Embodied Feminist Authorship in Stage and Screen Adaptations of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

Mary Shelley’s feminist ideals and lived experience have been illuminated by years of adaptation, retelling, and counter-discourse that have told her own story within that of her acclaimed novel Frankenstein. In this thesis project, we argue that through the process of reproducing the narrative of Frankenstein, such adaptations — on both stage and screen — have memorialized authorial identity on Shelley’s behalf, as well as highlighted her feminist outlooks on birth, motherhood, loneliness, and womanhood that live on in her creative works. By first surveying a selection of films that tell the story of both Frankenstein and its storied author, we will identify key thematic and narrative patterns that have defined its legacy in film history and popular culture. By conducting a critical literary analysis of each film selected, we will contrast adaptations of the Frankenstein myth on the basis of their likeness to the original text, liberties taken to reflect the nuance of their production, portrayal of Shelley in a literal or metatextual representation, as well as critical and audience reception. By understanding the scholarly work others have conducted in studying these texts, we will build on pre-existing research in literary criticism, film criticism, and gothic studies in our own interdisciplinary survey of Shelley’s authorship and feminist identity with this thesis project.