The Greater Betrayal: Frankenstein and the Horror Genre
Open Access
- Author:
- Kowalchuk, Lynda Andrea
- Area of Honors:
- Letters, Arts, and Sciences (Abington)
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Arts
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Tramble Thomas Turner, Thesis Honors Advisor
Thomas Russell Smith, Thesis Supervisor - Keywords:
- Frankenstein
genre
horror
Mary Shelley - Abstract:
- Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has long been included in the horror genre of literature. It is even occasionally accredited with the birth of that genre. This paper discusses how this practice not only misleads the audience about the nature of Frankenstein but in fact damages the integrity of any potential interpretation. It first establishes a working definition of the horror genre, then compares that with Frankenstein to show how the work does not fit the expectations that the genre lays out. This comparison focuses on the expectations that the horror genre places on its protagonists and antagonists and how Victor Frankenstein and his creation defy those expectations. Genre as a concept fails Frankenstein, and this failure is indicative of the shortcomings of that system as a whole. It is a system that overwhelms meaning with labels, simplifying complex artistic pieces to fit into categories. Worse, this categorization is often logically flawed, and the full impact of the piece is reduced to something alien to its original intentions. Frankenstein demonstrates the worst of what labeling under a genre can do to a work of art and encourages us to move past this obsolete system.