“As I fixed my eyes on the child, I saw something glittering on his breast. I took it; it was a portrait of a most lovely woman. In spite of my malignity, it softened and attracted me. For a few moments I gazed with delight on her dark eyes, fringed by deep lashes, and her lovely lips; but presently my rage returned: I remembered that I was for ever deprived of the delights that such beautiful creatures could bestow; and that she whose resemblance I contemplated would, in regarding me, have changed that air of divine benignity to one expressive of disgust and affright.
Can you wonder that such thoughts transported me with rage? I only wonder that at that moment, instead of venting my sensations in exclamations and agony, I did not rush among mankind, and perish in the attempt to destroy them” (Mary Shelley: Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus. Zweitfassung, Chapter XVI, das man hier vollständig lesen sollte).
Und jetzt der Blickwechsel, das Monster aus der Sicht der Frau:
“Her first awareness of him is a presence. Unseen. A Stench. It comes around the corner before him, preceeding his physical entrance in a sickening downdraft that washes over her and she recoils from the smell which is a combination of rank body odor and sewage and sulfurous stink of rotten food, and it assails her nostrils with the foulness of evil. Then seeing him she flinches again, fighting to regain her composure, resolutely, politely, trained to serve the public, a smile fixing itself to her mouth as he approaches the counter in his awful, stinking swirl of poisonous air” (Rex Miller: Slob, 1989, Prologue, zit. nach der Ausgabe bei e-reads, New York 2004, S. 1).
Noch ein Blickwechsel:
“He thinks how easily he could have killed the aloof woman behind the counter. How pleasant it would have been to sink a sharp object into her throat, ripping down across the breasts and then the abdomen and then gutting her and taking the parts he liked best. And the thought of this fills his head with a scarlet roar” (ebd., S. 1 f.).
Jetzt komm’ mir bloß keiner mit ‘philologischem Feinsinn’: Schon der erste Chaingang-Roman Millers ist eine Fortsetzungsgeschichte; unsere Monster sind prinzipiell unsterblich und passen sich neuen Umgebungen an, ohne ihre Herkunft verleugnen zu müssen. Das Interesse Millers ist mitnichten auf die “pure Monstrosität” gerichtet, er interessiert sich sehr wohl für deren “Genese” (ebd.). Die Verkäuferin, die ihre Reaktion auf das Monströse im Griff hat, bleibt verschont, weil sie — “trained to serve the public” — auf das Begehren des Monsters anders als mit den Zeichen unwillkürlichen Abscheus antwortet.
Nachtrag:
“What Mary described as her “hideous progeny” was to have a richly diverse afterlife. Its appropriation and adaptation began early. Richard Brinsley Peake’s play Presumption; or, the Fate of Frankenstein appeared in 1823, and was rapidly followed by popular burlesques such as Humgumption; or, Dr. Frankenstein and the Hobgoblin of Hoxton. It continues to have an international, cross-generic appeal for writers of political satire, musical comedy, and even children’s fiction (Frankenstein’s Cat, 2001: “You’ve heard of Doctor Frankenstein and his monster? Well the monster wasn’t the doctor’s first experiment – there was another”). Since 1910 there have been more than 400 cinematic adaptations and reimaginings of the Frankenstein story. Fictional appropriations such as Peter Ackroyd’s The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein (2008) testify to continuing fascination with both Shelley’s novel and the events surrounding its genesis. In addition, academic, literary-critical preoccupation with Frankenstein thrives, with new monographs, essays and articles joining an already extensive bibliography every year” (
Verwandte Artikel: