Week 1: Frankenstein

While I feel like most people have at least seen film adaptations of Frankenstein, I had not before reading the book. I feel that this gave me a different experience when reading the book.

The story is rather infamous and a huge part of American culture, especially around Halloween, so I am aware of many of the simplified motifs that come out of versions of the story. I was expecting something very different from what I read. The closest version of the monster from Frankenstein I've seen in a film is through the adaptations of the creature that appears in Scooby Doo.

This changed what I expected from the story. I thought that it would go into further details about the actual creation of the monster with all the grand thunder and lightning that generally goes with it. Movies use the fear that thunderstorms bring, the sublime nature of it. This mirrors the Gothic style. However, it distracts from the horror of what Dr. Frankenstein has actually done. Mary Shelley really focuses on the moral dilemma he created for himself.

I truly pitied Victor. I felt I related to him to a degree with his obsessive nature. It’s easy to become fixated on a task, and lose sight of what horrors the results can manifest. I had not previously realized how much of this story was focused on the young doctor rather than the monster.

I was expecting him to be older. The mental image I got of Victor from actually reading the story was very different from the general idea I had of the pop culture version of the doctor. In class, we talked about the crazy-haired scientist. While that is what I think Victor is reduced to, I don’t believe that’s how Mary Shelly originally wrote him. People make him into an insane character that is visibly odd. This separates him from the general consumer so that they don’t have to question if their morals could falter in similar ways to Frankenstein’s own downfalls.

Before reading, I also hadn’t realized what a huge part Victor’s family plays in the story. This makes Frankenstein even more human. We see how he hurts from loss, as well as how he loves. The book really does use the Gothic device of building a sympathetic character. It makes the morals of the story more individually challenging. If the story can make the reader relate to the human aspects of Victor, it forces – or at least encourages – questions about how or if his immoral side can be found in our own natures.

I found the language used absolutely captivating. The differences in the structure and diction of the text from the English – that I’m used to hearing/reading in everyday life – made the story harder to digest at first.

“Morning, dismal and wet, at length dawned,” (Ch. 5 p. 183) this line drew my attention. I found it appealing. I also compared it to the commonly heard “it was a dark and stormy night” and found it inspiring the amount of depth language can add to the description a stories environment.

I started reading the story but then added an audio version that I focused on listening to while also reading along part of the time. I found that when I switched back to reading on occasion, I would more fully digest the language being used. I wish I had left myself more time in my schedule to read at a more leisurely pace. I’m not a fast reader so I decided to utilize the audiobook. But I think I gain more from the way I digest material while reading to a greater degree.

Frankenstein’s studies isolated him in a similar way to the monster’s isolation. And then the monster, through murder, furthered his seclusion. The monster can represent negative behaviors or “studies” that are common and not seen as being so un-human. The text introduced me to interesting ideas that I feel I can learn from.

The story was both fascinating and challenging. I’m glad I got the chance to read it. Victor’s struggle with deciding if he should support that which he created after he decided that the monster was an abomination was fascinating. After creation, is it moral to decide that the creation is unworthy of life and love?

One of my favorite quotes:

“If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your affections, and to destroy your taste for those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind.” (Ch. 4 p. 177)

excerpts from: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. “Frankenstein”

Elsa Frankenteen from Scooby Doo and the Ghoul School