Frankenstein (Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism) (Paperback)

by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (Author), Johanna M. Smith (Editor) "July 24: Write my story..." (more)
Key Phrases: lesbian panic, sad trash, gender criticism, Mary Shelley, New York, Mary Wollstonecraft (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
The criticism offered on "Frankenstein" in this volume and the detailed bibliographic and historical textualization, make this book an extensive study of this classic work by Mary Shelley. This book contains five critical essays that introduce major contemporary approaches to the text and are usefully introduced by explanatory notes on each critical approach.

Book Description

This revision of a widely adopted critical edition presents the 1831 text of Mary Shelley's English Romantic novel along with critical essays that introduce students to Frankenstein from contemporary psychoanalytic, Marxist, feminist, gender, and cultural studies perspectives. An additional essay demonstrates how various critical perspectives can be combined. In this second edition, three of the six essays are new.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan (March 16, 1992)
• ISBN-10: 0333575571
• ISBN-13: 978-0333575574
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #4,314,202 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars the first great work of science fiction, June 11, 2001

By	Robert J. Crawford (Balmette Talloires, France) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Frankenstein (Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism) (Paperback)

After seeing at least five versions of this tale in film - one of my great childhood monster loves - I was happy to finally read the novel. As so often occurs with classics, I was as surprised as I was fascinated.

For starters, the characters are far more subtle than any of the film versions: Victor F appears as a brooding and obsessed genius, but also as a great lover of life and nature. The monster, who is an articulate and literate creature who read Goethe, is even more interesting, from his hopeful beginning to his bitter reaction at rejection and his thirst for vengence. His eloquence was vivid and his pain horribly realistic.

But the work is also fascinating as a window into the mind of the Romantics, who at once strove to reject the rationalism of the Enlightenment yet reflected it. The creature starts off empty and what it becomes is due entirely to his experience. Knowledge is not always good, etc.

Finally, the themes are timeless and full of conflict: creativity giving birth to unimaginable destruction, tampering with nature as its necessities overwhelm even genius, and the like. THe book is a kaleidescope of philosophical reflection. The pain of the creator and the monster alike are inescapably linked like father and son.

I did find the style of the book a bit difficult. It is full of florid rhetoric and lengthy circumlocutions, as the doctor and then the monster tell their stories in almost identical prose.

Highly recommended.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Frankenstein, a true classic!, February 12, 2002

By	Anthony Liberati (NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Frankenstein (Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism) (Paperback)

You don't know Frankenstein until you've read the novel. Forget everything you remember about the classic horror movie of Frankenstein, sure it's great cinema, but the movie just doesn't do it justice like the novel does. The novel has every quality of a perfect story, and Mary Shelley paints a picture with her writing that's far more disturbing and exciting than the movie ever was. What's really great about the book is that the creature speaks and is literate. Throughout the novel, the creature does speaks about the cruelty of man and I actually had sympathy for him as he told his accounts of misfortune. One thing I particularly liked is the way the creature was almost invincible, it really added to the horror that his creator feels as he's chasing him through the bitter cold. The novel is not difficult reading at all and has a decent steady pace to it. There is more than meets the eye to the novel as well. One could look at Shelly's work through a psychoanalytical standpoint and see the novel on an entirely different level than just what's on the surface. Psychoanalyzing the novel brings with it some interesting discussions; for instance, is the creature really just a duplicate of its creator? Read the book and form your own analysis, you won't be disappointed.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What is the Monster Really Like?, February 12, 2002

By	Matt Larkin (cortland, ny) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Frankenstein (Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism) (Paperback)

I enjoyed reading Frankenstein, but it wasn't at all what I expected. I had all these horrific images in my head about some terrible, ugly monster. Mary Shelley does not provide her readers with a descriptive image of what the monster truly looks like. As I read this novel, my imagination ran free. As different stories were told, and different emotions were expressed, the images and thoughts in my head of the monster changed. The general theme conveyed is that Victor Frankenstein has to deal with the consequences of his creation. He was so eager to creat life and a god-like figure, but once it was complete, he was disgusted. He did not want to deal with his creation, nor have any relation to it. Ultimately, Victor became his creature's slave. Victor Frankenstein had to deal with many losses and hardships, but he stayed strong till the end. At the end, the monster narrates his side of the story and after completing his "job" he disappears and goes back to being on his own. Although the book started off a bit slow, it picked up and kept my interest until the end. I would recommend reading this book, especially to those who have seen the movie because the book leaves more to the imagination and can be interpreted in many different ways.