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).
Artwork by Etienne
Marais
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