Frankenstein’s monster symbolizes racial alterity through yellow skin coding

Evidence

Frankenstein’s monster is described as a “savage” who, during his exile, inhabits a far-away land north of the “wilds of Tartary and Russia.” His grotesque, yellow pallor is contrasted with Victor’s normal white skin tone. The monster’s skin color and hair are repeatedly compared to normal (white) humans. From the beginning, race helps to organize the narrative: the monster’s “first lessons include an ordering of the world at once racist, imperialist, and sexist—an oppositional structure ironically reinforced by his own exile away from the company of man.” Frankenstein’s monster is a symbol of racial alterity. Mary was influenced by her exposure to narratives about Africa and the West Indies. According to her journal, Mary read the first two volumes of Mungo Park’s study of West Africa and in 1816, the year Frankenstein was penned, Mary and Percy read the third volume of this study. — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 465

Categorization

Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims

• SEED: Article angle: race as the organizing structure of the very first science-fiction monster — how monster-making and racial othering are one and the same narrative move.
• XREF: Supports the reader’s ‘what does the monster let its makers avoid seeing about themselves’ question — the exile and alterity the monster suffers mirrors the imperialist order of his creators.
• DEFINE: Defines the monster as a ‘symbol of racial alterity,’ a precise analytical category useful to the reader’s taxonomy.

Related

• Shelley gave Frankenstein’s monster skin color that racializes its monstrosity against whiteness (similarity 0.94)
• Frankenstein’s monster is coded as both Oriental and African from its inception (similarity 0.84)
• Frankenstein’s monster conflates Othello and Orientalist racial anxieties. (similarity 0.82)
• Skin color is the primary organ representing monstrosity across Western monster figures (similarity 0.80)