Black Frankenstein The Making of an American Metaphor / Elizabeth Young.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Young, Elizabeth, 1964-

Series:

America and the long 19th century.

America and the long 19th century

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Frankenstein, Victor (Fictitious character).

Frankenstein, Victor (Fictitious character)--Political aspects.

Frankenstein's Monster (Fictitious character)--In literature.

Frankenstein's Monster.

Race relations in literature.

Race in literature.

Monsters in motion pictures.

Monsters in literature.

Metaphor in literature.

Literature.

American literature--White authors.

American literature--African American authors.

African Americans in literature.

American literature--White authors--History and criticism.

American literature.

American literature--African American authors--History and criticism.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (321 p.)

Manufacture:

Baltimore, Md. : Project MUSE, 2021

Place of Publication:

New York : New York Univ. Press, 2008.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

For all the scholarship devoted to Mary Shelley's English novel Frankenstein, there has been surprisingly little attention paid to its role in American culture, and virtually none to its racial resonances in the United States. In Black Frankenstein, Elizabeth Young identifies and interprets the figure of a black American Frankenstein monster as it appears with surprising frequency throughout nineteenth- and twentieth-century U.S. culture, in fiction, film, essays, oratory, painting, and other media, and in works by both whites and African Americans.Black Frankenstein stories, Young argues, effect four kinds of racial critique: they humanize the slave; they explain, if not justify, black violence; they condemn the slaveowner; and they expose the instability of white power. The black Frankenstein's monster has served as a powerful metaphor for reinforcing racial hierarchy—and as an even more powerful metaphor for shaping anti-racist critique. Illuminating the power of parody and reappropriation, Black Frankenstein tells the story of a metaphor that continues to matter to literature, culture, aesthetics, and politics.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1 United States of Frankenstein

2 Black Monsters, Dead Metaphors

3 The Signifying Monster

4 Souls on Ice

Afterword

Notes

Index

About the Author

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-4798-0960-8

OCLC:

911629373