https://doi.org/10.67147/literariness.v1i3.054
Remembering as Becoming: Memory and Belonging in Chicano Frankenstein
ARSHA
Junior Research Fellow
PTM Government College, Perinthalmanna, Kerala
Email: arshajunaid25@gmail.com
DR. FAISAL P
Professor of English
PTM Government College, Perinthalmanna, Kerala
Abstract: Frankenstein’s monster has been, since its inception, the most iconic among all the monsters of literary history. Mary Shelley’s novel was followed by myriad theatrical adaptations, films, sequels, prequels, appropriations, comics, video games, and more. Chicano Frankenstein, authored by Mexican writer Daniel Olivas, is a loose appropriation of Frankenstein, situating the narrative in a dystopian near-future USA, governed by the tyrannical leadership of a right-wing regime. In this novel, the monster’s counterpart is a community called ‘stitchers’, a reanimated group of people tasked with providing enough labour to the State’s declining economy. These individuals undergo a surgical erasure of all their past memories before assuming their role as new worker drones. This article examines how memoricide, the killing of cultural and personal memories of an individual or a community, is deployed as a political tool in the novel to erase the cultural heritage and histories of a marginalised community. It contends that memoricide facilitates the monstrification of the vulnerable community as an easier project. The reanimated community serves as a metaphor for the Mexican immigrants in the United States. Furthermore, the article examines the process of reclamation of erased memories as a form of resistance against totalitarian regimes. It thus employs Grmek’s memoricide as the key concept to analyse the novel, alongside concepts of monstrification in the post-truth scenario.
Keywords: Chicano Frankenstein, Memoricide, Monstrification, Erasure, Cultural Identity, Resistance
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