This one was on my “classics” bookshelf and I felt the need to be a little literary. As an honor’s English student in high school and an English major in college, I am no stranger to Shelley’s story but wanted to dust it off and give it another look. I figured it would be interesting to compare how far modern adaptations have strayed from the original, and I was not disappointed though I would maybe like to push Dr. Frankenstein down a flight of stairs. Twice.
The story of the conception of this tale is as interesting as the story itself. In the summer of 1816 Mary Shelley and her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley became the visitors of Lord Byron. (You know, as you do.) During a wet rainy day Byron challenged everyone at his home to write a ghost story, a task Mary took very seriously. “I busied myself to think of a story – a story to rival those which had excited us to task. One which would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature and thrilling horro – one to make the reader dread to look round, to curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of the heart.”
And did I mention she was 18 at the time? Let’s just let that sink in for a minute. So, Frankenstein is what she came up with, at least the basic story, and she later expounded it into the full story inspiring high school English students today.
As for the story: there’s a guy. He decides to try his hand at creating human life from discarded parts. He succeeds, hilarity ensues. And by “hilarity” I mean “a killing spree.” But the monster of her tale (because Frankenstein is the name of the doctor, not his creation) is not the dumb killing machine we have come to see in film and television, afraid of fire and brainlessly inflicting destruction. No, this monster was ignored and discarded by Dr. Frank and became a murderer only to try to achieve his end: get the doctor’s attention and also motivate the good doctor to create for him a mate. Which ultimately isn’t unreasonable, for one who is shunned by all of mankind including his creator.
And what makes me want to push the doc down the stairs? He is useless, whiny, self-centered and wholly unapologetic, and somehow seems ignorant that everything is absolutely positively his fault. When he is fearful that the monster might harm his friends/family, to the point that he follows his friend obsessively, “I felt as if I had committed some great crime, the consciousness of which haunted me.” Um. Yeah. You did, idiot.
The story and the consequences of Frankensteins’s scientific endeavor are as horrifying as Mary Shelley intended and obviously has stood the tests both of time and adaptation. In conclusion, Mary Shelley is a genius I would genuflect to and Dr Frankenstein is the absolute worst.
