The creation of the monster/human

Abstract

This dissertation explores the significance of monstrous characters in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818; rev. 1831), Nathaniel Hawthorne's 'Rappaccini's Daughter' (1844), and Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886). The first chapter, which serves as an introduction, starts off by arguing that monsters in literature share the scapegoat's function of bearing the guilt of a community, and that therefore, monsters are in actual fact projections of humanity's guilt and fears. It also outlines certain events and developments in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries which may have led to the writing of the texts in question. Most of all, I focus on the concern exhibited by the authors about new discoveries in science and medicine, as each of the three texts deals with the artificial creation of a monster by an irresponsible scientist who transgresses by attempting to alter nature. The following chapter focuses on Shelley's Frankenstein, and explores the revolutionary spirit behind certain Enlightenment ideals embraced by scientists, philosophers, and Romantic poets. I argue that Shelley's novel contests such attitudes, which she believed, were destructive to human relationships. An analysis of Hawthorne's 'Rappaccini's Daughter' in Chapter Three traces the similarities between Shelley's and Hawthorne' s texts, and indicates that although the process of monster-making starts off as a scientific project, it can be viewed as a psychological process whereby the Other is assigned monstrous characteristics which in fact reside within human personalities. Chapter Four analyzes Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and its treatment of the double personality, focusing on the novella's insistence that it is impossible to separate good from evil in human beings. Thus, all chapters are aimed at arguing how these texts blur the reassuring but false distinction between human and monster, self and Other. The final and concluding chapter traces similarities between the texts' forms and their monstrous contents, and shows how the texts themselves can function as monstrous doubles to other writings in the period - mainly classic realist novels. I argue that monsters can reside even in realist texts, within characters whose ambitions are considered transgressive. The monster's ability to embody as many meanings as possible is stressed in order to explain why the metaphor of the monster has survived up to the present day.