Early German Romantic and Marxian Theories of Alienation in Frankenstein: Atomizing Effects of Commodification of Nature and Transgressive Science : An Eco-Marxist perspective

Abstract: This essay explores the topic of appropriation of nature and the resulting social alienation it imparts on several of the novel’s characters: Frankenstein, Walton, and the Creature. The Creature serves as a personification of both industrialism and urban atomization. His depiction as such follows Marxist critic Warren Montag’s argument that the novel renders the Creature more horrible through the suppression of modernity which makes him the embodiment of industrialism, and Frank Moretti’s claim that the novel favors pastoral, pre-industrial ideals (Montag, Moretti). Frankenstein’s materialist approach to science provides the driving force for this alienation and is informed by both mechanist philosophy (Hogsette) and a desire to remodel nature in accordance with human desire (Mellor). Rather than bringing prosperity, those endeavors alienate Frankenstein from his surrounding in a Marxian line of thought, and Frankenstein himself comes to resemble Bill Hughes’s concept of the negative version of Prometheus who loses himself in his materialist pursuits (Hughes). Drawing upon early German Romantic ideas of reconciliation with nature outlined by Alison Stone, this essay argues that much of the chaos in Frankenstein stems from anthropocentrism that is rooted in Hegelian philosophy and that a healthier solution to this view is proposed by early German Romantic organicism.