EN6471 Section 1: Your paragraphs on "How does Montag use Marxism to read Frankenstein?" by Prof. WINCKLER Reto Thomas Edgar

2025-10-24 08:38:19 UTC

In this essay, Warren Montag argues that Frankenstein is an allegory of class conflict, liking the monster to the industrial proletariat and technology to the oppression of capitalism.

According to Montag, the birth of the monster is “artificial” and is “assembled from the parts of a multitude of different individuals, the poor”. It is a product of science, technology and industry. Technological and industrial progress has produced an artificial being, which is the logic of capitalism, producing the working class. What’s more, the monster couldn’t speak in the first place. Similarly, those who are “bowed by oppression and poverty” cannot speak for themselves. In essence, Montag uses a Marxism perspective to see the main character, the monster, its creator and the place where it was born.

2025-10-24 08:38:41 UTC

In the text, Montag is arguing that the creature represents the working class. Montag places the novel in the enlightenment era, and the emerging industrial proletariat was perceived as a monstrous entity. We can include from the text that Victor represents the rational and reason class, after he creates the creation, the unleashed and powerful fiend is totally frightened him. Montag draws parallels between the creature and the working class through several aspects. Firstly, the monster is manufactured from the dead man, just as the proletariat is a production of industry. Secondly, the monster is nameless, much like the anonymous proletariat. Thirdly, the rational class are feared and rejected the creature, even if he has a gentle heart. Besides that, Montag argues that a Marxist reading must go beyond the image that just simply analogy creature to working class. The history and class struggle shapes the text. Ultimately, Montag argues that the greatness of Frankenstein lie not in the story of working class, but also a novel that enacts the core contradictions of its era.

tli477c — 2025-10-24 08:39:04 UTC

In the text, Warren Montag is depicting that Frankenstein is a reflection of class relations and the emergence of the modern working class according to Marxism. He interprets Frankenstein as the Creature symbolizing the proletariat—created by human labor but denied social recognition and autonomy. While Victor Frankenstein, the creator of Frankenstein, represents the bourgeois class that fears and rejects its own creation. Montag connects the "workshop of filthy creation" to the hidden factories of industrial capitalism. Through this perspective, the novel expresses the anxieties of a society witnessing the rise of a new collective power that threatens the existing social order. Thus, Montage's Marxist reading reveals Frankenstein not merely as a Gothic tale, but as a profound fable of capitalist production and classes struggle.

Maxism in Montag‘s Essay

saywhy_chenyi — 2025-10-24 08:39:04 UTC

The author uses terms in Marxism to refer to the characters in the novel. For example, the monster was created with different corpses without any individual identity, which symbolizes the union of the working class and alienation of them in the world of capitalism.
The author uses Marxism to critique Victor’s actions towards the monster. His pursuit of science and attempts to control life shows the infinite expansion of capitalism may lead to a new form of slavery, instead of liberation. Such actions may lead to disasters as is shown in the novel.

2025-10-24 08:39:41 UTC

In the text, the author is arguing that Frankenstein, as a combination of the proletariat, is oppressed and controlled by the capitalist class, which in the text, refers to the scientist Victor Frankenstein. Victor created the monster with a rather simple intention, to be the first person to do this and win power and fame. This represents the fact that capitalists act on the principle of serving their own interests. The monster created was ugly and repelled by the crowd. The society rejected him for his not being part of them, which is why the working class eliminate their personal differences to go with the flow, in order not to get alienated. However, the oppression also makes it an inevitable consequence for the proletariat to rise up and rebel. The authors focused on the conflict between the creators and the created from the perspective of Marxism, making the conflict a bigger problem of the industrial society.

2nn8f5btkb — 2025-10-24 08:40:03 UTC

In the text, Montag argues that Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein functions as an allegory of the rise of the industrial proletariat under early capitalism. Montag put the novel back in the historical context of post-revolutionary Europe, emphasizing how the “monster” embodies the exploited working class, which is artificially created, socially isolated, and denied humanity by the very system that depends on its labor. He highlights how the narrative suppresses direct representation of industrial production, omitting the process of the creature’s creation, just as capitalism obscures the labor behind its commodities. Additionally, Montag exposed the ideological contradictions of an era torn between scientific progress and social morality. In conclusion, Montag demonstrates that Frankenstein is not merely a figure from a story but a critical reflection of the class struggles and critique on capitalism.

2025-10-24 08:40:40 UTC

In the text, the author is arguing that the monster in Frankenstein is an artificial and assembled item of the industrial working class, created and then abandoned by the capitalist system. He shows that the monster, like the proletariat, is an artificial product of a system—in this case, Victor's science—rather than a natural being. Montag supports this by pointing out that the novel never describes how the monster is actually brought to life, which he sees as the text hiding the ugly reality of industrial production. Therefore, the real horror of the story is not the monster itself, but the exploitative social system that creates such "monsters."

2025-10-24 08:40:45 UTC

Montag analyzes Frankenstein through Marxism, linking it to 19th-century industrial capitalism. He views the monster, Victor, and new technology as signs of class struggle and capitalism’s self-destructive nature.

He argues the monster symbolizes the emerging working class: 19th-century workers, created by capitalist factories, were feared by the rich; the monster, Victor’s creation, was also hated by society. Montag uses the monster’s words to show it shared the poor workers’ poverty. He also connects Victor’s passion for science to capitalists’ pursuit of "progress"—both seemed good but caused harm, revealing capitalism’s flaw of creating wealth while bringing suffering.

In short, Montag’s reading shows Frankenstein is not just a horror novel, but a critique of industrial capitalism, with the monster as a strong symbol of the working class.

2025-10-24 08:40:57 UTC

In “The Workshop of Filthy Creation: A Marxist Reading of Frankenstein”, Montag argues that Frankenstein uses its characters and plot to show the flaws of early industrial capitalism. He frames Victor as a stand-in for capitalists: Victor locks himself away to make the monster, caring only about “success” not costs, just like how industrial production prioritized growth over workers. Victor refusing to explain how he made the monster is also like how capitalism hides the exploitation of workers.The monster, meanwhile, is like the working class: it’s made by Victor, but gets rejected and oppressed. Its anger is the frustration of wronged workers wanting to push back. So Frankenstein isn’t just a scary story—it’s a critique of the problems in the industrial society of its time.

2025-10-24 08:41:11 UTC

In this text, Montag is arguing that technology and industrialization do not construct a better world, but separate the society. According to Maxist theory, technology is invented by capitalists to oppress people and divide social classes. Drawing on this concept, Montag sees Frankenstein as a representation of the lower class in capital society. In the original story, Frankenstein is a production of technology. People is afraid of him, and thereby alienating him in the community. Montag argues that this story resonates the reality that lower class is discriminated and marginalized in the capital society.

498719963 — 2025-10-24 08:41:30 UTC

In the text, Montag is arguing that Frankenstein can be interpreted through a Marxist lens by connecting its characters and themes to 18th–19th century capitalist class conflicts. Montag identifies Victor Frankenstein as a representative for the bourgeoisie: Victor uses scientific knowledge to create the monster but abandons it, just like capitalists exploit the proletariat for labor then ignore their suffering and struggle. The monster then represents the proletariat—artificially "produced" by the ruling class, rejected, and driven to resist, which mirrors the workers’ struggle against oppression. He also points out that the novel contains deliberate omissions, such as the unmentioned process of creating the monster, and contradictions, such as sympathy for tyrants. These elements are all reflections of capitalism’s inherent flaws. Overall, Montag’s Marxist analysis shows how Frankenstein serves as a critique of capitalist society’s tensions between the ruling and working classes.

2025-10-24 08:41:35 UTC

Montag employs Marxist theory to interpret Frankenstein by situating the novel within the context of industrial capitalism. He views Victor Frankenstein as a stand - in for the bourgeoisie, who “creates” the monster much like the capitalist class produces the proletariat through industrialization. The monster, then, becomes a representation of the proletariat—created by, yet alienated and oppressed by, the ruling class. Montag highlights how the novel’s themes of creation, alienation, and conflict mirror the contradictions of capitalist society, where the working class, like the monster, is denied agency and connection, ultimately critiquing the exploitative nature of capitalist production relations.

2025-10-24 08:41:39 UTC

In this text, the author regards the working class as a monster and the capitalists as Frankenstein.The working class was created by capitalists; they are both terrifying and pitiful.The protagonist in the novel assumes the role of the creator but fails to shoulder the corresponding responsibilities. This precisely corresponds to the relationship between capitalists and the working class in reality. The uprising of the working class led to the harm of the capitalists, but the capitalists might never have imagined that it was their exploitation that forced the working class to become such a terrifying monster.Such an interpretation reflects Marx's thoughts on the contradiction between the working class and the capitalists.

2025-10-24 08:41:39 UTC

In the text, Montag is arguing that the working class is exploited by the bourgeoisie, just as Victor did with Frankenstein. Linking the French Revolution and the British Industrial Revolution, they led to the emergence of the working class and further intensified social contradictions. Among them, Frankenstein was artificial, representing the working class born out of labor needs, and its creator was the embodiment of the bourgeoisie.

2025-10-24 08:42:12 UTC

In the text Frankenstein, the author is arguing the alienation of labor under capitalism, turning human innovation into a source of both progress and destruction. Montag uses Marxist theory to interpret Frankenstein not just as a gothic tale, but as an allegory of industrial capitalism and class struggle. Victor Frankenstein represents the bourgeoise capitalist and for the creature is the working class. Their relationship mirrors the social relations between capital and labor. It dramatizes the fear of revolt, a kind of anxiety about social upheaval after the French Revolution. Overall, this novel shows that something about production, alienation and social equality at that time by using metaphor and symbolism.

2025-10-24 08:42:15 UTC

In the text, Montag is arguing that the invention of technology does not unit people but distances people in the society. The creature in Frankenstein is rejected by humans as proof of human isolation in the nineteenth century society. Montag uses this example to illustrate the idea of human self destroy.

2025-10-24 08:42:51 UTC

In the text, Montag uses Marxism to argue that Frankenstein reflects 18th-19th century capitalist contradictions, with the monster symbolizing the industrial proletariat. Grounded in historical materialism, he links the monster—Victor’s "creation"—to the proletariat, a product of capitalist production, noting the monster’s fear-evoking destruction and pitiful suffering mirror the ruling class’s conflicting attitude toward workers. He also sees the omitted creation process as a cover for capitalist exploitation. In short, this reading uncovers capitalism’s inherent dialectic in the novel: its development breeds its own threats.

2025-10-24 08:43:33 UTC

In the text, Warren Montag is arguing that Mary Shelley's Frankenstein powerfully dramatizes the exploitative class dynamics of a capitalist system. He positions Victor Frankenstein as the capitalist bourgeoisie, who owns the means of intellectual production and appropriates the labor of creation. In stark contrast, the Creature is rendered as the alienated proletariat—a being whose physical body is his only commodity and who is violently rejected by the society his creator represents. The Creature's initial desire for community and his subsequent turn to vengeful rebellion are, through this lens, the inevitable results of his systemic exploitation and dehumanization. Therefore, Montag concludes that the novel serves as a profound critique of the class struggle, where the oppressed creature's inevitable revolt mirrors the revolutionary potential of the proletariat.

charile0430evan — 2025-10-24 08:44:20 UTC

Montag argues that texts do not exist independently of their social context; therefore, when studying Frankenstein, he first analyzes the historical background of Shelley's era—the development of the Industrial Revolution. Drawing on Marxism, he contends that the monster is actually a product of the alienation of industrial production: the proletariat, composed of ordinary people whose labor has been expropriated by capital. Montag further posits that Shelley is not only condemning the alienation of capitalism; the monster's own struggles in the text also show that Shelley were speaking out on behalf of workers.

shiying03042022 — 2025-10-24 08:45:41 UTC

In the text, Warren Montag argues that “Frankenstein” is not about "scientists creating monsters", but about "capitalism creating a working class that it can't control and finally being backlashed. In his view, monsters are symbols of the working class at all. Monsters are "unnatural beings" spelled out by Victor, and the working class is also a new class "created" by industrial capitalism. These two things both are disliked by the creators and make people pitiful and afraid. Monsters will say that they are lonely and painful like workers being oppressed, but they will also kill people like violence when workers resist, which makes the rulers afraid. In short, the author use monster, Victor, and "progress" to expose how capitalism creates, alienates, and fears the very class that will ultimately challenge it.

2025-10-24 08:45:50 UTC

Montag believes that the novel is inevitable influenced by the historical context, the French Revolution. The creature, the monster is like the political movement which indented to illustrate justice and reason ended with unreason. The creature was kind and longing for the recognition of people. However, after being hurt mentally and physically again and again, the creature seems to lose sanity eventually, just like the Revolution.

2025-10-24 08:46:16 UTC

In this text , the author Warren Montag argues that Frankenstein shows 19th century capitalist contradictions.Victor’s monster stands for exploited industrial workers, and the novel’s omitted monster-creation process hides capitalist exploitation. Montag calls the monster a fabricated collective being.Victor made it like capitalism makes workers, and the monster’s line “I possessed no money, no friends, no kind of property” mirrors workers’ poverty. He also says the missing creation process covers up how capitalism exploits people. In the end, Montag shows Frankenstein isn’t just about bad scientific ambition, but criticizes capitalism dehumanizing its labor force.

2025-10-24 08:47:12 UTC

In the text, Montag portrays Frankenstein as a material embodiment of early industrial capitalism’s contradictions, with the monster representing the emergent working class. The novel hides how the monster was made, just as capitalism hides the labor process. The monster calls himself a "vagabond and a slave" forced to work for the benefit of a few. This reading criticizes Enlightenment ideas of progress while showing the dangers and possibilities of the working class. Montag argues the novel doesn't just reflect class conflict.

2025-10-24 08:50:04 UTC

In the text, the author is arguing that the novel is a critique of the class relations under early capitalism. He supports this by portraying Frankenstein as a capitalistic figure who owns the means of production and the Creature as the exploited proletariat. For example, Victor's isolated laboratory is like a factory, and the Creature's demand for a companion is a demand for social recognition and the ability to form a community, which the capitalist system denies him.

It is not as a timeless myth about individual ambition, but as a profound critique of the social and economic relations of early industrial capitalism.

2025-10-24 08:53:37 UTC

In the text “The Workshop of Filthy Creation”: A Marxist Reading of Frankenstein, Warren Montag is depicting that Mary Shelley's Frankenstein embodies the emergent industrial proletariat, revealing the inherent contradictions and social horrors of capitalism. Montag points to the phrase “workshop of filthy creation” as a collision of theological and industrial discourse, exposing the tension between idealized progress and its “hideous progeny.” Overall, Montag uses Marxist criticism to demonstrate that Frankenstein does not simply reflect the social anxieties but structurally show the class conflicts and the repression characteristic of early industrial capitalism.

2025-10-24 08:53:54 UTC

In the context, Montag argues that the monster is not the opposite of people, but beings created by the bourgeoisie but denied. The monster has no identity and social status, and its ugliness is a projection of the bourgeoisie's fear and disgust for the working class. In general, monsters are the product of bourgeois abandonment.

2025-10-24 08:54:02 UTC

In the text, Montag is arguing that monster in Mary Shelley’ s Frankenstein serves as the metaphor of proletariat in the history of industrial revolution. For example, Montag notes that both of them are “artificial constructs”—the monster is Victor’s scientific creation, the proletariat a product of capitalist systems that turned workers into collective labor, robbing them of traditional identities. In addition, Montag uses the monster’s words: “I possessed no money, no friends, no kind of property… Was I then a monster”, echoing the proletariat’s poverty and exclusion. This metaphor lets Montag show Frankenstein critiques capitalism creating its “destructive other” in the proletariat, linking the novel to 19th-century class conflict.

2025-10-24 08:54:48 UTC

In the text “The Workshop of Filthy Creation: A Marxist Reading of Frankenstein”, Montag argues that the story of Frankenstein is a critique of capitalism. Victor Frankenstein takes things from others to build his Creature for his own goals, without caring about the consequences. This is just like a capitalist who uses workers to make money. The Creature is like a worker: he is made to be useful but then he is abandoned. This shows the unfair relationship between the capitalist and workers. So Montag uses Marxism to show the conflict of capitalist system.

2025-10-24 08:56:01 UTC

In the text, the author is arguing that the story of Frankenstein serves as a powerful critique of the social conditions during the early Industrial Revolution. He portrays the Monster as a representation of the industrial working class - an artificial creation that is both powerful and terrifying to the established social order. For example, the Monster describes himself as an outcast without property or social standing, doomed to serve the interests of others. Moreover, the book never explains how the Monster was really made, just like people at that time didn't fully understand the new machines and factories. Thus, Montag uses Marxism to reveal the fundamental conflicts between the capitalist class and the proletariat it brought into being.

2025-10-24 12:31:26 UTC

In a Marxist reading, Montag interprets Frankenstein as an allegory of class struggle. Victor is like a rich factory owner with all the power. The monster is like a poor worker with no rights. When the monster isn't allowed to learn or have friends, it's like workers being treated unfairly. So when the monster fights back, it's like workers rebelling against their boss. Thus, the novel reveals how social inequality inevitably leads to conflict between the powerful and the powerless.

hwei81316 — 2025-10-24 12:37:32 UTC

In the text, Warren Montag is arguing that historical background of industrial capitalism in the early 19th century, reflecting the class struggle and economic transformation of that era, especially the industrial working class as capital.The rise of the great power created by the progress of ideology. Montag supported this by linking monsters with the proletariat, which he described as an artificial, gathered existence that was both sympathetic and frightening, just like the bourgeoisie's view of the emerging working class during the Industrial Revolution. Therefore, Montag's Marxist interpretation reveals that Frankenstein is a critical exploration of the social and economic confrontation at that time, not just a supernatural story.

2025-10-24 12:38:40 UTC

In the text, Warren Montag reads Frankenstein as a story that is secretly about the birth of the industrial working class,the proletariat, in the early 19th century.The Monster is the Working Class. The creature is like the new industrial workers. It is artificial, built from parts, and abandoned by its creator, Dr.Frankenstein, just as workers were used and then ignored by the factory owners.In short, for Montag, the real monster in the story isn't the creature, but the cruel new economic system of capitalism. The novel reveals a deep fear of the new, powerful, and mistreated working class.