Intro
Even though cultural studies often focuses on contemporary culture, texts from past centuries can be basically brought back from the dead with the interpretive potential of cultural studies. And speaking of being brought back from the dead, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is a prime example.
Critical approaches to this text have taken as many angles as Frankie's monster has scars: psychoanalytic readings usually employ dream analysis and focus on Oedipal/pre-Oedipal desires, while Marxist readings point to Victor Frankenstein's alignment with either the ruling classes or, alternately, with the worker who is alienated from the product of his labor (as well as from nature and other people).
Another key theme concerns reproduction, since Victor's obsessive desire to create life brings up present-day issues and debates regarding artificial reproduction and reproductive technology. Gender is also relevant to this topic, as Victor is seizing the reproductive capacity that is biologically associated with the female and asserting his role as sole creator. What would Judith Butler say?
Quote
No one can conceive the variety of feelings which bore me onwards, like a hurricane, in the first enthusiasm of success. Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world. A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me. No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs. Pursuing these reflections, I thought that if I could bestow animation upon lifeless matter, I might in process of time (although I now found it impossible) renew life where death had apparently devoted the body to corruption.
These thoughts supported my spirits, while I pursued my undertaking with unremitting ardour. My cheek had grown pale with study, and my person had become emaciated with confinement. Sometimes, on the very brink of certainty, I failed; yet still I clung to the hope which the next day or the next hour might realize. One secret which I alone possessed was the hope to which I had dedicated myself; and the moon gazed on my midnight labours, while, with unrelaxed and breathless eagerness, I pursued nature to her hiding-places.
Analysis
Intense guy. This passage demonstrates Victor's determination and his ambition to act as creator of a new species—and, you know, secure mass adulation as a by-product of his efforts, because why not? Likewise, he refers to the gratitude that he expects from his "child," reiterating the narcissistic aspects of his fantasy.
One of the most striking phrases in this passage is Victor's reference to pursuing nature to her hiding-places. Don't try to wrap your head around how a tree could be competitive in hide-n-seek; just keep in mind that terms like "pursuing" and "hiding-place" are suggestive of force—Vic's all set to plunder nature and there's nowhere he can't infiltrate.
The gendered aspects of this scenario are pretty obvious, not least given the use of the word "her." Victor's intentions aren't sexual though: his goal is to possess the female's reproductive ability, not the lady (we're still talking about nature) herself. However, Victor's godlike ambitions and interference in nature are presented as transgressive and, as he soon realizes, harmful to the tranquil state that should characterize the human mind.
We learn soon after this passage that Victor's shunning of human contact during his quest has been accompanied by a similar neglect of nature, despite all his hiding-place talk—once he emerges, the sunshine and some ripe grapes represent natural fertility, but silly Victor is too preoccupied with artificial creation.
The irony is that, as soon as he sees the monster come to life, he's filled with disgust and horror, and turns his back on the very thing he boasted about. Not exactly father of the year then—it's no wonder the creature is so depressed.