The Mysterious Tale Of The Frankenstein Monster
“It's Alive!”
Tiffany Roush
3/23/11
Dual Enrollment: Brit Lit 2
Ghastly ghouls and curious demons alike, come gather round the couch tonight! We have a terrifying tale of insanity, deception, and the creation of life. What might you ask is this unholy concoction that glows across your television screen? A monster, a deformed man or so you could call him, made of multiple human beings sewn together out of the lust for creation and power. See as the mad Dr. Victor Frankenstein fabricates the threads of life, to demise a monster so massive and strong. This monster he has created to have as a companion, yet the story twists and turns as the monster reveals Dr. Victor Frankenstein's true fate!
The whole gory story of how Frankenstein's birth came to be in our world was all formulated by an eighteen year old girl by the name of Mary Shelly in 1816, a time of when great new scientific discoveries were being formulated. Some think she dreamt of this horrible nameless creature while others say there was a gathering of friends and they all tried to see who could come up with the scariest ghost story; well she obviously won that competition then. What was thought to bring on her invention of the Frankenstein monster was the technique called galvanism. This technique was thought to stimulate the muscles in the body with electric shock; bringing the once living organism back to life or at least making the organism move in random spasms. Many scientists of which toyed with this technique and that possibly tested God, did not fully understand what they were brining upon themselves and the new world. There are many different speculations as to why Mary would craft such a dark novel that tested science and God. Many find her work to be immoral, but without this magnificent work of art and literature there would still be many unsolved mysteries in science. Mary Shelly not only introduced our world to a new genre of literature, art, and film, but she gave our scientists and free thinkers new methods, ideas, and ways to view the world and everyday science. An excellent example would be that we now have numerous organ transplants to save the lives of millions of people. Relating that to how the Frankenstein monster was created out of different human body parts to create a human life. There are new discoveries to create human skin and organs without having to take them from donors and create them out of practically nothing but a few cells and chemical solutions.
Digging deep into Mary's imagination and to solve as to why her story unravels the way it does rather confuses some people because of the many different aspects at play. The emotion that went into her novel was extremely powerful, but what was it that influenced her? Mary's mother died in childbirth, for then it is said that Mary was doomed to be depressed and known as the person to cause the death of her mother. Now with this information given, in her novel Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein's mother dies giving birth to his brother William. That is a very ironic comparison or so to speak considering that her mother died in childbirth, but that's just one misfortunes in her life that relates to the book.
Remembering those late night horror shows my father and I used to watch, I hold dear in my mind the tales of the Frankenstein monster. Profuse movies and documentaries have various different aspects of Frankenstein or so I have come to examine over the years of my life. Few of the numerous movies I have seen are very humorous parody's of Frankenstein. Such as the movie Young Frankenstein, Frankenweenie, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. All of which are dark comedies that have a monstrous creature brought to life. When I recall The Rocky Horror Picture Show, it is a fantastic movie of which later became a cult film and was banned in American for quite some time because of its vivid exposure of different sexuality. Once again, as so the Frankenstein monster was created in a castle that was named, The Frankenstein Place, in the film. Instead of the monster being nameless, Dr. Frankenfurter (hence the name), named his creation Rocky who was rather handsome compared to the original monster. Then there is the modernized view of Frankenstein with Boris Karloff as the monster; this movie however was the absolute first to show the world a visual example of the Frankenstein monster. Later on while more movies of this gruesome character were produced, other concepts of the monsters appearance developed. Some appearances were very ghastly like Mary Shelly's vision in her novel, some were rather cute and adorable such as the dog in Frankenweenie, then ultimately most directors took on their own approach of the monster. The next film to come to mind is the exact version of Mary Shelly's Frankenstein with Kenneth Branagh as the director and Robert De Niro as the monster. My favorite approach on the monster is the movie Edward Scissorhands. Once again the plot unfolds with a lonely creator in an enormous yet eerie mansion and he creates a man. The plot changes the Frankenstein ideal by developing Edward Scissorhands not with human body parts, but instead he has the heart of a cookie, scissors for hands, and the inventor creates his body rather than digging into graves to find body parts. Instead of the inventor being frightened by his creation, he befriends Edward and teaches him proper etiquette. Before Edward is finished and given proper hands, the inventor dies and Edward is left alone, such as the monster in Frankenstein.
When dissecting the Frankenstein monster, we must look at all the differences and the similarities. The monster in all of these various movies were conceived in the minds of men, wanting to create life because they were wanting companionship or power. The thought was immoral that men can play God by creating life and nearly making a new line of human beings destined for immortality. While watching the movie Mary Shelly's Frankenstein and reading her book, there are many things that were different and relatable to the book. I find the book to obviously give more details but the movie was the closets I have seen comparing to Shelly's book more so than other movies. Some variations I have found would be that in the novel Victor Frankenstein was traveling on ice while as in the movie he is floating on ice towards Captain Walton's ship. Another good example would include of how the movie portrayed the beginning of Shelly's novel being rather fast paced where as the novel had letters that took several chapters to read before it introduces Captain Walton and Victor. The proposal of marriage between Victor's adopted sister Elizabeth was extremely soon in the movie was as the book it took longer for him to propose to her. One immensely important part of the novel that I found distorted in the movie was the event of the monster demanding that Victor make him a companion, a monster just like him or so to speak.
In the novel Victor goes to create this companion but never follows through
with it and stops before it is created whereas in the movie, after the monster kills Elizabeth, Victor frantically takes her remains and the body of Justine to bring Elizabeth back to life. As Victor succeeds to bring his beloved back to life, the monster wants her as his companion. As she came to life in the movie she did not live for long and she kills herself by lighting herself on fire. I can understand the idea of modernizing a movie when comparing it to a novel, its meant to put people on the edge of their seats, I just found that to be a rather completely different climax then compared to the book. Going on to some of the similar qualities of the movie and the novel, Victor's childhood was very bright and cheerful and he had always been inclined to becoming more intelligent in the art of science. The mother dies while giving birth to his brother William which sets the plot as to why I believe Victor wants to create life. His father gives him a journal which becomes the book with all the gory plans and details of how the monster will be born. William is killed by the monster and as they were searching for his dead body, Justine is found with a locket that belongs to Elizabeth. The townspeople think that she killed William because he was last seen with the locket and sadly she is hung. Victor ends up marrying Elizabeth, for then the monster kills her as his revenge on Victor. My favorite comparison in the movie as well as the novel is when the monster is in the forest and he befriends the blind man. I was sincerely hoping that in some way the monster would have someone to confide in and hold dear to him so that he would not have turned out so vengeful towards life and Victor, but in the end the blind mans family was terrified and went after the monster as so did everyone else who seen his hideousness. Of course in the passing of time and reading of the book as well as seeing the different views of Mary Shelly's Frankenstein in films, there will never be anything in my point of view as epic as her novel and her mysteriously dark creative imagination. Sometimes I find myself to be a monster, never to completely relate to those around me and that I am forever doomed to walk the world alone, afraid, disfigured, and emotionally broken with my existence.
