SOURCE: “Frankenstein's Hidden Skeleton: The Psycho-Politics of Oppression,” in Science-Fiction Studies, Vol. 10, No. 30, July, 1983, pp. 125-35.

In the following essay, Vlasopolos suggests that despite some awkwardness of style and plot improbabilities Frankenstein is a coherent novel because of the conflict it presents between accepted socio-political forces and the private struggle of a man who views himself as driven to incest.

Renewed interest in Frankenstein suggests that the novel possesses a covert structure which, despite some critics' charges of awkwardness of style and improbabilities of plot, gives the novel a coherence that has been felt by generations of fascinated readers.¹ The hidden logic of Frankenstein rests on Mary Shelley's fusion of the socio-political forces used to ensure the survival of the aristocracy with the private drama of a man who sees himself as ineluctably driven to incest. Class selection, namely the survival of the upper class and its...