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dangers of unregulated science and technology (its subtitle is
The modern
Prometheus
), her story of Victor Frankenstein's 'monstrous' creation can also
be understood as a reflection on the limitations and exclusions built in to
prevailing social conventions. One of the topic's most subversive ideas is
that Frankenstein's progeny is not
born
a monster but
ascribed
this status
by those around him. He becomes monstrous because of the way sup-
posedly 'civilised' humans treat him rather than because of his singular
biology. He's denied the possibility of ever being deemed by people to
be 'rational' and 'cultured' because his origins and appearance are con-
sidered far too 'abnormal' by a family he seeks to befriend. Tragically,
the murder he eventually commits is interpreted as positive proof of his
intrinsic monstrosity rather than a result of his social stigmatisation and
the psychological harm it inflicts on him. Shelley's monster thus acts as
a critical mirror: he asks his makers, 'Can you love and treat kindly a
being as ugly as me, as uncertain in his status as a “person” as me?' (Mor-
ton, 2010: 112). Almost two centuries later, and the term 'Frankenfoods'
has been routinely used by critics of genetically modified crops. As with
misreadings of Shelley's book, this moniker implies that a Maginot Line
should be maintained between 'nature' and 'society'. Any mixing of the
two, in this case by utilising recombinant DNA technology, is said by
some to be wrong or undesirable for a range of practical, moral or aesthetic
reasons.
Of course, boundary-transgressing entities, be they human or otherwise,
do not always attract criticism or revulsion. Many people look favourably
upon genetically modified organisms, and see them as being no different in
kind to the sort of crossbred plants and animals that societies have utilised
for centuries - they are no more (or less) 'unnatural'. The same could be said
of artificial life forms, which will no doubt be commonplace by the end of
this century. Gay and bisexual individuals present a rather different case.
Many have defended their right to depart from the man-woman model of
'normal sex', in part by challenging the conventional idea that sexual pref-
Similarly, some members of the transgender and transsexual communities
have contested the normative demands imposed by the expectation that
'male' and 'female' are discrete gender identities never to be blended or
confused.
Then there's the extraordinarily complex notion of what it is to be
'human'. I placed this term on the right side of
Figure 1.5
but, in truth,
it is often used in ways that are far less clear-cut. Since most of us consider
our biology to be a key part of what makes us what we are, and because this
biology is widely acknowledged to be the product of a slow and astound-
ingly complex process of species engagement with a wider environment, our
'humanity' cannot simply reside in our capacity to, as it were, 'escape' the
left-hand side of
Figure 1.5 a
nd inhabit the other side.
