#52--Frankenstein

It’s weird to me that I knew most of the Frankenstein story before I read the book.  Except for Young Frankenstein and an episode of Wishbone, I’ve never actually watched a film adaptation.  I read a Wishbone abridgement of Frankenstein (I was a pretty big Wishbone fan back in the day), which stayed pretty true to the tale; I’m surprised how well that abridgement did, and that I remembered it so well.

Mary Shelley started writing Frankenstein as part of a writing challenge among her friends.  The challenge was to tell a ghost story, and from what I can gather, most in that group barely did anything with it.  Shelley, who wrote this at age 19, didn’t exactly tell a ghost story, but she did raise the dead, and the first science-fiction novel was published by the year 1818.

The book follows the life of Victor Frankenstein from the time his parents meet until his miserable death in the Arctic regions.  Frankenstein is fascinated with various philosophies and sciences throughout his youth, and after his mother’s death, he’s sent off to school where he becomes fascinated by the question, where does life come from?  After a couple years of research and experimentation in his apartment, he brings a monster to life and suffers for that all the rest of his days.

Frankenstein is honestly not that scary.  Maybe it was back in the day; I don’t know.  My mom and I have debated that point a lot this past week.  The horror elements are there, but the monster is too human and philosophical for me to think of him as the thing that goes bump in the night.

Mary Shelley examined the idea that mankind is born good but society corrupts that good and makes us evil.  The monster is abandoned at birth; Frankenstein abhors this ugly thing he’s created and runs away in terror the moment the monster opens his eyes.  Wherever the monster goes, he is driven out.  He only learns how to speak, read, and think by secretly observing an educated family in the woods.  For saving a little girl’s life, he gets shot in the shoulder.  The series of abuses and loneliness causes him to be evil and seek revenge on his creator.

This idea was later explored in Stephen King’s first published novel, Carrie, about an abused high school senior who finally has enough of the shame and torment that she kills her entire town in mad vengeance.  In both stories, it’s easy for me to empathize with the villains; most of my childhood was a never-ending cycle of public humiliation and loneliness and the need to lash out is strong.  At that age, though, I was too small and powerless to do anything about it—which I consider a good thing, as it gave me time to grow up and find a better way.  The monster and Carrie are not powerless in their respective stories, and when they lash out, the damage is huge.

Still, I question Shelley’s position that society made the monster evil.  I’m certainly of the opinion that people are born innocent, but society and outside forces do not dictate who we become.  Society doesn’t give us our emotions of shame, fear, or anger.  Those feelings are part of our biological makeup and society doesn’t dictate whether we feel them or not.  Morality, or good and evil, depends on whether we control our natural instincts or give into them.  In the monster’s case, he still had a choice and chance to forgive and try again and instead chose to hate.  In the end, the ones he harmed most was not Frankenstein, but the poor bystanders who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.  In the end, only one of Frankenstein’s brothers comes out of the affair alive.

While the monster is the unquestioned villain of the piece, it’s hard to really think well of Victor Frankenstein.  Cowardice shadows every decision he makes.  From the moment the monster first wakes, Frankenstein runs away from his responsibilities.  When the monster first disappears from his apartment, Frankenstein feels relief because it’s out of his hands.  When his youngest brother dies and an innocent woman is being blamed for it, Frankenstein knows the truth but out of fear, he does nothing to save her life.  His fear for his own life makes him leave his wife vulnerable and in the end she’s murdered.  It’s only after he’s lost everything that he confesses his part in the murders.  Too late to do anything about it then.

It is overwritten, but there are several parts, especially in travelling through the Alps and watching the monster run across dangerous terrain unscathed where the world comes to life.  And it started the sci-fi trope of unleashing the dangerous experiment among mankind and complete loss of control of what to do.  And the relationships are interesting, not just between Frankenstein and his monster, but between Frankenstein and the various friends and family he has.  I’m glad to have finally made time for this.