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conclude that words like “man” used to be discussed in terms of external
rather than internal qualities. Therefore, the most one can conclude is
that, in general in the nineteenth century, “inhuman” was used alongside
other abstract adjectives, but whatever nouns the word is being used to
describe now are thought of in more concrete and physical terms.
This raises the question of which nouns were collocates of “inhuman”
in the twentieth century. The top four noun collocates on COHA are
“treatment,” “body,” “things,” and “sound.” Most of these words are
concrete, and all can be described as physical. They have all declined
in use since the nineteenth century. One may surmise, then, based on
these results and those above, that there has been a general change in
human thought in the twentieth century, one that favors the concrete
and physical over the abstract and internal. Frankenstein itself, as a novel,
while containing many descriptions of the physical body, is not as visual
and graphic as its later adaptations will be. Without a doubt, the cinema
has played directly into the human fascination with the visual, and it
must have some effect on our thoughts. If we do conceive of things in
more concrete and physical terms, then it should affect our language as
much as any other aspect of our culture.
The twentieth century is notably more concerned with the physical
function of the body than even aesthetics, let alone supposedly “less
shallow” aspects of human personality. Bouriana Zakharieva involves
her criticism with most of the canonical depictions of Frankenstein in
film. She notes that “what in the novel is allotted a mere paragraph with
no details of the actual process, only a description of the result, i.e., the
appearance of the creature, becomes in the films an elaborate, highly
visualized scene of creation” (417). Both Whale and Branagh place the
creation of the monster at their film’s visual center. In the films, the focus
shifts away from the psychological aspects of creation upon which Shelley
spends the first act of the novel elaborating. We will table these concerns
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for the time being in order to innumerate those psychological aspects
present in the original work, while keeping in mind the corpus data above
as a basis for discussion.
The Novel
A key scene from the novel illustrates the linguistic and metaphysical
problems of textual binaries. In a conversation between Walton and
Victor Frankenstein, which occurs early in the novel, Frankenstein states
that:
[W]e are unfashioned creatures, but half made up, if one wiser,
better, dearer than ourselves—such a friend ought to be—do
not lend his aid to perfectionate our weak and faulty natures. I
once had a friend, the most noble of human creatures, and am
entitled, therefore, to judge respecting friendship. (38)
Of the many linguistically opposed complications that stand out in this
passage, the close binarism of “human creature” is the most striking.
This is a troubling connection because a great deal of the novel hinges
on the idea that the difference between humanity and inhumanity are
a matter of perspective. When the creature finally reveals himself to De
Lacey, he is not perceived as a monster (in fact, he is not perceived at all
by the blind man). However, as perceived by the rest of the De Lacey
family, he is a monster; he is abhorred because of his hideous form (121).
This issue only reflects the ultimate proclamation by his own maker, Dr.
Frankenstein, who flees from the sight of his hideous creation. Therefore,
the monster possesses both humanity and inhumanity. Both of these
concepts are manifested physically to the De Laceys, but they cannot see
his humanity, the chief internal characteristic of compassion, which the
monster shows he is capable of expressing (by gathering firewood for the
De Laceys, or when he later saves the young girl from drowning), because
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