ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the appearance and effect of monsters in British political positions immediately after the French Revolution and analyses some of their reverberations in Frankenstein. It attempts to identify some of the implications of the monster's diverse and prolific animations within different political and literary positions. The excessive momentum of revolution and monster-making powerfully affects and is also transformed by Frankenstein. This focus on monstrosity and excess necessarily precludes detailed consideration of other readings of the novel's relation to the French Revolution by Ronald Paulson, Lee Sterrenburg and Chris Baldick. These readings are thus forced to contain or exclude the many excesses that surround Frankenstein's production. The proliferation of monsters and the challenging and critical interrogations they provoke extend still further. Reading positions, glimpsed and activated among Frankenstein's unstable frames, betray their monstrous power.
