Quotation:

In Martin Willis’ article about how Frankenstein shaped the opinion of Victorian medicine and science, he talks about how the story was weaponized against scientific communities. He notes that “When the institutions of science are criticised, Victor is the unfortunate victim of error. When individual colleagues are being marked out, Victor is the overbearing madman destined for failure. The flexibility of the metaphor is certainly one reason for its continual use. It is equally telling, nevertheless, that the creature is exclusively employed in metaphors aimed at organisational structures and decision-making” (Willis 10).

Comment:

One of the reasons why Frankenstein has had such a negative impact on the medical and scientific fields is because of its ambiguity; that is depending on which parts of the story you emphasize, the true “monster” could be Victor or the creature. Historically, as Willis discussed, the comparison to Frankenstein proposed an either/or relationship, that is either Victor, the scientist, or the creature, representing the entire scientific community was the monster. However, it seems like those who criticize medicine and science now, even if they don’t explicitly mention Frankenstein, are looking to villainize both sides simultaneously. This trend can be seen as recently as the Covid-19 pandemic, where people who are against vaccination are attempting to create a monster out of the individual scientists working on vaccines and the scientific community as a whole that is allowing vaccine research to take place. Though I haven’t seen anyone reference Frankenstein in debates about vaccines, fear is often a running theme in these conversations, and as we know from Cohen, monsters regularly arise from fear.

Question:

Since monster stories are frequently ambiguous, and this characteristic enhances the reader’s experience with the monster, how do authors maintain this in their writing?