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Frankenstein

 


Was Frankenstein the first gothic novel? Not quite. Gothic literature as its own genre is said to have begun with Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto: A Gothic Story, which came out in 1764. But Frankenstein which came out in 1818 is probably the earliest example of gothic fiction that is still well known in the mainstream today.

In 1815 Indonesia’s Mt Tambora erupted. It was the largest volcanic eruption in human history. The eruption caused global climate change. 1816 was called the year without a summer. Why am I telling you this? Because that summer Mary (Shelley) was vacationing on Lake Geneva with the poets Percy Bysshe Shelley (her future husband), Lord Byron and others. The weather was so dismal that they stayed inside and read ghost stories to each other to amuse themselves. Then Byron challenged them to each write their own ghost story, and they would vote for a winner. The idea of someone trying to build and animate a human from body parts came to Mary in a dream. What was to be a short story eventually turned into a novel. 

The influence of Frankenstein is tremendous. How many movies have been made from it? It is difficult to count, as some have different names and made by numerous countries, but it is safe to say dozens, not including sequels and variations like Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. The first movie was made in 1910 and simply titled Frankenstein.  Probably the most faithful movie adaptation is the 1994 film Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. There are also movies that you might not associate with Frankenstein, but that were definitely formed from the basic idea. I am thinking of movies like Edward Scissorhands, Ex Machina, Robocop. Yes, they have their roots in Frankenstein.

Popular culture tends to think of the monster as Frankenstein. If you buy a Halloween mask “of Frankenstein” it will look like the Boris Karloff creature from the 1930’s movies. But the creature in the book is not called Frankenstein. The creature has no name. It is the scientist/creator whose name is Victor Frankenstein. The fact that people confuse the two is telling, because one could seriously ask which one is the greater monster: the creature or the scientist? The creature does horrific things in his revenge and there is not much redeemable about him in the end. But Dr. Frankenstein (not really a doctor as he never finished his schooling, but we will call him Dr. Frankenstein just because that’s what people do) created the creature and then was so horrified by it that he abandoned it as it came to life, leaving the creature to experience a life of utmost suffering. The creature knows nothing at its “birth.” It is hated and attacked everywhere it goes. The creature is intelligent (unlike in the Boris Karloff movie). He eventually learns to understand language, and eventually learns to read and write. At one point the creature says to Victor Frankenstein:

 “Remember that I am thy creature, I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed. Everywhere I see bliss from which I alone am irrevocably excluded.”

His intelligence just makes his existence worse: knowing what love, compassion, generosity are, but also knowing that he will never experience them. We may not condone his acts, but we understand why he becomes bent on revenge.

 Scientific accountability is one of the themes of the story. Do we have the right to play God? If there was a morale to the story, the answer would have to be a resounding “no” as most of the characters wind up dead by the end. But it is a question we ask over and over in our modern world. Just because we can do a thing, does that mean we should do the thing? From genetic manipulation, and cloning, to atomic energy, Mary Shelley anticipated this question before anyone had cause to dwell on it.

Frankenstein was probably the first adult novel that I ever owned. I don’t know how old I was, probably eleven or twelve, and I am sure I did not comprehend all of the finer nuances that first time reading it. Some of the early nineteenth Century language may have been a bit over my head, but some of it stuck with me. I was struck by how different the monster was (Boris Karloff was my sole reference point).  I knew about horror movies. I had watched a lot of them, but this was something different. Something thoughtful.

(My science fiction novel Star Liner, is now available in paperback or as an e-book through Amazon and other online sources).

Link to Star Liner

Artwork by Etienne Marais

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