Already, Frankenstein is creating such contrasting images in my mind from what I had developed based on cultural stereotypes alone. And I expected this, so no surprise there. Really, how often is it that American stereotypes accurately mirror art, literature, or even other cultures?

I'm still shallowly into Shelley's masterpiece at this point (slow beginnings make for slow, pained reading for me) but the further in I get, the more intrigued and interested I find myself. So, I have no inclination that one of the themes of this novel is cultural diversity (or resistance to it). But that is a theme that has meandered through my thoughts on the novel. And that is a simple reflection of the fact that I'm an elem. ed major - but as I learned prior to my last post, literature's meaning IS in the eye of the beholder.

It's not so much that I see cultural diversity within the context of Frankenstein. The bias around this image we've developed about the title character's creation (I believe I recently described him as a "tall, hulking green, rectangular mouth-breather, who grunts and walks around as though he's experiencing beginning stages of rigor mortise") reminded me of our culture's - our country's - preconceptions about the world around us. We have a very limited, boxed-set, color-by-number visual of various cultures in this world, not limited to ethnic/religious/national cultures. We've segmented our world to suit our comfort-zone bound scope, to separate ourselves from them, and them from us. We want to see this waffled map of a world, and shudder to think of this place as the melting pot that it is, and is fast becoming.