On why the modern literary critic should be sent directly to the Gulag, etc.
From the introduction to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Penguin Literature edition:
That the Creature [Frankenstein's Monster] is nameless, and denied any kind of individuality or recognition because he is a product of and belongs wholly to his Creator, signifies to one interpreter of Frankenstein, Franco Moretti, that the story is one born of 'the fear of bourgeois civilization'. Moretti's ingenious Marxist analysis sees Frankenstein as a 'disfigured wretch', symbol of the emerging industrial proletariat of the early nineteenth century. 'Between Frankenstein and the monster,' he says, 'there is a an ambivalent, dialectical relationship, the same as that which, according to Marx, connects capital with wage-labour'.
My first impression could be summed up as 'Ridiculous nonsense, Havisham!' But upon reflection, this analysis struck me as particularly acute, especially when one considers that Mary Shelley published
Frankenstein in 1818, the same year that Marx was born. Perhaps Marx was able to communicate his radical ideas whilst pre-natal, dirctly into Mrs. Shelly's mind! That would be worthy of a Gothic novel.