The Frankenstein Chronicles : reprise composite et hommage métafictionnel au roman de Mary Shelley

Abstract

The Frankenstein Chronicles (Benjamin Ross, Barry Langford, ITV, 2015-2017) is neither an adaptation nor a rewriting, but rather an original re-appropriation of Frankenstein themes and motifs as well as a metatextual reflexion on the myth and its cultural import. This neo-victorian fiction is set in 1827, 9 years after the novel’s first publication. The Georgian London is aptly rendered with references to Charles Dickens. Stress is laid on dark and sordid aspects of daily life in poorer areas, a world of misery, crime and prostitution, but also on labyrinthine and underground spaces where human corpses are traded. The series also questions religious hierarchy, political manipulations and scientific feuds, the corruption of dominant classes and the exploitation of misery and human bodies reduced to objects of scientific experience. This article develops three aspects. First the way explicit references to the book, its author and the cultural context are used to dramatize the fiction; then, the recourse to a “de-framing” strategy since the main protagonist is neither Frankenstein nor his creature, but a policeman of the Thames fluvial brigade, inspector John Marlott (Sean Bean) who investigates on a mysterious case of children’s murders; lastly, the generic hybridity of the series which combines period drama, crime fiction, biopic, gothic convention, horror and the fantastic, thus reflecting the novel’s own hybridity.