Title: Roger Dodsworth, the Reanimated Englishman

Author: Mary Shelley

Date of First Publication: 1863

Place of Publication: Yesterday and Today (London, T. C. Newby; anthology)

Type: Short Story

Characters: No Character

Themes: BYRONIC HERO; POSTHUMAN; RACE/POLITICS

Critical Summary: This piece tells the story of a man who falls into a “deep sleep” and is reanimated decades later. Dr. Hotham finds a man’s body buried beneath the snow after an avalanche. Hotham resurrects the man, Roger Dodsworth, and learns he is the son of an antiquary who has since passed. Dodsworth was traveling from England to Italy at the time of the accident, and was born more than one hundred years prior to the discovery of his body. After hearing the news of his father’s death, he tries to claim his inheritance. However, after learning how far humanity has progressed without him, he begins to feel anachronistic to the rest of society. The narrator finds papers about the man in the snow and relays it to the public in hopes of finding Dodsworth.

Doctor Hotham represents the same scientific interests and themes of the Byronic Hero as Victor Frankenstein from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. He is portrayed as slightly arrogant, though the narrator states that is not their intention to depict him as so. Dodsworth contains elements connecting to the theme of The Creature, as he is exiled from society and desperately seeks acceptance. Also, the narrator is similar to Walton in the sense that they are removed from the drama of the main characters, mediating an extraordinary story from the outside.

The themes of Last Man and Posthuman are present in Dodsworth because he is not only the last man left of any previous humans he knew, but also experiences being post-human by getting resurrected from death. Finally, the theme of Race/Politics manifests in the story as Dodsworth’s recollection of the political movements in England since the reign of Charles I.

Administrative Notes: Leslie Morgan, CSUF; Adam Shelley, CSUF (editing)