Fighting Against the Death of the Subject

Jameson writes in Postmodernism and Consumer Society that "there is another sense in which the writers and artists of the present day will no longer be able to invent new styles and worlds--they've already been invented" (1851). To apply this postmodern text to Shelley's Frankenstein, one cannot help but notice that two of the novel's prominent characters have forged a rather "pastiche" existence: Walton, the ship captain who is searching for a passage through the arctic some 200 years after earlier explorers found that no such passage exists, and Victor, who is pursuing the "elixir of life" long after science deemed it to be nothing more than myth.

I don't wish to argue however that these characters have conceded the death of the subject, and are thus undertaking there own pastiche projects just as Jameson writes Roman Polanski turned to the past to create Chinatown. Instead, I believe Walton and Victor are natural 'partners' because of their shared belief in the subject: they are unwilling to abandon their faith in the "unique individual."

Walton and Victor share the same "lack of keeping" that drives them deeper into their endeavors with an undeniable passion. It is a distinctly pre-corporate "ardour" that these two men suffer from; an ailment, perhaps, not suited for the world of "bureaucracies" that Jameson speaks of. Their quest to save the subject drives them literally, as we've said in several different weeks now, to the margins of humanity.

This thought project has left me with several questions:
1) By picking up texts from the past--In Walton's case, old books of voyages, and Victor's antiquated alchemy books--are the characters pursuing pastiche projects that actually confirm the death of the subject? In other words, they seek novel innovations, a passage through the arctic and the secret to human animation, but by picking up an abandoned past are they really doing anything 'new' to validate the subject? (Seems like a question Greenblatt would enjoy)

2) Are these characters reacting to a world that fell out of love with the subject long before Jameson proclaimed its death? This week's readings have made our relation to the author and his or her intent more ambivalent than in previous weeks when it was completely forbidden, so I'll ask another question: did Mary Shelley foresee the death of the subject in the increasingly corporate environment of industrial age? If so, what do the pursuits of Walton and Victor ultimately say about the subject?