ABSTRACT In the classical and neo-classical philosophical tradition, virtue is necessary, or even sufficient, for happiness; it partially or fully constitutes happiness. Virtue comes first; happiness attends it. In Frankenstein, however, Shelley’s creature thinks of happiness as a social and material entitlement, and, turning classical philosophy on its head, a prerequisite to virtue. ‘I was benevolent and good,’ the creature says to his creator, ‘misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous.’ Happiness, to the creature’s mind, is not available to the lone, superior individual as an assertion of his own rational independence; it is, rather, dependent on circumstance and our needs as fundamentally social creatures. Shelley’s moral and psychological inquiry into virtue and happiness emerges from political-philosophical responses to the French Revolution, chiefly those by her parents, Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin. The ethical question explored in Frankenstein continue to animate nineteenth-century realist and naturalist novels. Developing the case for Shelley’s direct influence on African-American literary naturalism of the first half of the twentieth century, I conclude with a consideration of Richard Wright’s 1940 novel Native Son, which examines the genesis of and responsibility for another moral monster, Bigger Thomas.

中文翻译：

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幸福史中的弗兰肯斯坦：从古代伦理到理查德·赖特

摘要 在古典和新古典哲学传统中，美德对于幸福是必要的，甚至是充分的；它部分或全部构成幸福。德行至上；幸福伴随着它。然而，在《弗兰肯斯坦》中，雪莱的造物将幸福视为一种社会和物质权利，并且颠覆了古典哲学，认为幸福是美德的先决条件。“我仁慈善良，”这个生物对他的创造者说，“苦难使我变成了恶魔。使我快乐，我将再次贤德。幸福，对受造物而言，不能作为对自己理性独立性的断言，而对孤独的、卓越的个体而言是不可获得的；相反，它取决于环境和我们作为基本社会生物的需求。雪莱对美德和幸福的道德和心理探究源于对法国大革命的政治哲学回应，主要是她的父母玛丽·沃斯通克拉夫特和威廉·戈德温的回应。《科学怪人》中探讨的伦理问题继续为 19 世纪的现实主义和自然主义小说注入活力。在阐述雪莱对 20 世纪上半叶非裔美国文学自然主义的直接影响的案例时，我以理查德·赖特 1940 年的小说《土生土长的儿子》作为结论，该小说探讨了另一个道德怪物 Bigger Thomas 的起源和责任。