Frankenstein’s monster conflates Othello and Orientalist racial anxieties.

Evidence

The monster kills several humans, including Dr. Frankenstein’s younger brother. But in his murder of the doctor’s bride, Elizabeth, one finds an uncanny resemblance to another monster—Othello. This may be a double inspiration for Frankenstein’s monster, who is described as both a mummy (Oriental) and an African throughout the book. In the 1818 edition, “the sharp contrast between the hazel-eyed, auburn-haired, high browed, fragile white woman and the dark monster” is evident, and in the 1831 edition, it is even more so, as this passage suggests: “Her hair was the brightest living gold… her brow was clear and ample, her blue eyes cloudless… none could behold her without looking on her as a distinct species, a being heaven-sent, and bearing a celestial stamp in all her features.” — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 466

Categorization

• XREF: Links to the reader’s ongoing study of the manufactured Muslim monster archetype—this is a Gothic-culture manifestation of the same figure seen in medieval tales and theology, showing continuity of the Oriental-male-as-rapist/racial-threat trope.
• QUESTION: This suggests Frankenstein’s creature as an early racialized literary figure—worth chasing whether literary critics before this author read the monster as Muslim-coded or just generically Oriental.