Barbara Johnson, My Monster/My Self

• Johnson attempts to reconcile three different literary subjects: the question of motherhood, of the woman writer, and of the autobiography by using Frankenstein as an example where all are present.
• 1.      Johnson suggests that Frankenstein is a comparative story on parenthood. Johnson compares Frankenstein’s upbringing to that of the creature. Frankenstein had two doting, caring parents. The creature was abandoned almost immediately. Yet, both end up in the same pitiful and bitter way. This comparison brings to light the fact that the idea of the “monster” is inseparable from the idea of the human. The creature is a monster, but the reader can’t help but see him as a human (or at least a sentient being with human emotional qualities). 
• 3 male biographies: Walton’s, Frankenstein’s, and the creature’s. However, in each case the speaker “depend[s] on the presupposition of resemblance between the teller and addressee. […] The teller is in each case speaking into a mirror of his own transgression.” Can it be a true autobiography when it is pandered toward the listener’s tastes or values? Mary Shelley does the same thing in her introduction. She tells the reader about her reluctance to give the origins of the novel.
•  Frankenstein’s choices can be reflective of Mary Shelley’s views on motherhood. Was Frankenstein’s abandoning of the creature just a simple form of postpartum depression? Shelley’s mother died in childbirth. Shelley’s parenting views were no doubt affected by this fact. Was the repeatedly italicized phase “I will be with you on your wedding night,” just a representation of Shelley’s killing her own mother in a similar way to the monster killing his father’s wife?

Johnson suggests that Frankenstein could be about the process of writing Frankenstein. Mary Shelley’s husband was compelled to write a preface in her name explaining the shadiness of the characters and the dark tone of the novel. Frankenstein is Mary’s Frankenstein’s monster.