If Mary Shelley comes back and reads Victor LaValle’s Destroyer,
his continuation, of her novel Frankenstein, she might be at first confused (I
mean, would she have seen a comic book before) but I think she would enjoy it.
Mary
Shelley’s novel is largely a work that is cautious about science but also about
the fears of becoming a mother as well as the fear of rejection by a parent. Frankenstein, as any reader knows, is not the
creation, but the doctor, the person a reader could argue is a the true
monster. LaValle draws upon that. Destroyer can refer to three of the
characters in the story, but the story is really Josephine’s – not that of her
creation or of the Monster
It is
Josephine’s anger, an anger that society tells her she is not allowed to have
or else she is no more than a stereotype.
It isn’t just what happened to her son that fueled that anger, though it
is a driving force behind it; but it is also the years of the racism, sexism, minor
that society has subjected her to over the years. She is what society made her. And towards the end of the story, when she justifies
her actions, it is impossible not to see her point.
But
LaValle addresses the larger issues of science distrust, though considering our
modern distrust of the government, of Big Brother, that also pays a part. And the Monster, well, the Monster comes back,
and he too is what society has made him.
LaValle plays with the demonization of the other. And it is Josephine who becomes both Destroyer
and Creator.
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