Enforcing Ecological Borders between the Human and the Nonhuman: Adapting Pygmalion’s Benevolent Galatea into Frankenstein’s and Contemporary Monsters

Abstract

1 Humans are evolutionary adaptations of other biological organisms. However, socio-cultural adaptations associated with the Neolithic Agricultural Revolution, the rise of monotheism, and the Scientific Revolution, have contributed to a radical ontological separation of the human from the nonhuman. This false binary opposition facilitates humanity’s destructive behaviour towards nonhuman components of the biosphere, threatening the existence of our species. This article analyses how artistic texts culturally erect and enforce borders between the human and the nonhuman by representing the transgression of such borders as being undesirable in various ways. These texts use repeated narrative and thematic topoi that are adapted through time to reflect changing historical attitudes towards human/nonhuman borders. 2 This article takes an extremely long view of the historical adaptation of ideas about these borders. Such a vast timescale means that my argument here is inevitably heuristic, selecting only a very few examples of broad phenomena. However, even this brief analysis demonstrates how adaptation studies can be used to explore the ways in which important ideas are adapted through various fictional texts to reflect changing cultural attitudes. In this example, ideas about the relationships between humans and nonhumans take different forms in different historical periods, and the ways in which various narratives about those relationships are adapted in those different historical periods provides evidence for the underlying adaptation of these underlying ideas. ABSTRACTS Humans are evolutionary adaptations of other biological organisms. However, socio-cultural adaptations associated with the Neolithic Agricultural Revolution, the rise of monotheism, and the Scientific Revolution, have contributed to a radical ontological separation of the human from the nonhuman. This false binary opposition facilitates humanity’s destructive behaviour towards nonhuman components of our biosphere, threatening the existence of our species. This article explores the historical development of artistic texts that demonstrate anxieties about transgressing borders between the human and the nonhuman. These texts use repeated narrative and thematic topoi that are adapted to reflect historical attitudes towards human/ non-humains tels que Terminator et Toy Story , en passant par le récit monothéiste/scientifique de Frankenstein , .