A Writer's Notebook, Day One-Thousand-Four-Hundred-And-Twenty-Three

A friend of mine from graduate school and I were chatting online a bit about Frankenstein, and the subject of the golem came up.  He is talking about introducing his students to the idea of the golem as part of a discussion of Shelley's novel.  Of course, it is easy to classify Frankenstein's creature as a sort of golem, though whether Mary Shelley was aware of the myth is not certain.  However, thinking on the connection, I began to have some interesting thoughts that I think might be worth exploring in a future essay.  Consider that the traditional golem is a magical construct, given life through Kabbalistic rites, while Frankenstein presents a sort of scientific golem.  The creature in the book is not raised through spells or incantations, but by means of scientific principles and methods.  I can't help but consider that this seems to reflect a shift in the nature of anti-Semitism that was underway in the 19th century, around the time Shelly wrote her novel.  In the middle ages, up into the 18th century, anti-Semitism was based in religious bias, but the 19th century began a shift towards more scientific sounding rationales about inherited traits and genetics.  Honestly, I am not yet certain what to make of this idea.  It is clear to me that it doesn't really reflect anything inherent to Shelley's work, but I still find it interesting and worth considering.  I wonder if I can find a way to put it together into something interesting.  I may well give it a go the next time I am a bit stuck on my current prose project and want a little break.

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