Title: A Complete Woman
Author: Roberta Lanes
Date of First Publication: 1994
Place of Publication: The Mammoth Book of Frankenstein
Type: Short Story
Characters: No character
Themes: MAD SCIENTISTS/MONSTERS; ANDROID; POSTHUMAN; SYMPATHETIC MONSTER; WOMEN WRITING MONSTERS
Critical Summary: “A Complete Woman” is a tale of a scientist who gives a brain transplant to a great writer so that she may live on forever. The tale becomes complicated as the woman is being built and the scientist begins to react to her body as if he already knows her. Meanwhile, she begins falling in love with the nurse who takes care of her, while the scientist falls in love with her. This short story contains very explicit details on how this woman is being transformed and being taken care of to help the reader better connect with this monster she feels she is becoming. While she knows it’s morally wrong to be created in this manner, she cannot resist the callings of immortality. With her new body, she struggles to find out whether her feelings for the nurse are from her new heart or from her brain, and what it means to be sexually attracted to someone. As she feels dedicated to the scientist creating her, she lets him do as he pleases so that she may selfishly receive her wish, yet, her betrayal becomes hard to hide the more alive she becomes.
This short story connects to the original Frankenstein story in creating a monster. When reading Frankenstein, the reader connects with the monster, yet also understands Dr. Frankenstein. In this story, the reader only sees the story from the point of view of the monster, making it impossible to side with any one else in the story. This scientist, obviously creating this woman for his own purposes, gives the reader no direction or explanation for his motives, making him seem only perverted and disgraceful. While these two stories are similar in questions of morality, they differ in how the stories are structured. The scientists in both stories have a friend, but in Frankenstein, there is a concrete warning given from the creature to Victor. In contrast, in A Complete Woman, the friend of the scientist was actually another monster. No one is killed as a warning, and the love of the scientist becomes the monster herself.
Administrative Notes: Sarah Vitug, CSUF; GC Philipp, CSUF (editing)