Essay Sample on Elizabeth Young: Black Frankenstein & Racialization of American Metaphor

Introduction

Elizabeth Young is a professor of English based at Mount Holyoke College. An author and a writer, Young's area of speciality include theories surrounding women, American literature, visual culture and American studies. Her broadened approach to the literary world is what makes her a suitable candidate for analyzing Mary Shelley's work. Young's text entitled "Black Frankenstein: The Making of an American Metaphor" persuasively and adequately argues that Shelley's work reflects the racialization of the Frankenstein story in the American culture. Her analysis extends from autobiographical connotations by James Baldwin, Dick Gregory and up to the literary fictional representations of Shelley's setting with Baldwin's in "Stranger in the Village".

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Unveiling Racialized Undertones and Artistic Representation in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

It is almost impossible for one to read Young's account and fail to pin-point the racialized undertones and artistic works of Shelley's book. In different sections of her book, Young presents four types of racial critique that explores Shelly's metaphorical representation of a Black Frankenstein. Young analyses how the white man's culture rendered him impotent but gave the black man the status of a super stud (202). She equally shows how the white man has become a victim of his Frankenstein's monster. The black Frankenstein's monster is serving as a powerful metaphor that reinforces racial hierarchy and even more potent in shaping an antiracist critique. It further illuminates the power of reappropriation and parody.

Unveiling the Multifaceted Metaphors in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Young makes it clear that some of the parts which she chooses to discuss may be viewed as "low-brow works about a low-browed monster" (Young 14). For any literary work under discussion, three things, namely; re-animation, amalgamation and revolt against a creator are significant (Dauterich 43). In Young's second and third chapters, she cross-examines the afore-mentioned three items and how they integrate the metaphor. Young also provides a more in-depth analysis by utilizing James Baldwin and Dick's Gregory's autobiographical essays. Using Baldwin's work, "Stranger in the Village" Young identifies and links an artistic connection between the fictional figure that is the Frankenstein monster and the literal symbolism of the Frankenstein's metaphor (198). She ascertains that Baldwin's work adapts to Shelley's original work by "developing both its racial politics and implications of the aesthetic and monstrosity equation between monsters and metaphors" (qt. in Baldwin, 118).

Exploring the Polar Landscapes and Racial Othering in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

He is beginning with the setting, "an absolutely forbidding" landscape filled with "ice and snow as far as the eye can reach" (Shelley 92). Shelley's Frankenstein is Swiss by birth and descent. Young quotes Baldwin's setting in a "white wilderness" (qtd. in Baldwin 118). The environment here takes the reader to Frankenstein's homeland, which is found in the icy White North Pole. Shelley's tale of Frankenstein thus begins and ends there. Young argues that Baldwin embodies Frankenstein's monster as he becomes "a dehumanized object: simply a living wonder" (qt. in Baldwin 119). Similarly to Frankenstein's monster, Baldwin describes himself as a freak show and a gothic demon more so to the local children nearby. Young further quotes Baldwin as claiming how the local children are taught that the "devil is a black man and how they would scream in genuine anguish any time he approaches them" (qt. in Baldwin 123).

Unveiling the Parallel Narratives of Monstrous Creation

Baldwin further describes the white people of the Swiss Village as his monster creators whose culture and way of life controlled his (Young 198). Similarly, Victor Frankenstein's creature is considered a monster by its creator and the villager nearby. Also dubbed the "demon", it is forced to flee and hideaway in the wilderness. The village that creates Baldwin as a monster is a synecdoche for the white West. Baldwin's rebellious streak against his stereotyping mirrors the rebellion shown by Frankenstein's monster with his acclaim to humanity and acquiring a family. Just like Frankenstein's monster and Baldwin, Young claims that the black man today demands fair treatment and recognition from his white peers, society and the entire world (199).

Exploring the Paradoxical Construction of Monstrous Identity

Young also carries out an analysis of Gregory's essay with similar goals. She points out that "paradoxically" with Gregory, "a more clearly antiracist writer now constructs a more truly monstrous black monster" (208). Gregory's memories as a child visiting the Cinema's to watch "Nigger 1964" shape his psychic identification with Frankenstein's monster as a cause for taking action. In his young mind and while at the Cinema's they would root for Frankie the beast to destroy the antagonistic character within the movie. Thus as a black kid, he uses the monster to fuel some of his greatest achievements in his life (208).

Conclusion

In conclusion, therefore, the three authors equally exploit the use of Frankenstein's monster in differing ways. One is to show the racial impunity in the world, as Young does. Secondly is to empower the black child like Gregory and third is to highlight the impact of racism as Baldwin does.

Works Cited

Dauterich, Edward. "Black Frankenstein: The Making of an American Metaphor." African American Review 43.4 (2009): 765-6. ProQuest. Web. 30 Dec. 2019.

Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft. Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus, 1818. Engage Books, AD Classic, 2009.

Young, Elizabeth. Black Frankenstein: The making of an American metaphor. NYU Press, 2008.