Frankenstein image via Mary-Shelly-Wiki, courtesy of Universal Pictures
Frankenstein is a timeless story and also a cautionary tale . Perhaps the mystery of life is best left unsolved and the dead should rest in peace.
Frankenstein is a Story to Surpass the Ages
Frankenstein had humble beginnings which took shape on the eve of two crucial events: a bet and the following nightmare that soon followed. “Let’s all write a ghost story,” was the bet, “and see who can tell the most harrowing tale.” Innocent enough, and on that whimsical challenge among her friends, our beloved Mary Shelley would pen the most haunting cautionary tale of all time.
Mary Shelley, the Mother of Frankenstein, was shortly troubled by a petrifying nightmare that assailed her restless sleep once she accepted the writing challenge. This dream was simply too realistic – she saw a violent form rising from the shadows and staring into her very soul.
So vivid was this (apparition?) sight that it played the crucial part of her tale, of a man and his monster, of the form with a hideous shape lurking in the dark places of mankind’s imagination. And by her own nightmare, she has gone on to inspire the night terrors of generations.
Frankenstein will endure in the capsule of our mortal consciousness if for nothing else, to instruct us to respect our own mortality. And mortal we all are. Regardless of our phenomenal abilities to harness the sciences and cure what once had been incurable maledictions upon our bodies, we all still have an inescapable destiny.
The grave awaits us all, and Dr. Frankenstein, the maker of monsters, dared to challenge that inevitable fate to the direst of consequences.
The Dark Heart of True Horror
Rifled graves, immoral experimentations, a thunder-strewn sky cracking with what could very well be the vengeance of a God wrathful for being so haughtily challenged by His own creation, and a ghastly form of a thing rising back to reluctant life – pulled from the very chambers of the dead to face a world of pain.
These are the immediate images Frankenstein inspires. Shelley’s ghost story strikes across us all as a bolt flung from the Asgardian anvil. It is permanent and it is foreboding.
Frankenstein- Courtesy of Royal Opera House
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Even after the passing of two centuries, the obscene experimentation of Victor Frankenstein still hold the world in an electric grip of suspense and awe. By him we are met with a frightening conundrum — should Man create life after his own image?
I changed that you know? I changed it from a statement to a question, because I realized that it cannot be answered so blatantly. It demands a pause and will not react to a speedy conclusion. Of course, there is Us now — you and I — standing on the other side of Shelley’s grey horizon. We now know what happened in the case of Dr. Frankenstein once his obsessions were finally achieved.
A monster with a human heart was awakened, and ours was a world ill-prepared for such a new species, or, dare I say, a new Adam. There was no garden of comfort to greet Man’s new genesis. His abhorrent creation was thrust into a world where men cannot accept what they do not understand and hate what they fear.
Lit torches, lit crosses, ugly red flags of hatred – this is how Man has dealt with whomever he cannot readily understand. Egyptians enslaved the Hebrews, Hebrews went on to slay the Canaanites; Pagan Romans slaughtered Christian families and then Christians slaughtered Pagan villages. The pages of human history are wet with blood. Innocent lives suffer because of fear, paranoia, and pious hysteria.
Shelley’s book is more than a haunting ghost story, oh so much more. Her tale exposes the horror of the human condition. Her protagonist fundamentally splits open Man’s chest, pulls aside the red matter, cracks apart bone and marrow and exposes the vulnerable human heart. A thing so small but guilty of so much atrocity.
Simultaneously, it is both the cause of our affections and source of our afflictions. If history stands in accusations against our species, for one thing, it must be for our inability to accept what we do not understand and then fear what we cannot accept.
Think about this — biblically, the first baby born was Cain, a man we all know to have killed his younger brother. So, in essence, the first man born among us likewise became the first murderer. There you have it – the beating (and murderous) heart of Man’s wild obsessions.
A heart willing to do anything to accomplish its means will, in fact, do anything (no matter how questionable or cruel) to make that accomplishment.
That is the plight of Victor Frankenstein. Is he an evil man? No, not in any classical sense. He is a man who simply will not be dissuaded from his goals, and to do so he sets aside his moral obligations – but only temporarily, at least, that’s what he tells himself. It’s a shallow comfort, but a comfort nonetheless.
After all, isn’t it for the greater good?
Think of the lives that will be spared! But one must crack a few eggs to make an omelet as they say. So to sustain life, lives must become expandable.
I know this didn’t happen in the book, but Shelley’s story is left open to interpretation, and among my favorite interpretations of the legend is Hammer’s. Unlike Frankenstein that follows the monster, Hammer decided to follow the Doctor.
Hammer gave us a Frankenstein who is willing to murder (people he knew personally) in order to harvest the required organs for his experimentations. In short, it’s a tale about a man willing to turn against his own kind in favor of his heart’s obsessions. He’s so blinded by ambition that he cannot smell the rotting decay of his corrupted nature.
The Mother of Monsters
It took a woman’s perspective to analyze the ugliness inside a Man’s heart. Make no mistake, we are capable of great things, but that doesn’t mean they’ll always be wholesome things. Our intentions may be good but as they say, good intentions pave the way to Hell.
So in part that is the wisdom of May Shelley’s undying masterpiece. As we stand on a new brink of discovery and dare to flirt with bio-engineering and artificial intelligence we can practically feel the cold shadow of Victor Frankenstein looming over us all. The trouble is, I know he’s there but unsure if he’s cheering us on or lamenting our progress.
Should man create life after his own image? I’m not wise enough to answer you that. We know the results of Shelley’s protagonist. Frankenstein lost everything for his pursuit of the greater good. The love of his life was murdered at the hands of his own creation.
image courtesy of Frankensteinia The Frankenstein Blog art by Patrick Jones
His family name was not only stained but accursed entirely. He made possibly the most significant human discovery since the proto spark of the first fire, and yet the man ended his days in the lonesome wastes of the frozen North, hunted by the monstrosity he released into the world and haunted by the phantoms of all who perished for the sake of his obscene goals.
And his legacy lingers on to haunt and warn us all.
Fan of the legendary Dr. Frankenstein and his monster? Think it’s one of horror’s best? Let the other creepy creatures know what you think in the comments below.