Abstract

They are artificial human analogues; uncanny mirrors of humanity that mortals construct and bring to life for their own capricious purposes. Once they get off their creators' desks and gain minds of their own, however, there is little hope of controlling or destroying them. It is rather surprising that Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus has not repeatedly been interpreted as an allegory of fictional characters.As this article will discuss, numerous literary theorists have foregrounded the paradoxical mimetic and artificial qualities of fictional characters, and the concurrent humanity and nonhumanity of Frankenstein's creation is even more difficult to ignore. Yet, never before have...