https://padlet.com/agorrinsepulveda01/3873bpuqbty1sk0s Race, Gender, and Imperial Ideology in the Nineteenth Century Zohreh T. Sullivan - Annotations en-us 2020-12-18 01:41:32 UTC 2025-11-27 15:32:00 UTC hello@padlet.com https://brewminate.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Frankenstein01.jpg agorrinsepulveda01 https://padlet.com/agorrinsepulveda01/3873bpuqbty1sk0s/wish/1030014075
Hello, my fellow critic colleague! Allow me to briefly introduce myself: My name is Andrea Gorrín and welcome to my Padlet Presentation! 

Today I will be presenting a total of six (6) different annotations where I will be trying to begin an academic and intellectual discussion with you! 
These annotations will be regarding four (4) of the theories we had the privilege of discussing in class this semester. I am going to be focusing on theoretical terms and issues found throughout the essay: "Race, Gender, and Imperial Ideology in the Nineteenth Century", by Zohreh T. Sullivan. 

I will also be interpreting and critiquing the essay itself from a literary critic's perspective. Please join me... if you dare!


(IT"S ALIIIIIVE!!!!) ]]> 2020-12-18 01:44:47 UTC https://padlet.com/agorrinsepulveda01/3873bpuqbty1sk0s/wish/1030014075 agorrinsepulveda01 https://padlet.com/agorrinsepulveda01/3873bpuqbty1sk0s/wish/1030042763

It is safe to say that Sullivan begins her writing by enforcing feminist literary criticism since she uses the idea of submissiveness, monstrosity, and otherness of Victor's monster as a correlation to Shelley's inevitable feminist message behind her writing. However, I would argue that this idea of categorizing the monster just as a woman would be more negative than positive for the interpretation of Frankenstein. I will try to read against the grain even more in terms of who the monster actually represents. Yes, we can argue that the monster is a representation of women in general, but what if we took it also from a feminist/critical race lens as well? Hear me out: Critical Race theory is based on trying to focus on how the appearance of race and racism is depicted across dominant cultures. If we focus on this, throughout the novel, the monster is not only cast aside because he was seen as a submissive or unpowerful, unuseful object (just like women in the 19th century were seen), but he was manlily stripped from society by his creator due to his appearance and- ultimately- the color of his skin! As Sullivan mentions right at the beginning of her essay, this novel- and Shelley's life- takes place in "an ordering of the world at once racist..." and she even mentions race before imperialism and sexism. Coincidence? I think not! One as a reader, the first reason as to why the monster is rejected by Victor is because of his appearance: Victor himself even denotes this: "As I looked on him, his countenance expressed the utmost of malice and treachery." 

Sullivan's approach of stating that the monster is a woman probably comes from a more feminist reading of the monster, but I would argue that through a critical race perspective, Shelley is trying to talk about race and how the social racial world, its rules, and practices are fixed and simply assigned by the appearance of someone and that factors such as gender are inter-sectionalized within the aspect of the race. ]]> 2020-12-18 01:58:13 UTC https://padlet.com/agorrinsepulveda01/3873bpuqbty1sk0s/wish/1030042763 agorrinsepulveda01 https://padlet.com/agorrinsepulveda01/3873bpuqbty1sk0s/wish/1030132950
These sentences also feed on my idea of viewing these matters through a more Critical Race literary perspective. It is up to a critical race critic to establish and recognize how race is an essential factor for European (and American) lifestyle. Like the novel illustrates, we see how the monster topples upon a few iconic readings such as Paradise Lost and others. However, he is bombarded by text that is written by white writers whose life views were inclined and indoctrinated to see the world through a white-male-dominant lens. Yes, there are no women texts within the books he reads, but the fact that there are no black authored books, for example, is often not even addressed due to wanting to view Shelley's message through one perspective. This is dangerous because it takes away the existence of race in some way and feeds upon the enablement of racism to persist. It is important to analyze these types of intersectionalities when arguing about a character such as the monster. Although I agree with the idea of viewing the monster from a gender perspective, I would also like to argue that the intersectionality of the monster is not only a monster but different in terms of race, feeds more on its discrimination and societal abuse than if we were to simply focus on his gender. 19th-century white women were not treated the same way as black women (they are still maltreated). I would argue that the monster is not treated or viewed just as a woman, but more as a non-white woman. ]]> 2020-12-18 02:43:41 UTC https://padlet.com/agorrinsepulveda01/3873bpuqbty1sk0s/wish/1030132950 agorrinsepulveda01 https://padlet.com/agorrinsepulveda01/3873bpuqbty1sk0s/wish/1030167302
This is a perfect example of post-colonial criticism. it feeds on the idea that throughout history, the only version seen and accepted as true is the one written by the victors; in this case, the white elite race. The history of Imperialism has been one led by the simple assumption of one unique literary, social, and political perspective is the important and right one. Shelley is a true post-colonialist critiquer because, within her writing, we can see how the colonial powers are enforced in relation to characters such as Victor and the Monster. When I apply a post-colonial perspective to Shelley's usage of Victor and the monster, it reminds me of the relationship between Prospero and Caliban and their conqueror and conquest relationship. Just as Prospero claims to be a good ruler and sees Caliban as a simple animal and conquest, Victor creates the same relationship with the monster. While Victor discarded the monster long before he could create a dominant relationship with it- as Prospero did with Caliban-, it is evident that the colonist and colonized dynamic is key. From the very beginning, Victor and Prospero took the idea of a "white savior" and categorized their counterparts/their creations as savages who needed to be civilized. When this was seen as impossible to them, they proceeded to dispatch them and simply treat them like animals.
Just like colonial history, Shelley's novel shows how Victor is constantly being the victim or the savior of the story while the monster is the antagonist; the monster, the uncultured. However, Shelly goes a step even further by presenting a woman (Margaret Seville) as the receiver and reader of the letters (her brother wrote) and ultimately the teller of Victor and the monster's story. How would the interpretation and effect of the entire novel have changed if the receiver of all the letters was a man/ the colonizer instead of a woman/the colonized? We could ask the same question in relation to the author herself. Would there really be a difference? I would argue that yes. Maybe the reason why Shelley's novel is such an iconic one is because of the subtle and yet inevitable "uncivilized" presence and the inclination it has on being read from the conquest/victim perspective. Maybe if it were a man reading the letters- judging from a post-colonial perspective- the novel would have the same effect as colonial history. The reader would just be presented with the victor's side of the story. 

(Victor considers himself the true "victor"...coincidence?)]]> 2020-12-18 03:02:25 UTC https://padlet.com/agorrinsepulveda01/3873bpuqbty1sk0s/wish/1030167302 agorrinsepulveda01 https://padlet.com/agorrinsepulveda01/3873bpuqbty1sk0s/wish/1030388605
It is interesting how Sullivan intertwines the ideas of gender with more Marxist theoretical terms. If we take Shelley's text and read it from a Marxist lens, it is safe to say that the bourgeoisie representation n is Victor himself while the other characters (the women and the monster) are part of the proletariat. As a Marxist literary critic, one always has to aim to answer the question of whom does the writing benefit in terms of the societal classes represented within it: the elite, the bourgeoisie, or the proletariat. And the novel is excellent in portraying the alienation of the creature in relation to its creator and the world around it. The creature is immediately put to suffer the misery and the anger of the alienated laborer. The appearance and actions of the monster are simply reduced to deformed and animalistic. This exclusion is the same that, according to Marx, workers (the proletariat) experience within the novel. The best example of the proletariat being treated as possessions and molded by the bourgeoisie while they are still alienated from their product is Safie. She, just like the monster, was "built" and molded into society once she learned how to speak, behave in society, and look beautiful. But this same idea of molding brings the downfall of the characters. It is that same beauty and that same fake facade that dooms the proletariat. This "fetichism", as Sullivan puts it, affect both sides because it makes the bourgeoisie think about his product as some unreachable perfect and accepted product while the proletariat is subject to build a life where a mask of beauty and acceptance is put on their faces while they are constantly destroyed and alienated by their own product.

The monster creates a revolution in the face of the continuing conflict between the classes and a new order of society was introduced with his creation. Capitalism was abolished and this is what brought Victor's downfall. Marx argued that the revolution would be led by the working class and that intellectuals were the ones who would lead. The monster becomes intellectual and leads the revolution.

 This idea brings me to another one: what if we shift the idea of who represents the proletariat in the novel? I found this idea an extremely interesting way of reading against the grain. What if instead of focusing on Victor and the bourgeoise, we focus on him as the proletariat? As Sullivan mentions, it is Victor who is alienated from his product (the monster) since he literally put all of his work and knowledge into something that no longer belongs to him. He becomes aware of the dangers of his creating at the same time he realizes that the more power the creature has, the less he has on his own product. What do you think? Could this be a viable way to read the novel]]> 2020-12-18 05:47:33 UTC https://padlet.com/agorrinsepulveda01/3873bpuqbty1sk0s/wish/1030388605 agorrinsepulveda01 https://padlet.com/agorrinsepulveda01/3873bpuqbty1sk0s/wish/1031422101
This is a very interesting topic to bring forth when reading Frankenstein. While Vicor gets stuck on having to embrace his superiority and dominance over the monster, The monster is empowered by language and its own personal civilization. If the same ideas were presented and developed by the "savages"- in colonizing times- by the colonizer, the savage would have become known as a "civilized savage", which still held an inhumane conception of them. Shelley, however, shows in her novel how the monster, while conducting a personal/individual civilization process (since his society pushed him aside due to his physique), he became more human than Victor himself. Showing how the monster survived without any help and by educating himself, proves that Victor is the "weaker" individual in relation to both of the characters. This Darwinian idea of power and superior races is crushed by Shelley herself by exposing the "natural" weaknesses and skills of the monster and showing the European superior society as one that succumbs due to its lack of understanding and self-proclaimed dominance. ]]> 2020-12-18 15:03:54 UTC https://padlet.com/agorrinsepulveda01/3873bpuqbty1sk0s/wish/1031422101 agorrinsepulveda01 https://padlet.com/agorrinsepulveda01/3873bpuqbty1sk0s/wish/1031580488  
The fact that the monster does refuse silence and destroys its maleficent creation could be seen as something productive, but I would argue that it holds a negative aspect as well. If one looks at the events that lead to the downfall of Victor and the upcoming of the monster through a post-structuralist critical perspective, Marry Shelley has elements of such. The monster is contrary to all the notions held within 19th-century society, so the audience of the time was more likely to sympathize more with Victor instead of the monster. And everything regarding society and structure would have been overlooked as correct and proper. 
Furthermore, if one thinks about the information and knowledge discovered at the end of the novel due to Victor's mistake, their reader may come upon it and learn from it, but the characters of the novel are not given this chance. 

Poststructuralist theorists, according to Saussure's theory, should focus on each word and how the signifiers and the signified are in function, creating endless possibilities to the text. Accompanied by binary oppositions, the meaning of the text can be conceived and therefore different perceptions of the world can be determined. However, there is no original idea within the text because everything is a product of a pre-existing system that is subconsciously present. There is also no definite way of interpreting the text since the text can evoke numerous meanings and language is simply an endless ambiguous pattern. 
As we have seen in class, all of these ideas are seen in Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein". 
Shelley presents a level of intertextuality by referencing other texts within her text as part of the development of her story: we can see this with the monster and his connection to books such as Paradise Lost. Various moments in the life of the monster can be related to what he reads in Paradise lost (which he thought was a true story) regarding his existence and his creation. The monster identifies himself with the "fallen angel" and Adam as he doubts his own creation in the presence of God. 
Another post-structuralist aspect that is present in the text is the game between binary oppositions and their meanings. There are many of them present throughout the text. The most notable one being the debacle Victor has himself with "destroying his own creation" (opposition of destruction and creativity present). 

 However, there is an overlooked factor that shows the lack of meaning in the novel. As one may notice, most- if not all of the characters of the novel are dead and therefore do not get the chance to learn from Victor's mistakes, so it produces a sense of nothingness and insignificance to Victor's entire experience. Just as post-structuralism suggests that there is no determined meaning to the text- and that Shelley is not even the true author, but rather the pre-existing structure she came from-, Shelley suggests the same thing continually throughout her text. By presenting this ambiguity from beginning to end, she turns her novel into one that will be forever analyzed through various critical lenses and still make sense. This is because of the structuralist/deconstructive and post-structualist influence of it. From beginning to end, it seems to have all the meaning in the world, but, at the end, it can be argued that nothing meant anything. all the meaning falls upon the hands of the reader, and it is up to the reader to presents their individual ideas to give meaning to the text. ]]> 2020-12-18 15:42:46 UTC https://padlet.com/agorrinsepulveda01/3873bpuqbty1sk0s/wish/1031580488