Questioning the Creature's True Appearance: Ugliness, Otherness, and Ambiguity in Frankenstein
Public Deposited- Last Modified
- April 27, 2021
- Creator
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Horney, Tabatha
- Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English and Comparative Literature
- Abstract
- In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, or, the Modern Prometheus, the Creature’s monstrosity and ugliness endure as unquestioned aspects of the novel’s constant hold on the public imagination. While adaptations may differ in characterization and setting and scholars may focus on diverse thematic questions, the Creature’s ugliness remains an obvious, accepted fixture of the work. Throughout this thesis, I argue that the Creature’s ugliness should not be accepted automatically. If the Creature is repulsive, but not because of his ugliness, what makes him repulsive? Why have readers fixated on ugliness as the only explanation for his repulsiveness? What aspects of the text have readers missed because of the assumption of ugliness, rather than searching for alternative explanations? Why might Shelley have created a Creature with an ambiguous appearance? What, metaphorically, could this represent – if anything?
- Date of publication
- spring 2015
- Keyword
- DOI
- Resource type
- Rights statement
- In Copyright
- Note
- Funding: None
- Advisor
- Moskal, Jeanne
- Degree
- Bachelor of Arts
- Honors level
- Honors
- Degree granting institution
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Graduation year
- 2015
- Extent
- 52
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