Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Victor's Vision - Ultimate Colonialism

While reading about Post-Colonial theory, I began to wonder if we might interpret Victor as the Ultimate Colonialist. Rather than having to resort to “cultural obliteration [that is] made possible by the negation of a national reality, by new legal relations introduced by the occupying power, by the banishment of the natives and their customs” (Fanon, 1440), etc., Victor plans to create a new race with no culture to speak of. A tabula rasa to be molded and controlled from the ground up. Consider: “A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me. No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs” (Shelley, 32). Of course this all goes wrong, as we know, but we might say that Victor is driven by an extraordinarily strong and yet suppressed colonial drive.

Dan

1 comment:

  1. I wanted to "like" this post as if I was on Facebook. I think this is a very interesting theory and am inclined to agree with this angle that you take to the creation.

    ReplyDelete