ABSTRACT
The complex multimedial reception history of Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein provides a rich archive of ideas about sexuality and gender. This chapter examines the reiterations of gender and sexuality in Shelley’s Frankenstein and a few of its most influential adaptations. The plot of artificial reproduction and the construction of masculinity in Shelley’s novel draw much of their energy from their resonance with the Judeo-Christian creation myth. The many stage, film, and prose fiction adaptations of Frankenstein often hinge upon their treatment of Victor Frankenstein’s sexuality, most often played out via conflicts between his relationship to his “proper” heteronormative partner, Elizabeth Lavenza, and his improper child/alter ego, the creature. In addition to Shelley’s Frankenstein, the major examples analyzed in this chapter include the most important early stage adaptations, Richard Brinsley Peake’s 1823 Presumption; or, The Fate of Frankenstein and H. M. Milner’s 1826 Frankenstein; or, The Man and the Monster!; the 1931 Universal Studios Frankenstein and its 1935 sequel, Bride of Frankenstein; the 1957 Hammer Studios The Curse of Frankenstein; and Theodore Roszak’s 1995 novel The Memoirs of Elizabeth Frankenstein.
