what happens when the distinction between natural and artificial becomes uncertain.
Surveillance Technology
Modern surveillance technologies raise another related question. Human beings create systems that can later influence human behaviour.
Climate and Environmental Crisis
The novel can also be connected with environmental concerns. Victor's desire to control nature raises a wider question about the relationship between human ambition and the natural world.
None of these examples means that Shelley predicted modern technology exactly. The connection is interpretive. The novel gives us a cultural framework for thinking about creation without responsibility.
5. Frankenstein in Popular Culture Today
The influence of Frankenstein can be seen in everyday language and popular culture.
The word “Frankenstein” is often used to describe a creation that becomes difficult to control.
The term “Frankenfood”, for example, has appeared in debates about genetically modified food. The expression connects biotechnology with the frightening cultural image of artificial creation.
Frankenstein imagery can be found in:
- advertisements
- cartoons
- Halloween culture
- comic books
- television
- science-fiction
- political metaphors
- biotechnology debates
- artificial intelligence discussions
Every reuse changes the meaning of the original novel. This is one of the reasons Cultural Studies is interested in popular culture. A literary text does not remain fixed inside its original historical period. It moves through different societies and receives new meanings.
6. Why Frankenstein Still Matters Today
The continuing relevance of Frankenstein comes from its ability to speak to new cultural anxieties.
For one generation, the Creature may represent scientific experimentation. For another, he may represent artificial intelligence. For another, he may represent social outsiders.
The novel therefore works like a cultural mirror.
Our contemporary world is experiencing rapid technological change. Generative AI, robotics, biotechnology, genetic engineering, digital identity and surveillance are changing relationships between humans and technology.
Social media has also created new forms of identity. People increasingly construct identities through profiles, photographs, usernames, posts and algorithmic systems.
The Creature's struggle with identity therefore remains meaningful. His experience can be connected to a broader question:
The important point is that Frankenstein does not simply tell us that technology is bad. Instead, it asks us to think about:
- Responsibility
- Ethics
- Accountability
- Care
- Consequences
- Power
- Exclusion
- Human relationships
7. What Does a Cultural Studies Reading Reveal?
A Cultural Studies reading does not replace other readings of Frankenstein. Instead, it adds another layer of interpretation.
The novel can simultaneously be understood as:
- a Gothic novel because it uses horror, mystery, death and fear;
- a Romantic novel because it explores nature, emotion, imagination and individuality;
- a precursor to science fiction because it imagines scientific creation and its consequences;
- a political text because it raises questions about power and inequality;
- a text about social exclusion because the Creature is rejected by society;
- a text about class and marginalization because the Creature exists outside structures of privilege;
- a text concerned with race and Otherness because physical difference becomes a basis for exclusion;
- a text connected with imperial power because it can be read through domination and the Other;
- a text about scientific ethics because Victor creates without accepting responsibility;
- a major source of popular culture because its images and ideas continue to be reproduced.
Timothy Morton helps us understand how elements of Frankenstein are repeatedly reproduced and transformed through culture.
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak helps open questions concerning imperialism, gender and literary representation.
George Levine and U. C. Knoepflmacher help us understand the continuing endurance of the novel and its ability to invite new interpretations.
Johanna M. Smith's discussion of domesticity and science reminds us that scientific ambition does not exist separately from social and gender structures.
Wilfred L. Guerin and his co-authors provide a broader critical framework for examining literature through different approaches.
What I find most interesting is that these approaches do not produce exactly the same Frankenstein. Each approach highlights a different part of the novel.
This is one of the strengths of Cultural Studies. It asks us to consider literature and society together.
Conclusion
After reading Frankenstein through Cultural Studies, I no longer see the Creature simply as a frightening monster.
He is a figure of difference.
He is a figure of exclusion.
He is also a figure of knowledge, anger, loneliness, ambition and responsibility.
Victor Frankenstein is not simply a scientist either. He represents the desire to cross boundaries without fully considering what happens after the boundary has been crossed.
The novel itself is not simply a Gothic horror story. It is a text that asks difficult questions about society and its relationship with the individual.
The Creature's tragedy begins not only with his creation but with his rejection. He wants companionship and recognition, but he is repeatedly judged by his appearance.
His statement, “misery made me a fiend,” does not excuse his violence. Instead, it encourages us to examine the social conditions surrounding his transformation.
Every generation finds a new anxiety in Frankenstein. Earlier readers could see questions of revolution, scientific discovery, social inequality and political transformation. Later generations found Frankenstein in cinema and popular culture. Today, we can connect Frankenstein-like questions with artificial intelligence, biotechnology, genetic engineering, robotics, digital identity and technological responsibility.
For me, this is the deepest cultural lesson of Shelley's novel. A creator cannot simply say, “I created it,” and then walk away.
Victor creates life but refuses responsibility. Society rejects the Creature and then fears the consequences of that rejection. The novel therefore connects creation with care and power with responsibility.
Perhaps that is why Frankenstein has survived for more than two hundred years.
Sometimes he is a monster.
Sometimes he is a revolutionary.
Sometimes he is an outsider.
Sometimes he is a machine.
Sometimes he is artificial intelligence.
But behind all these versions remains the same uncomfortable question:
That question makes Frankenstein not merely a story from 1818, but a continuing cultural conversation about humanity itself.
Works Cited / References
Guerin, Wilfred L., et al. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. Pearson. Edition and year to be verified.
Levine, George, and U. C. Knoepflmacher, editors. The Endurance of Frankenstein: Essays on Mary Shelley's Novel. University of California Press, 1979.
Morton, Timothy. The Routledge Literary Sourcebook on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Routledge, 2002.
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft. Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. 1818.
Smith, Johanna M. “‘Cooped Up’ with ‘Sad Trash’: Domesticity and the Sciences in Frankenstein.” Feminist Studies, vol. 24, no. 2, 1998, pp. 243–269.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “Three Women's Texts and a Critique of Imperialism.” Critical Inquiry, vol. 12, no. 1, 1985, pp. 243–261.
Academic Note: Bibliographic details should be checked against the editions actually consulted before academic submission.
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