Otherness In Frankenstein

The concept of “otherness” is a common idea throughout the world that describes how majority and minority identities are created. It is the “quality of being different or unusual” (“Otherness”). “Others”, during the early abolitionist period, were those that did not meet the European norm: white, male, and Christian. Members of the “others” were most often marginalized people, mainly those of a different race and gender. This concept of “otherness” and “others” prevented people of a different race or gender from being truly accepted into society with full rights and privileges. During this time period, “otherness” was utilized in numerous anti-slavery and anti-racism literatures. With some of the most famous poems and books in history, Mary

Shelley, Hannah More, and Ann Yearsley wrote about the separation between “normal” people and the “others”. The three writers use the idea of “otherness” to criticize the divide that dominant groups create in order to control marginalized people, demonstrate how the racial “other” is a human construct, and promote equality.
Shelley’s Frankenstein describes Victor Frankenstein’s journey as he creates the monster and his ultimate realization that it is entirely different from human. She tells of Frankenstein’s obsession to create life out of nothing. After his successful attempts to bring life to an animal, he becomes excited at the prospects of potentially giving life to a perfect human being. Frankenstein aspires to make a “being like myself” or something “as wonderful as man” (Shelley 32). Here, it is evident what he considers to be the perfect human being or the norm. Frankenstein aspires to create a being that is male, white, and educated, an ideal that is impossible for women and black people to achieve. From scavenged body parts, Frankenstein is able to finally create his being. However, on the “dreary night of November”, he sees “the dull yellow eye of the creature open…” (34-35). Already, the being that Frankenstein creates is seen as an “other”. Instead of referring to him as a “child” or simply a human being, he calls his creation a “creature”, a “catastrophe”, and a “wretch” (32, 35). He is far from the Frankenstein’s or, more broadly, European standards for normalcy. Frankenstein, expecting a creation with beautiful features and proportionate limbs, was surprised, seeing “his yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath” and “his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shriveled complexion and straight black lips” (35). Disgusted and horrified, Frankenstein runs away from his creation, perpetuating his “otherness”.
As the monster learns of his own appearance and attempts to assimilate, it becomes evident that inferiority and the racial “otherness” is a human construct. When the Victor Frankenstein flees, the monster is forced to discern life on his own, eventually learning that he is not only loathed by his creator, but also by everyone else. He tries to obtain food from a local village, but before he can even step foot into a hut “children shrieked, and one of the women fainted. The whole village was roused; some fled, some attacked me, until, grievously bruised by stones…I escaped…” (74). Both his creator and society reject him. He seeks comfort in watching a family from afar. He enjoys watching the family, Agatha and Felix, eventually regarding them as “superior beings” (81). He admired their “grace, beauty, and delicate complexions, but how was I terrified” when he saw his own reflection in a pool (80). With no knowledge of how he was born or how to live life, the monster was forced to learn how to survive on his own. With constant rejection, he eventually understands that he is inferior, especially to Agatha and Felix, because of his appearance. Had people, especially Victor, exercised tolerance and acceptance, perhaps the monster could have learned something different. Mary Shelley gives her audience the “other’s”, in this case the monster’s, perspective when he tells his journey to his creator. With Frankenstein, Shelley provides the “others” of the world with a voice.
By allowing readers to experience the marginalized perspective, Shelley presents readers with an opportunity to understand how “otherness” operates and the consequences of this discrimination. Critic, Elizabeth Young, discusses the negative effects that this separation has on both Frankenstein, and more broadly, American reality. She relates the rebellious nature of the monster against Victor Frankenstein to that of the African American, Nat Turner, who, along with a dozen other people, murdered his master and an estimated sixty other white people in Southampton County, Virginia (Young 19). Young continues, stating, “Shelley’s Frankenstein offers an oblique account of white anxiety in the face of slave rebellion…Shelley presents a white protagonist who is haunted an undone by the rebellious monster whom he has created” (21). Young’s argument is useful because it sheds insight on the problem of “otherness”, demonstrating the lengths that people, both in fiction and reality, will go to achieve equality. Both Young and Shelley illustrate that the frustrations and rebellious acts can be solved, or perhaps prevented, if people practiced tolerance.
Similar to Shelley’s Frankenstein, Ann Yearsley’s poem “A Poem on the Inhumanity of the Slave Trade” describes a world in which racial “otherness” affects the main character.

The poem describes the cruelty of slavery through a character’s, Luco’s, experience. Throughout the poem, she portrays religious hypocrisy of the slave traders who claim they are Christian when the practice slavery. The poem, from the beginning, exemplifies the idea of “otherness”. Within the first lines, Yearsley states, “…Hence / ye grov’ling souls, who think the term I give, / Of Christian slave, a paradox! to you / I do not turn, but leave you to conception…” (Yearsley ll. 3-6). She quickly establishes a difference between the hypocritical slave owners/ traders and their innocent slaves. However, instead of highlighting the idea that the slaves are the “other”, she paints the Christian slave owners as “others.” Throughout the poem, Yearsley does not even give these slave owners names; they are referred to as “them” or “they” (ll. 270, 272, 291). Most often, the ones depicted as savages or beasts were the slaves, but she attempts to overturn this beastly trope. Instead, Yearsley refers to them as “Gorgon”, which was a monstrous snake in Greek mythology, “brutes”, and “a vile race of Christians” (ll. 253, 352, 349). To emphasize the slave owners’ brutish and savage nature, she further demonstrates the idea of the racial “Other” with the introduction of Luco, a boy that was taken from his home and forced into

slavery.
As Yearsley’s poem continues, the concept of “otherness” is especially apparent when Luco’s master whips his face, blinding him. As a result, Luco kills his master with a garden hoe (ll. 255-261). Because the two were not equals, Luco was not given any type of fair trial. These slave owners were “conscious that to fear alone / They owe their cruel pow’r…” (ll. 269-270). Instead, they condemned Luco to a slow painful death. In order to maintain their powerful positions, they needed to demonstrate that this slave was a wild savage that had to be controlled, so they chain Luco to a tree and burn him alive. This act coupled with the pronoun “they” creates a clear distinction between the Luco and the rest of the slaves and the slave owners. Yearsley exposes the hypocrisy of these Christian slave owners, hoping that her readers will see the falseness of it too. In her poem, she not only encourages her audience to question these Christian slave owners, but she also urges her readers to believe in equality, especially when she discusses the soul.
In her poem, Yearsley mentions the soul in order to illustrate that the distinction between the slave owners and the “others” is learned. She makes a clear difference between “a soul like Luco’s” and “souls like yours”, “ye hypocrites…” (ll. 304, 319, 317). Yearsley suggests that before souls grow to become Luco’s or the slave owners, they all begin as equals. They are clear of experience, emotion, and flaws. However, they can be steered in either good or an evil direction, therefore, any brutality of a culture is evidence of an improperly-steered upbringing (Britten “Ann Yearsley’s…”). Because these are inherently equal, the concept of an “other” is learned through some form of incorrect rearing. She calls for the “true soul of order” to “Spread thy silken wings / o’er drowsy man, breath in his soul, and give / Her God-like pow’rs thy animating force, / To banish Inhumanity” (ll. 389, 393-396 ). She further emphasizes equality, hoping that the true soul will “… loose / The fetters of his mind” and “enlarge his views” (ll. 396-397). Through the idea that souls are all equal, Yearsley encourages her audience to look beyond people’s appearances, creating any type of racial “other”, and instead, understand that we all have the ability to exercise decency and integrity.
Much like Shelley’s Frankenstein and Yearsley’s “A Poem on the Inhumanity of the Slave Trade”, Hannah More’s poem, “The Sorrows of Yamba” paints the person different from the European norm as a racial “other”. However, More’s poem also portrays her main character as a religious “other”. In this poem, a woman, Yamba, is kidnapped from her home on “Afric’s Golden Coast” and forced into slavery (More l. 13). Almost immediately, she views herself as inferior to the white man that captured her, naming herself “the wretched Yamba” (l. 28). She longs to die before she meets an English missionary. The missionary treats her as a religious “other” that needs proper religious teaching because she comes from a different land and does not know what the Bible is (l. 83). Yamba accepts this missionary and his stories about God and Jesus. She allows the missionary to “purify / as no outward water can” (ll. 139-140). Author, Andrew Elfenbein, writes:
“For…slaves, the masterplot of purification…is correlative of conversion. From the point of view of the dominant culture…admitting the possibility of change in conversion would involve admitting the possibility of otherness…” (85).
With this passage, it can be suggested that the missionary viewed Yamaba, a slave, as one that needed purification and conversion. Seeing her want to kill herself, the missionary concluded that she needed to join the dominant religion of the time and be purified. After much hearing about Jesus’ and God’s suffering, she forgives her master and calls herself a convert: “…A convert rare / Thanks her God for Grace divine” (ll. 129-130). In calling herself a convert, Yamba admits “otherness”, that she was an “other” that needed to be converted to a purified form. With this conversion supplemented by her conversion into slavery, it is apparent that Yamba learned her racial and religious “otherness”.
In describing Yamba’s conversion into slavery and the Christian religion, More describes how Yamba was taught racial and religious inferiority. Yamba first learns of her “otherness” when she is placed on the slave ship. Because she does not look like the “Whity man”, she and the other people are treated like animals (l. 17). Like animals, they do not wear clothes and are “naked on the platform lying” (l. 33). Yamba even uses animal phrases when discussing anything related to herself or the other slaves. They are forced to “prance” and “Smack the Cat about the Deck” (ll. 38, 39). On the ship, they have “nauseous horse-beans they bring nigh” (l. 41). If this beastly treatment was not sufficient enough to make her feel like an “other”, Yamba was then forced to undergo cruel punishments and conditions, where her back was whipped and her food was “bad and stinted” (ll. 63-64). Furthermore, Yamba was taught the new Christian religion with the introduction of the missionary, inherently learning of her religious “otherness”. Upon meeting the missionary, Yamba realizes the sins of her life prior to her slavery and conversion. She was awakened to her former “otherness”, noting her sins that had previously gone unnoticed: “Wicked deed full many a time / Sinful Yamba too hath done” (ll. 109-110). Again, she refers to herself as “a convert rare” that is “baptiz’d” (ll. 129, 137). Yamba especially recognizes her old religious “otherness” when she states, “All my former thoughts abhorr’d / Teach me now to pray and praise” (ll. 141-142). After learning of Jesus and Christianity, she seems to almost detest her “former thoughts” and would rather exhchange them for prayer and the Biblical word. Through Yamba, More allows her readers to relate to another, albeit converted, Christian who is a racial “other”. She makes it easy for them to relate to Yamba as a Christian and wants them to go one step further and espouseYamba’s experiences as their own, in order to promote equality.
Although Frankenstein, “A Poem of the Inhumanity of the Slave Trade”, and “The Sorrows of Yamba” tell different tales, together they were to share the same mission: to expose the “otherness” that divides people into dominant and inferior groups and encourage equality for everyone. During this time, discrimination towards anyone labeled as “other”, typically marginalized groups like black people or women, created a prevalent divide throughout Europe and the world. In order to combat this division and discrimination, Shelley, Yearsley, and More used the literary word to encourage readers to reassess the dominant ideologies. Shelley’s text illustrates that appearances are out of a person’s control and that tolerance, not “otherness”, is key in preventing violence. Meanwhile, Yearsley and More utilized slave narratives to show that, despite being racial “others”, slaves are also people with feelings and thoughts. They also demonstrated that, regardless of race, everyone is equal intrinsically. Together, Shelley, Yearsley, and More worked diligently to change the world one poem and book at a time. As women that encouraged the unpopular opinion through their literary word, these three authors truly represent revolutionary writers.