ABSTRACT
This chapter examines stories about the birthing body in Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, particularly parenting, the making of the creature and his companion, and the creature’s reproductive choices. Frankenstein offers a critical commentary on a crucial aspect of male-authored procreation: control over the birthing body. Unlike an automaton, the creature has his own will and desires, including the wish for love. Victor’s destruction of the creature’s female companion makes him a true monster, for eighteenth-century discourse categorized monsters as sterile. The creature’s aborted mate draws attention to the motif of delayed heterosexual couplings throughout the novel, including Victor’s relationship with Elizabeth. Trained as an alchemist, Victor ultimately decides not to create a companion out of fear of the creature’s transhuman potential, his height and strength, and revulsion over his appearance. Percy Shelley’s friend and doctor, William Lawrence, who engaged in the vitalist debate with John Abernethy, wrote on related topics, incest and breeding. These proto-eugenic ideas have significance for the novel’s implied commentary on race, ethnicity, and the lives of enslaved human beings. The dismantling of the female companion relates to Romantic-era discourse about miscegenation and modern-day fear about technology replacing humans (the singularity). Comparisons are made to other motherless creations discussed in this book: Pygmalion’s statue, Homunculus, from Goethe’s Faust, and E. T. A. Hoffmann’s android, Olympia, from The Sandman. The chapter concludes by exploring queer interpretations and arguing that the three brides of Frankenstein–Elizabeth, the creature, and the companion–suggest that loving artificial life can resemble incest.
