#also i am well aware he's a walking corpse. that does impact his preception. this would also be an interesting topic

[noxious-fennec]

I have a gripe with the pop litcrit crowd for how they're trying to reframe Frankenstein's monster as some sort of model-beautiful guy because Frankenstein gathered the prettiest of parts.

Frankenstein himself being an unreliable narrator doesn't change the reality that the narrative never challenges the notion that monster is, in fact, an abomination. And, personally, I don't find it interesting to twist the text to fit a new very literal reading. What do we gain from a reading where the monster was practically a twilight vampire? What impact would it have? What new discussions would be spurred?

I believe a far more compelling read than "he was actually beautiful but you all read it wrong" would be to read the monster as visibly scarred/disfigured, which would be more in line with how he's treated and give way to more productive discussions about the perception of "the other" in fiction.

I think examining what we, both then and now, consider to be monstrous, abominable, incompatible with civilised society etc etc is far more productive than making a new sanitised reading of the text that's no better than the pop culture one