Transhuman Fictions: From Polyphemus and Frankenstein to the Decodification of Bella Baxter in Poor Things

Abstract

Informed by an ambivalent perspective and an understanding of classical myths and their subsequent traditions, the present study aims to highlight the modern recreation of certain archetypes that extend beyond their original creative designs thus diversifying their meanings. In this way, we aspire to delineate the paradigmatic attributes of such seminal figures as the Cyclops Polyphemus, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) and Bella Baxter, the female protagonist of Alasdair Gray’s novel Poor Things (1992). The latter was recently adapted for the screen in 2023, under the direction of Yorgos Lanthimos and written by Tony McNamara. Given the compelling novelty of its critically acclaimed production and the concomitant, insightful interest it has generated regarding the very nature of adaptation and reinterpretation, it will also be included in the corpus of the present article. Furthermore, this study seeks to identify the defining characteristics that categorise these characters as personifications of the Other. The process of redefinition evident in these modern reinterpretations must necessarily be assessed in the context of transhumanism, an anthropological approach that seeks to encompass, from a philosophical, scientific and technological perspective, the diverse—and increasingly complex—processes of modification of the human condition. Our study commences with an analysis of the primordial anthropomorphic deviation represented by the configuration of Polyphemus, and proceeds to interpret and articulate the threatening horizon embodied by the much-heralded singularity, which we understand to be the maximum expression of transhuman otherness.