Frankenstein ’s adaptive chain: from fidelity to promiscuity to adultery

Because different media require different narrative approaches, no adaptation can ever be truly faithful to its source material; however, not all unfaithful adaptations demonstrate the same degree of dis-loyalty to their antecedent(s). Instead of simply approaching adaptations in terms of their intertextuality, I propose approaching adaptations in terms of a spectrum of fidelity, one that extends from “faithful” to “promiscuous” to “adulterous.” Using Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein and its myriad adaptations as case studies, I present in this essay not only my case for infidelity studies but also argue the value of taking such an approach and using such vocabulary. As adaptation studies has engaged in the language of fidelity almost from the beginning—and thus embraced the metaphor of a marriage in terms of an adaptation’s relationship with its primary source text—I argue for an expansion of that metaphor, one that will afford students, critics, and theorists alike more ways to discuss degrees of in/fidelity.