Within the walls of the circular lecture room, the subject lied within the confines of another chamber in her mother’s body, immobile and still but aware. The limbs of her outer layer, her mother, were bound to the table, impeding them from achieving freedom. The heat of the intimidating eye of the lamp hovering above burned through her outer layer and reached her being. This was her first encounter with the infernal conditions of the outside world the conditions of her mother’s body had prevented her from integrating to.
She felt a tremor, more violent than those her mother had produced since being placed on the cold, hard surface. This quaking was accompanied by the sound of voices from the most pits of Hell that streamed into the chamber and flooded the chamber with their unholy cantor and creaking of their chairs. But the greatest disturbance came after the loud close of the chamber doors, as a slow set of steps grew louder as they paced up and down the length of her creator’s body.
“As I, Waldman, have said before, only us men of science can penetrate the recesses of nature and replicate its miracles for the good of all. Because of our knowledge, it becomes our burden to correct the deficiencies and mistakes made by the lesser bodies of this society. This woman’s body has failed to give life to her offspring and, consequently, deprived the world of life also. Thus, I along with professors in the biological sciences have endeavored to give a heartbeat to this babe and bring them into our light.”
A momentary silence was broken by the muffled cries of her mother. The body began to convulse and she shook within it. The shredding of skin began as both were impaled by a straight rod that gushed out a vermilion liquid and filled her being. Her mother’s body began to cave in on her and its activity was halted while she began to grow and take recognizable form. The firsts thuds of her heart we overpowered by the slashing of the now lifeless body that had protected her since conception and whose health she took.
Her body was pulled from the other by a thick hand that presented her to its audience where her eyes saw the death present. Her creator was thrown on the table with her middle cut open, revealing the soaked, shriveled entrails of her deteriorated person. She saw the sea of gray hair and faces that engulfed the cell and gazed on her like a prize. Their eyes oozed at the sight of their success. The sound of their quivering jaws mixed with their muffled gasps and ejaculations of pleasure. Suddenly, all stood erect out of their seats and bestowed a thunder of applause onto the being that lifted her with one triumphant hand. As the elation continued, she was given to a creature with similar form to that of her mother. The being guided her out of the chamber to another room, just as, if not more, constrictive and as the one she had inhabited in her creator for a few months.
Letter to the Reader:
Dear Reader,
My influence for writing this modern rendition of a scene from Frankenstein, where the Creature characterizes himself as an “abortion,” comes from conservative attitudes on women’s reproductive rights that demonize women and their right to choose. I believe the Monster’s description of himself as an “abortion” that is beaten and battered parallels the mistreatment women currently face in the fight for their right to control their bodies rather than the
Like the Monster’s body, people, especially men who have a lust, both literal and figurative, for gaining power or legislative influence, attempt to control women’s bodies and when they try to take ownership of them and go against the society that oppresses them, they are criminalized and mistreated. Just two weeks ago, for instance, a bill was proposed in Ohio that would give the death penalty to women seeking an abortion. While such attitudes against the choice for abortion aim to protect a possible life, they put the life of the person carrying the matter in danger and pain.
I wanted to bring this often-overlooked issue to this discussion by demonizing the opponent, like the passage from the novel, to demonstrate the harm they cause that could classify them as criminals. Just as the Creature literally raises questions of the purity of other characters, I also question the morality of the male characters trying to save an unborn life by torturing and ultimately killing its mother. I, however, decided to do so by incorporating abundant, descriptive imagery and metaphor of the torture and restriction of female characters to exemplify the severity. To indicate the dehumanization and loss of ownership both the Monster and women for abortion rights face, I utilized a third-person limited narrator. With them, the “she” or fetus character has her experience filtered through someone else’s voice rather than her own. Thus, the experience, like that of the Monster which is recounted through Captain Walton in the package, isn’t truly hers.
I hope my rendition allows you to gain new perspectives on Mary Shelley’s novel and the discourse on women’s reproductive rights present in the United States.
Sincerely,
Wendy Gutierrez
light of the rising moon, trying to forget for a while the horrible events of the day. It was supposed to be a happy day, the happiest day of my life. Seeing your baby for the first time is supposed to be a magical moment where awe and wonder at the fact that you made that should overwhelm you. Instead all I could think about was that my baby girl might be deformed, physically and possibly mentally. The doctors weren’t certain about the exact nature of her deformity, but she was there was a strong probability that she was going to be different. I was having a child without no conception of how she was going to turn out. She might be the kid no one ever played with, she might be rejected everywhere she went simply for her differences. She would not thank me for her creation. How could she ever have a normal life? She might be full of anger and hate, unable to cope with her situation, and lash out at the world.