Literature and Medicine

Abstract:

This essay examines Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as a piece of literature that captures an epistemic transition in biomedical practices from healing a diseased body to controlling and engineering a human body, anticipating the modern medical practices of our bioengineered era. The process of artificially engineering a bioscientific creature by gathering materials from anonymous sources, and Victor Frankenstein’s ability to pre-select the physical features of the Creature, anticipate the baby-making procedures practiced in the domain of artificial reproductive technology (ART). This essay aims to foreground how the novel offers a fictional engagement with bioethical crises triggered by ART developments that have problematized our bionormative notion of the family as a heterosexual unit.