Abstract
Rodas addresses rhetorical and narrative interstices of Frankenstein, exploring the ways in which the visible sutures of the novel defamiliarise intuitive language and social contact, bringing the reader into a complicit relationship with autism. Rodas observes that the creature’s hovel is simultaneously a container for the disposal of rejected creation and a sanctuary that shields the emergent self and allows it the privacy to develop: the space, and the being which inhabits it, constitute a representation of Romantic autism, an extreme of solitary self-ness, the ultimate expression of solitude. While the infamous ‘monster’ evokes the idea of the feral child that has often been associated with autism, however, Rodas proposes that Shelley’s novel provokes a more intimate relationship with autism than audiences might initially realise: the narrative strategies of the text bind the reader into a seemingly paradoxical experience of muteness and verbal precocity, and a correlative hyper-consciousness of boundaries—both rhetorical and social.
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Rodas, J.M. (2016). Autistic Voice and Literary Architecture in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. In: Bradshaw, M. (eds) Disabling Romanticism. Literary Disability Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-46064-6_9
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