The reproduction of the gothic motifs of Frankenstein in the COVID-19 journalistic discourse: A corpus-based critical discourse analysis approach

Abstract

The recent horrors of the COVID-19 pandemic have renewed interest in Gothic fiction in general and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein in particular. The image of Frankenstein has become associated with the COVID-19 discourses (e.g. literary, journalistic, medical, and social media) as reflected in the representation of the horrors of isolation and contagion. The influence of the novel is clearly reflected in literary, medical, scientific, and everyday discourses today. Despite the prolific literature on the representation of Gothic elements and motifs, reflections on Gothic motifs in the reproduction of COVID-19 discourse have not yet been elaborated. In light of this, the paper seeks to explore the manipulation and reproduction of Shelley’s Frankenstein in the COVID-19 journalistic discourse. A corpus of 542 editorials and opinion commentaries from 83 newspapers was built. The corpus included only editorials and opinions written in English. Corpus-based critical discourse analysis was used. The results indicate that the Gothic motifs of Frankenstein are manipulated and reproduced in the journalistic discourse of COVID-19 to depict the chaos and destruction caused by the enormously powerful and catastrophic virus/monster that has come to rule the world. The COVID-19 journalistic discourse based on the fictional image of Frankenstein represents a distinct discourse genre that manipulates Gothic motifs in the thematic representations of the horrors associated with the pandemic itself on the one hand, and the social, economic and political problems and crises that have shaken the stability of the entire world on the other. It can be concluded that this representation has been developed and generated from the interaction between the writers and the text of Frankenstein.