Frankenstein

Frankenstein;
or, The Modern Prometheus  
Frontispiece to Frankenstein 1831.jpg
Illustration from the frontispiece of the 1831 edition by Theodor von Holst[1]
Author Mary Shelley
Country England
Language English
Genre(s) Horror,
Science fiction,
Gothic
Publisher Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor & Jones
Publication date 1 January 1818
Pages 280
ISBN NA

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, generally known as Frankenstein, is a novel written by the British author Mary Shelley. Shelley started writing Frankenstein when she was 18 and finished when she was 19. The first edition was published anonymously in London in 1818. Shelley's name appears on the revised third edition, published in 1831. The title of the novel refers to a scientist, Victor Frankenstein, who learns how to create life and creates a being in the likeness of man, but larger than average and more powerful. In popular culture, people have tended to refer to the Creature as "Frankenstein", despite this being the name of the scientist. Frankenstein is infused with some elements of the Gothic novel and the Romantic movement. It was also a warning against the "over-reaching" of modern man and the Industrial Revolution, alluded to in the novel's subtitle, The Modern Prometheus. The story has had an influence across literature and popular culture and spawned a complete genre of horror stories and films. It is arguably considered the first fully-realized science fiction novel.

Contents

Plot

The novel opens with a series of four letters from Captain Robert Walton to his sister in England, describing his Arctic voyage. Walton's ship becomes stuck in the ice and he spots a figure traveling across the ice on a dog sled. Soon after, he and his crew find an ill stranger in another sledge and invite him onto the ship. The stranger, Victor Frankenstein, is reluctant to tell his story at first but he becomes friends with Walton and agrees to share his tale. He takes over narration of the story at this point, which Walton records.

Curious and intelligent from a young age, he learns from the works of the masters of medieval alchemy, reading such authors as Albertus Magnus, Cornelius Agrippa and Paracelsus and shunning modern Enlightenment teachings of natural science. He leaves his beloved family in Geneva, Switzerland to study in Ingolstadt, Germany, where he is first introduced to modern science. In a moment of inspiration, combining his new-found knowledge of natural science with the alchemic ideas of his old masters, Victor perceives the means by which inanimate materials can be imbued with life. He sets about constructing a creature from corpses which he procures from charnel houses.

Victor intended the creature to be beautiful, but when it awakens he is disgusted. As Victor used corpses as material for his creation, it has yellow, watery eyes, translucent skin, black lips, long black hair and is around 8 feet (2.4 m) in height. Victor finds this revolting and runs out of the room in terror. That night he wakes up with the creature at his bedside facing him with an outstretched arm, and flees again, whereupon the creature disappears. Shock and overwork cause Victor to become ill for several months. After recovering, in about a years time, he receives a letter from home informing him of the murder of his youngest brother. He departs for Switzerland at once.

Actor T.P. Cooke portrayed Frankenstein's monster in a loose 1823 theatrical adaptation, Presumption; or, The Fate of Frankenstein[2]

Near Geneva, Victor catches a glimpse of the creature in a thunderstorm among the boulders of the mountains, and is convinced that it killed his younger brother, William. Upon arriving home he finds Justine Moritz, the family's beloved maid, framed for the murder. To Victor's surprise, Justine makes a false confession because she believes she will gain salvation. Despite Victor's feelings of overwhelming guilt, he does not tell anyone about his horrid creation and Justine is convicted and executed. To recover from the ordeal, Victor goes hiking into the mountains where he encounters his "cursed creation" again, this time on the Mer de Glace, a glacier above Chamonix.

The creature converses with Victor and tells him his story, speaking in strikingly eloquent and detailed language. He describes his feelings first of confusion, then rejection and hate. He explains how he learned to talk by studying a poor peasant family through a chink in the wall. He secretly performed many kind deeds for this family, but in the end, they drove him away when they saw his appearance. He gets the same response from any human who sees him. The creature confesses that it was indeed he who killed William (by strangling) and framed Justine, and that he did so out of revenge. But now, the creature only wants companionship. He begs Victor to create a synthetic woman (counterpart to the synthetic man), with whom the creature can live, sequestered from all humanity but happy with his mate.

At first, Victor agrees, but later, he tears up the half-made companion in disgust and madness at the thought that the Female Creature might be just as evil as his original creation. In retribution, the creature kills Henry Clerval, Victor's best friend, and later, on Victor's wedding night, his wife Elizabeth. Soon after, Victor's father dies of grief. Victor now becomes the hunter: he pursues the creature into the Arctic ice, though in vain. Near exhaustion, he is stranded when an iceberg breaks away, carrying him out into the ocean. Before death takes him, Captain Walton's ship arrives and he is rescued.

Walton assumes the narration again, describing a temporary recovery in Victor's health, allowing him to relate his extraordinary story. Victor's health soon fails, however, and he dies. Unable to persuade his shipmates to continue north and bereft of the charismatic Frankenstein, Walton is forced to turn back towards England under the threat of mutiny. Finally, the creature boards the ship and finds Victor dead, and greatly laments what he has done to his maker. He swears to commit suicide by burning himself alive. He then leaves the ship upon an ice-raft and disappears into the distance [3].

Composition

Draft of Frankenstein ("It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld my man completed ...")

How I, then a young girl, came to think of, and to dilate upon, so very hideous an idea?[4]

During the rainy summer of 1816, the "Year Without a Summer," the world was locked in a long cold volcanic winter caused by the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815.[5] Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, aged 19, and her lover (and later husband) Percy Bysshe Shelley, visited Lord Byron at the Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva in Switzerland. The weather was consistently too cold and dreary that summer to enjoy the outdoor holiday activities they had planned, so the group retired indoors until dawn. Amongst other subjects, the conversation turned to the experiments of the 18th-century natural philosopher and poet Erasmus Darwin, who was said to have animated dead matter, and to galvanism and the feasibility of returning a corpse or assembled body parts to life.[6] Sitting around a log fire at Byron's villa, the company also amused themselves by reading German ghost stories, prompting Byron to suggest they each write their own supernatural tale. Shortly afterwards, in a waking dream, Mary Godwin conceived the idea for Frankenstein:

I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion. Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavour to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world.[7]

She began writing what she assumed would be a short story. With Percy Shelley's encouragement, she expanded this tale into a full-fledged novel.[8] She later described that summer in Switzerland as the moment "when I first stepped out from childhood into life".[9] Byron managed to write just a fragment based on the vampire legends he heard while travelling the Balkans, and from this Polidori created The Vampyre (1819), the progenitor of the romantic vampire literary genre. Thus, two legendary horror tales originated from this one circumstance.

Mary's and Percy Bysshe Shelley's manuscripts for the first three-volume edition in 1818 (written 1816-1817), as well as Mary Shelley's fair copy for her publisher, are now housed in the Bodleian Library in Oxford. The Bodleian acquired the papers in 2004, and they belong now to the Abinger Collection.[10] On 1 October 2008, the Bodleian published a new edition of Frankenstein which contains comparisons of Mary Shelley's original text with Percy Shelley's additions and interventions alongside. The new edition is edited by Charles E. Robinson: The Original Frankenstein (ISBN 978-1851243969).[11]

Publication

Mary Shelley by Richard Rothwell (1840–41)

Mary Shelley completed her writing in May 1817, and Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus was first published on 1 January 1818 by the small London publishing house of Harding, Mavor & Jones. It was issued anonymously, with a preface written for Mary by Percy Bysshe Shelley and with a dedication to philosopher William Godwin, her father. It was published in an edition of just 500 copies in three volumes, the standard "triple-decker" format for 19th century first editions. The novel had been previously rejected by Percy Bysshe Shelley's publisher, Charles Ollier and by Byron's publisher John Murray.

The second edition of Frankenstein was published on 11 August 1823 in two volumes (by G. and W. B. Whittaker), and this time credited Mary Shelley as the author.

On 31 October 1831, the first "popular" edition in one volume appeared, published by Henry Colburn & Richard Bentley. This edition was quite heavily revised by Mary Shelley, and included a new, longer preface by her, presenting a somewhat embellished version of the genesis of the story. This edition tends to be the one most widely read now, although editions containing the original 1818 text are still being published. In fact, many scholars prefer the 1818 edition. They argue that it preserves the spirit of Shelley's original publication (see Anne K. Mellor's "Choosing a Text of Frankenstein to Teach" in the W.W. Norton Critical edition).

Name origins

Frankenstein's creature

Main article: Frankenstein's monster
In 1843, an English editorial cartoonist in Punch conceived the Irish as akin to Frankenstein's monster.[12]

Part of Frankenstein's rejection of his creation is the fact that he does not give it a name, which gives it a lack of identity. Instead it is referred to by words such as "monster," "dæmon," "fiend," and "it." When Frankenstein converses with the monster in Chapter 10, he addresses it as "Devil," "Vile insect," "Abhorred monster," "fiend," "wretched devil," and "abhorred devil."

During a telling Shelley did of Frankenstein, she referred to the creature as "Adam".[13] Shelley was referring to the first man in the Garden of Eden, as in her epigraph:

Did I request thee, Maker from my clay
To mould Me man? Did I solicit thee
From darkness to promote me?
John Milton, Paradise Lost (X.743-5)

The monster has often been mistakenly called "Frankenstein." In 1908 one author said "It is strange to note how well-nigh universally the term "Frankenstein" is misused, even by intelligent persons, as describing some hideous monster...".[14] Edith Wharton's The Reef (1916) describes an unruly child as an "infant Frankenstein."[15] David Lindsay's "The Bridal Ornament," published in The Rover, 12 June 1844, mentioned "the maker of poor Frankenstein." After the release of James Whale's popular 1931 film Frankenstein, the public at large began speaking of the monster itself as "Frankenstein." A reference to this occurs in Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and in several subsequent films in the series, as well as in film titles such as Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.

Some justify referring to the Creature as "Frankenstein" by pointing out that the Creature is, so to speak, Victor Frankenstein's offspring. Also, one might say that the monster is the invention of Doctor Frankenstein, and inventions are often named after the person who invented them, and if one is to consider the creature his son (for he did give it life) 'Frankenstein' is his familial name, and thus would also rightly belong to the creation.

Frankenstein

Mary Shelley maintained that she derived the name "Frankenstein" from a dream-vision. Despite her public claims of originality, the significance of the name has been a source of speculation. Literally, in German, the name Frankenstein means "stone of the Franks." The name is associated with various places such as Castle Frankenstein (Burg Frankenstein), which Mary Shelley had seen whilst on a boat before writing the novel. Frankenstein is also a town in the region of Palatinate; and before 1946, Ząbkowice Śląskie, a city in Silesia, Poland, was known as Frankenstein in Schlesien.

More recently, Radu Florescu, in his book In Search of Frankenstein, argued that Mary and Percy Shelley visited Castle Frankenstein on their way to Switzerland, near Darmstadt along the Rhine, where a notorious alchemist named Konrad Dippel had experimented with human bodies, but that Mary suppressed mentioning this visit, to maintain her public claim of originality. A recent literary essay[16] by A.J. Day supports Florescu's position that Mary Shelley knew of, and visited Castle Frankenstein[17] before writing her debut novel. Day includes details of an alleged description of the Frankenstein castle that exists in Mary Shelley's 'lost' journals. However, this theory is not without critics; Frankenstein expert Leonard Wolf calls it an "unconvincing...conspiracy theory."[18] and the 'lost journals' as well as Florescus claims could not be verified[19].

Victor

Main article: Victor Frankenstein

A possible interpretation of the name Victor derives from Paradise Lost by John Milton, a great influence on Shelley (a quotation from Paradise Lost is on the opening page of Frankenstein and Shelley even allows the monster himself to read it). Milton frequently refers to God as "the Victor" in Paradise Lost, and Shelley sees Victor as playing God by creating life. In addition to this, Shelley's portrayal of the monster owes much to the character of Satan in Paradise Lost; indeed, the monster says, after reading the epic poem, that he empathizes with Satan's role in the story.

There are many similarities between Victor and Percy Shelley, Mary's husband. Victor was a pen name of Percy Shelley's, as in the collection of poetry he wrote with his sister Elizabeth, Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire.[20] There is speculation that one of Mary Shelley's models for Victor Frankenstein was Percy, who at Eton had "experimented with electricity and magnetism as well as with gunpowder and numerous chemical reactions," and whose rooms at Oxford were filled with scientific equipment.[21] Percy Shelley was the first-born son of a wealthy country squire with strong political connections and a descendant of Sir Bysshe Shelley, 1st Baronet of Castle Goring, and Richard Fitzalan, 10th Earl of Arundel.[22] Victor's family is one of the most distinguished of that republic and his ancestors were counsellors and syndics. Percy had a sister named Elizabeth. Victor had an adopted sister, named Elizabeth. On February 22, 1815, Mary Shelley delivered a two-month premature baby and the baby died two weeks later. Percy did not care about the condition of this premature infant and left with Claire, Mary's stepsister, for a lurid affair.[note 1] When Victor saw the creature come to life he fled the apartment.

"Modern Prometheus"

The Modern Prometheus is the novel's subtitle (though some modern publishings of the work now drop the subtitle, mentioning it only in an introduction). Prometheus, in some versions of Greek mythology, was the Titan who created mankind. It was also Prometheus who took fire from heaven and gave it to man. Zeus eternally punished Prometheus by fixing him to a rock where each day a predatory bird came to devour his liver, only for the liver to regrow the next day; ready for the bird to come again.

Prometheus was also a myth told in Latin but was a very different story. In this version Prometheus makes man from clay and water, again a very relevant theme to Frankenstein as Victor rebels against the laws of nature and as a result is punished by his creation.

In 1910, Thomas Edison released the
first motion-picture adaptation of Shelley's story.

Prometheus' relation to the novel can be interpreted in a number of ways. The Titan in the Greek mythology of Prometheus parallels Victor Frankenstein. Victor's work by creating man by new means reflects the same innovative work of the Titan in creating humans. Victor, in a way, stole the secret of creation from God just as the Titan stole fire from heaven to give to man. Both the Titan and Victor get punished for their actions. Victor is reprimanded by suffering the loss of those close to him and having the dread of himself getting killed by his creation.

For Mary Shelley, Prometheus was not a hero but rather something of a devil, whom she blamed for bringing fire to man and thereby seducing the human race to the vice of eating meat (fire brought cooking which brought hunting and killing).[23] Support for this claim may be reflected in Chapter 17 of the novel, where the "monster" speaks to Victor Frankenstein: "My food is not that of man; I do not destroy the lamb and the kid to glut my appetite; acorns and berries afford me sufficient nourishment." For Romance era artists in general, Prometheus' gift to man compared with the two great utopian promises of the 18th century: the Industrial Revolution and the French Revolution, containing both great promise and potentially unknown horrors.

Byron was particularly attached to the play Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus, and Percy Shelley would soon write his own Prometheus Unbound (1820). The term "Modern Prometheus" was actually coined by Immanuel Kant, referring to Benjamin Franklin and his then recent experiments with electricity.[24]

Shelley's sources

Mary incorporated a number of different sources into her work, not the least of which was the Promethean myth from Ovid. The influence of John Milton's Paradise Lost, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the books the Creature finds in the cabin, are also clearly evident within the novel. Also, both Shelleys had read William Thomas Beckford's Gothic novel Vathek. Frankenstein also contains multiple references to her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, and her major work A Vindication of the Rights of Woman which discusses the lack of equal education for males and females. The inclusion of her mother's ideas in her work is also related to the theme of creation and motherhood in the novel. Mary is likely to have acquired some ideas for Frankenstein's character from Humphry Davy's book Elements of Chemical Philosophy in which he had written that "science has…bestowed upon man powers which may be called creative; which have enabled him to change and modify the beings around him…".

Analysis

One interpretation of her novel was alluded to by Shelley herself, in her account of the radical politics of her father, William Godwin:

The giant now awoke. The mind, never torpid, but never rouzed to its full energies, received the spark which lit it into an unextinguishable flame. Who can now tell the feelings of liberal men on the first outbreak of the French Revolution. In but too short a time afterwards it became tarnished by the vices of Orléans -- dimmed by the want of talent of the Girondists -- deformed and blood-stained by the Jacobins.[25]

The book can be seen as a criticism of scientists who are unconcerned by the potential consequences of their work. Victor was heedless of those dangers, and rejected responsibility for his invention. Instead of immediately destroying the evil he had created, he was overcome by fear and fell psychologically ill. During Justine's trial for murder, he had the chance to perhaps save the young girl by revealing that a violent man had recently declared a vendetta against him and his loved ones. Instead, Frankenstein indulges in his own self-centered grief. The day before Justine is executed and thus resigns herself to her fate and departure from the "sad and bitter world", his sentiments are as such:

The poor victim, who was on the morrow to pass the awful boundary between life and death, felt not, as I did, such deep and bitter agony... The tortures of the accused did not equal mine; she was sustained by innocence, but the fangs of remorse tore my bosom and would not forego their hold.

It is noteworthy, however, that Frankenstein, despite his colossal folly at creating his monster, did realize the foolishness of his actions. In Chapter 24 he warns Walton of the danger inherent in tampering with such evil.

Learn from my miseries and do not seek to increase your own.

These are the words he uses to potentially redeem some part of himself, as well as prevent further evil from occurring.

Representing a minority opinion, Arthur Belefant in his book, Frankenstein, the Man and the Monster (1999, ISBN 0-9629555-8-2) contends that Mary Shelley's intent was for the reader to understand that the Creature never existed, and Victor Frankenstein committed the three murders. In this interpretation, the story is a study of the moral degradation of Victor, and the science fiction aspects of the story are Victor's imagination.

When you look deeper into the novel and find background history on Mary Shelley you find yourself wondering how much of herself did she place into her characters? Victor created a monster and in return of this experiment it had terrible reprecssions of losing those whom he loved. The entire book talks of death even at the very beginning when Victor's own mother died, way before the monster was created death was occuring in the novel. It makes you cross examine maybe Shelley dealt with a lot of death throughout her own life. --Hannah

Frankenstein explores the relationship between creator and creation and overall the dire need to feel love and acceptance from society and especially one's creator. Victor's rejection of the monster causes the monster to feel as an outcast and stirs anger and resentment in the creature which he returns by murdering those Victor holds most dear to him. Shelly's story tells of everyone's need for companionship and love, even a monster. Furthermore, Shelly explores the consequences of man attempting to play God and how those actions eventually lead to demise. A being needs to feel acceptance not only by society but by the one who gave him life and if love and acceptance is not given, that being will be incomplete and will turn cold and resentful toward the world. In the end, Victor suffers the consequences of creating life and not giving that life love.

Frankenstein Theme Analysis

Though there are many themes that are apparent throughout the story of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Some may see this as a story of love and betrayal. Others may view it as a story of a ugly green creature with giant bolts sticking out of his head. One thing that holds constant is the connection of love and neglect. Love for a creation and neglect when it took on a mind of its own. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is ultimately a tale of abandonment and revenge. After making the creation of his dreams a reality it was interesting how quickly and rather easily Victor was able to go from in awe and admiration for his creation to the complete opposite. Victor even went from ranting and raving about his creation saying “His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness” (1) to calling him “I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart”(1) all practically in one breath. “My heart was fashioned to be susceptible of love and sympathy, and when wrenched by misery to vice and hatred, it did not endure the violence of the change without torture such as you cannot even imagine.” (3) Looking at the standpoint of parental love, which is what Frankenstein would have had being that he put so much time, energy, sweat, blood and tears into his creature. “I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. For this I had deprived myself of rest and health.”(1) Many parents can relate to this story for a few reasons. One being that parents want the best for their children and try to raise them in a way that can give them the best shot at a happy life. Parents go to great lengths and do many things that they would normally not even think of doing as a desperate measure to secure a future for their child or children. There are so many other movies, books and televison shows that are themed on the great lengths that a parent will go through or do. Shows from Oprah to Maury have seemingly real life examples of people that want to share their story. Many parents take on multiple jobs, put off their dreams of college, or even prostitute just to make ends meat. They put their all into making it so their children can have a good, promising future. Even after all that many parents do for their child sometimes the child takes them for guarantied and go off to do drugs or run the streets despite their parents’ hard work and effort into them. Similar to Victor, he put his all into his creation but in the end his creation is what destroyed him. “It is well. I go; but remember; I shall be with you on your wedding-night” (1) Soon after the creature made this statement he killed his wife on their wedding night, as well as murdered Victor’s best friend and father soon after. He felt betrayed by his creator which caused him to lash out and go for revenge when Victor turned his back on him

This tragic story can be compared to that of a parents love for their child but in this case it’s not unconditional. Victor referred to his creations as “a monster” (2) the creations main desire was to be loved but he was not. Not loved by his creator or by any other person. The creature was attacked by De Lacey before a word could even speak, had women fainting and running from him in terror. If anything the creature would be resentful of Victor for making him look so aesthetically unpleasing than anything.. Like any other being who is scorn they are going to try to get revenge.

“All men hate the wretched; how then must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things! Yet you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us. You purpose to kill me. How dare you sport thus with life? Do your duty towards me, and I will do mine towards you and the rest of mankind. If you will comply with my conditions, I will leave them and you at peace; but if you refuse, I will glut the maw of death, until it be satiated with the blood of your remaining friends." (4)

The guilt that must have overcame Victor after witnessing his creation become so evil must have been overwhelming. He states “created a fiend whose unparalleled barbarity had desolated my heart, and filled it for ever with the bitterest remorse” (4) Many times throughout the book Victor is caught running the words of the monster over and over through his mind. He repeated over and over that the “daemon” (2) had said to him before killing his Elizabeth he said “I will be with you on your wedding night.” (4) It had been mentioned several times which obviously shows that it was a statement that made Victor uncomfortable to the point where when he said it a few times the author in an attempt to emphasize the emotion put it all in capital letters. Society depicted and materialized Frankenstein’s creation as a mean, giant, green monster with bolts in his neck and even named the monster Frankenstein when Frankenstein was the creator not the monster. Somehow the entire story of Frankenstein was exchanged for a story that was honestly not as deep as the original. Mary Shelley created a deep, thoughtful love story full of betrayal and deception. This story of Frankenstein can easily be identified as a different theme and meaning but the one that sticks out the most is ultimately about abandonment and revenge for a neglected love.

Works Cited: 1. Shelley Mary, “Frankenstein”, http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/s/shelley/mary/s53f/chapter5.html. November 2,2008 2. Shelly Mary, “Frankenstein” http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/s/shelley/mary/s53f/chapter16.html 3. Shelley Mary, “Frankenstein” http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/s/shelley/mary/s53f/chapter4.html 4. http://www.english.upenn.edu/Projects/knarf/1818v2/f2204.html

Reception

Critical reception of the book was mostly unfavourable, compounded by confused speculation as to the identity of the author. Sir Walter Scott wrote that "upon the whole, the work impresses us with a high idea of the author's original genius and happy power of expression", but most reviewers thought it "a tissue of horrible and disgusting absurdity" (Quarterly Review).

Despite the reviews, Frankenstein achieved an almost immediate popular success. It became widely known especially through melodramatic theatrical adaptations — Mary Shelley saw a production of Presumption; or The Fate of Frankenstein, a play by Richard Brinsley Peake, in 1823. A French translation appeared as early as 1821 (Frankenstein: ou le Prométhée Moderne, translated by Jules Saladin).

Frankenstein in popular culture

Further information: Frankenstein in popular culture

Shelley's Frankenstein has been called the first novel of the now-popular mad scientist genre.[26] However, popular culture has changed the naive, well-meaning Victor Frankenstein into more and more of a corrupt character. It has also changed the creature into a more sensational, dehumanized being than was originally portrayed. In the original story, the worst thing that Victor does is to neglect the creature out of fear. He does not intend to create a horror. The creature, even, begins as an innocent, loving being. Not until the world inflicts violence on him does he develop his hatred. Scientific knowledge is highlighted at the end by Victor as potentially evil and dangerously alluring.[27]

Soon after the book was published, however, stage directors began to see the difficulty of bringing the story into a more visual form. In performances beginning in 1823, playwrights began to recognize that to visualize the play, the internal reasonings of the scientist and the creature would have to be cut. The creature became the star of the show, with his more visual and sensational violence. Victor was portrayed as a fool for delving into nature's mysteries. Despite the changes, though, the play was much closer to the original than later films would be.[28] Comic versions also abounded, and a musical burlesque version was produced in London in 1887 called Frankenstein, or The Vampire's Victim.[29]. More recent literary adaptations include Scottish novelist's Alasdair Gray's 1992 novel Poor Things (ISBN 978-0747562283), which won the Whitbread Prize that year. The novel's story centres on the adventures of Victorian Glaswegian trainee doctor, Archibald McCandless, his deranged fellow medical student Gordon Baxter, and Gordon's monstrous female creation Bella Baxter.[30]

Boris Karloff as the classic film version and Hollywood's interpretation of Frankenstein's monster

Silent films continued the struggle to bring the story alive. Early versions such as the Edison Company's Frankenstein, (1910) managed to stick somewhat close to the plot. In 1931, however, James Whale created a film that drastically altered the story. Working at Universal Pictures, Whale introduced to the plot several elements now familiar to a modern audience: the image of "Dr." Frankenstein, whereas earlier he was merely a naive, young student, an Igor-like character (called Fritz in this film) who makes the mistake of bringing his master a criminal's brain while gathering body parts, and a sensational creation scene focusing on electric power rather than chemical processes. In this film, the scientist is an arrogant, intelligent, grown man, rather than a unknowing youngster. Another scientist volunteers to destroy the creature for him, the film never forcing him to take responsibility for his acts. Whale's sequel Bride of Frankenstein (1935), and later sequels Son of Frankenstein (1939), and Ghost of Frankenstein (1942) all continued the general theme of sensationalism, horror, and exaggeration, with Dr. Frankenstein and other similar characters growing more and more sinister.[31]

Later films diverted even more from the story, portraying the doctor as a sexual pervert and using his new persona to ask contemporary questions about science. Andy Warhol's Frankenstein (1973) portrayed him as a necrophiliac, and in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) Dr. Frank-N-Furter – a parody of Frankenstein – creates a creature as a blond adonis for use as a sexual plaything. In Frankenstein Created Woman (1967), Baron Frankenstein transplants a man's soul into a woman's body, joining the transsexual debate. And in Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969) he transplants a fellow-scientist's brain into another body in order to keep him alive, introducing moral questions into how far science should go to save a life. Although these films managed to bring the audience's attention back to the scientist, rather than the monster, they continue to show him as more depraved than the original. Overall, the story of Frankenstein that most people know today is more the product of movie studios than of Mary Shelley. Still, these films have provided valuable insights into the nature of film, the evolution of the general populace's view of science, and several interesting interpretations of a classic story.[32]

Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein (1974) is a spoof of Frankenstein in which Victor Frankenstein's grandson, Frederick Frankenstein (with a pronunciation the character insists is "Franken-steen") returns to settle his grandfather's affairs and ends up creating a new creature. The film is set in Transylvania, a region of Romania that was the original setting of Dracula. In this film, Victor Frankenstein's creation is simply referred to as "the monster", preserving Mary Shelley's intent to keep the dreaded monster from having a name. "The monster" also speaks eloquently, and upon the death of his creator it is more cowardly and less inclined to violence.

Although the morals of Shelley's story may not have been passed down along with the rest of her tale, Frankenstein has claimed a firm place as a well-known story in Western society. Frankenstein's monster, albeit in the classic movie version, is an iconic figure, appearing in movies, music, television programs, and on Halloween costumes. Though the story's details have been changed as it has moved from generation to generation, the overall concept of Mary Shelley's story remains.

See also

References

Notes

  1. ↑ This illustration is reprinted in the frontpiece to the 2008 edition of Frankenstein
  2. ↑ Frankenstein:Celluloid Monster at the National Library of Medicine website of the (U.S.) National Institutes of Health
  3. ↑ Chapter 24 of Frankenstein at Literature.org
  4. ↑ "Preface", 1831 edition of Frankenstein
  5. ↑ Sunstein, 118.
  6. ↑ Holmes, 328; see also Mary Shelley’s introduction to the 1831 edition of Frankenstein.
  7. ↑ Quoted in Spark, 157, from Mary Shelley's introduction to the 1831 edition of Frankenstein.
  8. ↑ Bennett, An Introduction, 30–31; Sunstein, 124.
  9. ↑ Sunstein, 117.
  10. ↑ http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/wmss/online/1500-1900/abinger/abinger.html
  11. ↑ http://www.amazon.co.uk/Original-Frankenstein-Mary-Shelley/dp/1851243968/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1225120491&sr=8-1
  12. ↑ Frankenstein:Celluloid Monster at the National Library of Medicine website of the (U.S.) National Institutes of Health
  13. ↑ "Frankenstein: Penetrating the Secrets of Nature / Exhibit Text" (pdf). National Library of Medicine and ALA Public Programs Office. Archived from the original on 2005-03-06. Retrieved on 2007-12-31. from the traveling exhibition Frankenstein: Penetrating the Secrets of Nature
  14. ↑ Author's Digest: The World's Great Stories in Brief, by Rossiter Johnson, 1908
  15. ↑ The Reef, page 96.
  16. ↑ This essay was included in the 2005 publication of Fantasmagoriana; the first full English translation of the book of 'ghost stories' that inspired the literary competition resulting in Mary's writing of Frankenstein.
  17. ↑ "Burg Frankenstein". burg-frankenstein.de. Retrieved on 2007-01-02.
  18. ↑ (Leonard Wolf, p.20)
  19. ↑ http://www.renegadenation.de/darmstadt/frankensteinengl.html Frankenstein Castle, Shelley and the Construction of a Myth
  20. ↑ Sandy, Mark (2002-09-20). "Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire". The Literary Encyclopedia. The Literary Dictionary Company. Retrieved on 2007-01-02.
  21. ↑ "Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)". Romantic Natural History. Department of English, Dickinson College. Retrieved on 2007-01-02.
  22. ↑ Percy Shelley#Ancestry
  23. ↑ (Leonard Wolf, p. 20).
  24. ↑ [1] "Benjamin Franklin in London." The Royal Society. retrieved August 8, 2007
  25. ↑ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, "Life of William Godwin," p. 151
  26. ↑ Toumey, Christopher P. "The Moral Character of Mad Scientists: A Cultural Critique of Science." Science, Technology, & Human Values. 17.4 (Autumn, 1992) pg. 8
  27. ↑ Toumey, pgs. 423-425
  28. ↑ Toumey, pg. 425
  29. ↑ http://pages.towson.edu/flynn/stagef.htm
  30. ↑ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_Things
  31. ↑ Toumey, pgs. 425-427
  32. ↑ Toumey, pgs. 428-429

Bibliography

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Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
People
William Godwin · Mary Wollstonecraft · Percy Bysshe Shelley · Claire Clairmont · Fanny Imlay · Lord Byron · John Polidori · Percy Florence Shelley · Thomas Jefferson Hogg
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Works
Mounseer Nongtongpaw · History of a Six Weeks' Tour · Frankenstein · Mathilda · Proserpine · Midas · Valperga · Maurice · The Last Man · The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck · Lodore · Falkner · Rambles in Germany and Italy · Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men · List of works by Mary Shelley
Frankenstein franchise
Universal series
Frankenstein (1931) • Bride of Frankenstein (1935) • Son of Frankenstein (1939) • The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942) • Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943) • House of Frankenstein (1944) • House of Dracula (1945) • Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) • House of Frankenstein 1997
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Hammer series
The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) • The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958) • The Evil of Frankenstein (1964) • Frankenstein Created Woman (1967) • Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969) • The Horror of Frankenstein (1970) • Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974)
Toho series
Frankenstein Conquers the World (1965) • War of the Gargantuas (1966)
Other films
Frankenstein (1910) • Andy Warhol's Frankenstein (1973) • Young Frankenstein (1974) • The Bride (1985) • Frankenstein Unbound (1990) • Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994) • Frankenstein (2004)
Related topics
Mary Shelley • Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818) • Victor Frankenstein • Frankenstein's monster • Castle Frankenstein • Doctor Septimus Pretorius