Title: An Act of Faith

Author: Steve Lockley

Date of First Publication: 2000

Place of Publication: Hideous Progeny

Type: Short Story

Characters: No Character

Themes: BYRONIC HERO; MAD SCIENTIST/MONSTER; RACE/POLITICS; SYMPATHETIC MONSTER

Critical Summary: This short story is a narrative piece told from the protagonist, Anna Goldberg’s, perspective. The story is only a moment in which Anna, having been through much suffering and trauma at the hands of a “Mad Scientist,” who remained nameless throughout, must choose whether he lives or dies. The Scientist has since been jailed and detained. In his fetters, he had been put through agonizing tortures, awaiting his death row call. As Anna steps up to press the button to release him from this tortured existence, she abstained from ordering his death. She chose to let him continue to live in his suffering.

This story is very politically charged and has similar parallels bleeding through from Shelley’s Frankenstein. When Anna gleefully chooses to allow her ex-tormentor to live in excruciating agony, it is the unnamed Mad Scientist being devoured by his subject. The contrasting role reversal speaks to our innate human desires for revenge. Anna, picking the darker form of revenge, manifests as a Byronic Hero when she also chooses a similar path to her former torturer.

Administrative Notes: Ash Shute, CSUF; Kyle Kalmanson (editing)