Intro
Yep. We had to. Because if you're going to talk about the non-normative, extraordinary, or just plain super-freaky body, you've gotta start with the granddaddy of them all: Frankenstein. After all, what else can you say about a body made of sewn together corpses? Yeah. You heard us. Freaky.
But it's not the whole stitched-together-from-dead-dudes (and dead criminals to boot!) thing that really gets the disability studies folks' mouths a-watering. It's how Frankenstein's monster is treated. And not just by the other characters in the book, but also by its young author: the 17-year-old Mary Shelley, herself.
See, what we've got here are some serious Daddy issues. Because at the heart of it all, the monster just wants a father. In the novel, good old Dr. Frankenstein takes one look at his creature and heads for the hills. He's the ultimate deadbeat dad, running like he'd just eaten black mayonnaise followed by a ride on a tilt-a-whirl the moment he even sees the ugliness of his creation.
So, the monster is left to fend for himself. Literally days and weeks old, he is beaten and driven away by every human he encounters. The first and only friend he makes is a blind man but even that lasts only until the family returns to—you guessed it—beat and drive him away again.
Finally, desperate for companionship, the monster seeks out Frankenstein and offers him a choice: either the man create a bride for him (also out of body parts—natch) or else the monster will take revenge on the good (bad) Dr. Frankenstein and kill him and everyone like him—family, friends, whatever. Long story short, old Frank refuses. We won't tell you what happens next, Shmoopers, but trust us: it ain't good.
What it all boils down to, really, in terms of disability studies is that this is the ultimate in prejudice against the extraordinary body. The monster endures on a super intense scale the kind of rejection that is the fear of every parent of a disabled child. His life is one of loneliness, pain, and isolation. And as a result, he's bitter, angry, and vengeful. Pretty much every cliché about disabled people out there.
Quote
"You are in the wrong," replied the fiend; "and instead of threatening, I am content to reason with you. I am malicious because I am miserable. Am I not shunned and hated by all mankind? You, my creator, would tear me to pieces and triumph; remember that, and tell me why I should pity man more than he pities me? You would not call it murder if you could precipitate me into one of those ice-rifts and destroy my frame, the work of your own hands. Shall I respect man when he condemns me? Let him live with me in the interchange of kindness, and instead of injury I would bestow every benefit upon him with tears of gratitude at his acceptance. But that cannot be; the human senses are insurmountable barriers to our union. Yet mine shall not be the submission of abject slavery. I will avenge my injuries; if I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear."
Analysis
Yes, the creature's got some real anger management issues. But here's where it gets tricky, and this is what makes disability scholars take notice: it's really not the monster's body that's the problem. It's everyone's reactions to it: from Frankenstein on down. (What?! Are we seeing the birth of the social model way back in the 18th century?)
After all, the creature does make a friend and is an intelligent, sensitive, and kind companion to him… until his family returns.
And now, in this passage, he stands before the man who created and then immediately rejected him, and he tries to reason with him; despite never having been taught to read or even to speak, he makes a case for himself that any attorney might envy.
Implausible? Maybe (then again, we are talking about a living creature made of corpses). But this really makes us question who the real villain is here. And if we borrow from Foucault, we can see that the rejection of the creature is nothing more than an attempt—desperate, at that—to maintain our culture's distinctions between the "normal" and the "abnormal."
After all, say the pitchfork-wielding villagers, the "normal" is what "we" are and what you "must" be if you're going to be one of "us." Because if we allow one of you "abnormal" ones in with "us" then maybe you'll change who "we" are. And we just can't roll with that.
(We have to put those quotes in there, guys: these terms deserve silly bunny ears.)
Enter the question of the mate. Yep, even when you're made of stitched-together body parts, it's still all about the ladeez. The first reason that Dr. Frankenstein gives for refusing to grant the creature his wish, despite knowing that it will endanger everyone he loves, is because he fears that the monster and his bride "might desolate the world." By breeding a whole race of monsters, perhaps?
And this makes us question who should have the right to marry and have children—and who's to decide? This is kind of sounding like eugenics and The Black Stork all over again. Well, actually, from 200 years in the past.