Frankenstein’s emancipatory vision stays trapped in the master-slave mirror

Evidence

When, however, it comes to the colonial subject’s prehistory, Shelley’s political imagination fails. Her emancipatory vision cannot extend beyond the speculary situation of the colonial enterprise, where the master alone has a history, master and subject locked up in the cracked mirror of the present, and the subject’s future, although indefinite, is vectored specifically toward and away from the master. — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader, 2222

Categorization

• XREF: Ties to her Can the Subaltern Speak essay’s critique of specular models and to the master-slave dialectic she reads against. — connects to: Master-narratives persist unconsciously rather than disappearing outright — Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on…, 43; Oppression alienates the subordinate into viewing herself through the master’s eyes — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 674; Frankenstein’s monster symbolizes racial alterity through yellow skin coding

Broader Connections

• Oppression alienates the subordinate into viewing herself through the master’s eyes #corroborates (0.82) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 674
• Master-narratives persist unconsciously rather than disappearing outright #complicates (0.80) — Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, 43
• Frankenstein’s monster symbolizes racial alterity through yellow skin coding #expands (0.78)