ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that Frankenstein, Mathilda, and The Last Man urge that the ‘domestic affections’ be extended universally to embrace society at large, rather than cherished or even fetishized as a private refuge. Lord Byron was an inspiration behind the two most popular Gothic villains in the nineteenth century: the aristocrat as vampire and the utopian projector, Victor Frankenstein, who unleashes a monster. Both figures are animated metaphors arising from political polemic during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. The parodic element of Gothic holds the reader’s considerable sympathy with Frankenstein in check. The Prometheus legend also suggested Napoleon Bonaparte’s presumption in challenging the supremacy of the gods when he made France a secular state. Napoleon is a small baby anxiously peering at his adoring father, Satan, in ‘The Devil’s darling’ by Rowlandson of 1814, whereas in Frankenstein the Napoleonic creator disdains his offspring, and refuses to acknowledge their common humanity.
