This was the middle segment of the Salon Saturday radio show that aired on October 28. Even though I’d seen countless movies inspired by Shelley’s novel I had not read the original work. My source is a Penguin Classics novel with a forward by Shelley scholar, Charlotte Gordon (2018) and an afterward, How to read Frankenstein by Charles Robinson, which makes this a most valuable reprint of the classic. It also includes a chronology of the novel’s creation and changes, as well as its reception.
The structure of the novel might surprise many first time readers, as it begins with letters from Robert Walton to his sister in England. Walton and his crew are searching for the Arctic Sea and nearing that latitude the ship is first encased in ice and then later freed. But that is not before seeing a large man-like figure driving a sled with several dogs. After this astonishing sight, a man in another sled with only one dog stops near the ship and is brought aboard, near death and grudgingly tell an incredible story about his pursuit of that being. All these letters precede chapter 1.
One must remember that letter writing was considered an art in the 18th and 19th centuries. The collected writings of many authors, including Shelley, have been published after their death. Providing information in letters, using the same skills and language as applied to a novel, was seen as a natural element of a work; as were newspaper articles which could accurately cover topics, informing the reader.
This is a far cry from now when much information in news media is created to obscure the truth or offer up a lie. AI assistance makes emails easy to write, sometimes only an Emoji is used to convey meaning. And who uses letter writing these days? Those who still wish to apply the art of letter writing do so in long emails; no doubt hoping the intended reader does have the patience to read it.
The language in the 19th century was more detailed; making sure the author’s intent was there with no ambiguity or vagueness. The writers took their time coming to the point. Today’s prose in much leaner and taunt with no unnecessary words or embellishments, so it takes more patience to read older works.
The birth of the creature in the novel will surprise most readers. First the location is Victor’s apartments in Ingolstadt near the university, not a dreary castle. Chemicals are used to reanimate the monster, not lightning or electricity. Very little of the process of creating a man is included, but Shelley records that it was comprised of many body parts and designed to be 8 feet tall! That being would be considered monstrous, and the sight of crisscrossed scars and mismatched body parts would frighten anyone. But where would the outsized organs, torso, arms and legs come from?
It’s not like you could call up Andre the Giant (1946-1993) for help. And stitching two legs together to make one longer one, wouldn’t the monster walk kind of funny? And Shelley said nothing’s about the brain. So a lot of details were left to our imagination, but I digress.
Victor takes one look at his creation, of an unblinking eye lost in the pool of its surrounding milky orb and departs in disgust. When he returns the creature is gone and he is relieved. This occurs early in the novel. His health had declined to the point where his friend Henry Clerval had to nurse him back to health. His cousin, Elizabeth, writes of her concern and pleads with him to write to her and his father.
The movie Young Frankenstein (1974) uses a line of dialog from the novel when Gene Wilder reads his grandfather’s words. “After days and nights of incredible labor and fatigue, I succeeded in discovering the cause of generation and life: nay more, I became myself capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter.” To which Wilder exclaims, “It – could – work!”
So was Victor Frankenstein insane? He has been so represented in film. Colin Clive in Frankenstein (1931), shouts, “It’s alive, it’s alive” and nearly collapses in a nervous state. Peter Cushing’s doctor is a cold, calculating genius, seldom excitable. Kenneth Branagh’s portrayal is overwrought and almost maniacal in its intensity. Gene Wilder, on the other hand, as the doctor’s son, provides the response, one wished Victor had; that of providing a suitable mate and companion for the monster. After the creature escapes, in despair he says, “What have I done, oh god, what have I done?”
However, a mad Victor was not Shelley’s intention. Charles Robinson in his How to Read Frankenstein portion of the novel lists two establishing ideas for the novel.
The pursuit of knowledge was perceived as a dangerous thing, which offended God (Genesis). There was also the Greek Prometheus myth. By bringing knowledge as well as fire to mankind, Prometheus endured untold grief. The second element was the concept of doppelganger, in which the various characters represent different parts of Victor and his monster. Robinson diagrams it as the joining of head and heart.
Victor needs the friendship of Clerval, and the love of Elizabeth and the monster needs a mate and her companionship. Note that Victor’s dear friend Clerval is seldom in a film version, although Elizabeth often is. Also the vitally important creation of the female is lacking in many films, which again represents this duality. The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), though veering wildly from the novel does provide this vital element in James Whales second film.
Timeline of novel:
The structure of the novel would be very challenging to adapt to a screenplay as it is, but elements of it have been used in many films. First, how to build a monster requires credibility. Then, should the murders be on-screen? Only the marks of a giant hand on the victim’s neck signal death’s cause in the novel. In the early films the violence was understated. In the later films the violence was shocking.
- Victor pursues his creation in the Arctic wastes from Walton letters that begin volume 1.
- Chapter 1: Victor leaves home for Ingolstadt University and lives in apartments in which he makes his creature over a space of 2 years. Nobody notices missing body parts?
- Chapter 4: “It was on a dreary night in November, that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils.” Those were the first words Shelley wrote.
- He watches the being come alive and bolts the room in horror, returning when it’s gone
- Victor is nursed back to health by his friend Henry Clerval, he puts the monster from his mind, until a letter from his father saying his brother, William, was murdered in Geneva.
- Victor returns home to console his family and glimpses his monster climbing up a sheer rock face, he is gigantic and powerful, not a shambling beast. His cousin Justine is sentenced to death for the murder, which ends volume 1.
- Chapter 2, volume 2: Victor and family go to their Chamonix (Chamounix) retreat. Victor ascends the mountain and crosses the sea of ice, where he is confronted by his creation.
- “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. I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy and I shall again be virtuous.” Here is the core of Victor’s crime, rejecting his own creation and setting in motion the murders of those closest to him.
- Chapter 3, volume 2: The creature begins his tale of coming alive, recovering his senses, gazing on the moon for the first time. Then, in his quest for food and shelter, he hides in a hovel near a cabin, eavesdropping on a family of three and learning their language, which was French.
- Chapter 8: The subplot involves Safie, Felix, Agatha and blind De Lacy and the catastrophic result of the creature’s confrontation with blind De Lacy. In film this becomes the blind hermit in The Bride of Frankenstein and also in Young Frankenstein with Gene Hackman as the hermit in a hilarious scene.
- Chapter 9, volume 2: Victor agrees to make his creation a mate; end of volume 2.
- Chapter 2-3, volume 3: In the Orkney Islands, Victor sets up a laboratory, begins to make a woman, and then destroys it when confronted by his creature, who says, “I’ll be with you on your wedding night!”
- Chapters 3-4: Victor is swept out to sea, then lands in Ireland and is arrested for Clerval’s murder. His father arrives to take him home when he is freed for lack of evidence.
- Chapter 6: Victor takes his bride to a Geneva retreat to await the creature’s final vengeance. He assumes the monster plans to kill him and is armed.
- It is Elizabeth who is killed and in revenge Frankenstein pursues the monster to the frozen Arctic where Walton’s final letter records his friend Victor’s death and the monster’s disappearance in the frozen mists.
What had begun as a short ghost story by an impressionable young woman, influenced by two great poets in a dreary and sleepless night in Geneva becomes a novel that captured the world and provided the image of Frankenstein; both man the creator and his alternate self; the monster that could not die.
Also check out Horror Movies Paired to Wines, for a list of movies inspired by this novel and wines to enjoy with them.
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