Frankenstein’s Story to Film Transformation
One famous line that many people associate with Frankenstein is “It’s Alive!”. Although this may be true for the films, that line is not mentioned in the book after Frankenstein’s creature comes to life. Most people hardly even know that Frankenstein was a book before it became a movie. Yet, many pieces of artwork, films, and other stories have been created with the baseline of this particular story. When thinking of Frankenstein’s creature, usually people associate it with the movies instead of the book itself. This may be because these days, movies are a more popular art form to indulge in. Yet, over the years, the names, images, and the story itself has changed. When looking at Frankenstein films
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It seems as if over the years, Dr. Frankenstein has almost become a distant memory. Nowadays, the creature that Victor created is referred to as Frankenstein. Compared to Shelley’s original story, present viewpoints of Frankenstein and the creature have blurred together into one solid form. In one of the scenes in the movie I, Frankenstein, one of the characters named Naberius called the creature Frankenstein with the reasoning behind it being, “We are all the sons of our fathers, are we not?” (I, Frankenstein). This meaning that he is giving the creature the name of its “father” which is a reasonable explanation unto why society calls the creature Frankenstein as well.
Along with names being different, the creature’s appearance has changed as well. One of the things that is mostly remembered about Frankenstein's monster are its features. Many know Frankenstein’s creature to have a square like head and bolts sticking out of its neck. Yet, over the years, the creature’s features have changed drastically. In the movie I, Frankenstein, the creature is more human-like with scars all over his body and face. The scars are an accurate feature, but in the original story, Victor describes the creature
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For one thing, the point of views are different between the two. The book has Victor being the narrator of the story and the creature having gained a lot of knowledge. Yet, in some movies, we mostly follow the creature’s perspective of the story. In the movie I, Frankenstein, we follow the creature perspective after the events that had occurred in the story. Plus, many movies about the book Frankenstein show “us far less of the monster’s inner life than his long autobiographical narratives in the novel do” (Heffernan 135). The creature is usually grunting or portrayed as not knowing many words. Yet the movie I, Frankenstein is one true exception. The creature knows English pretty well and has even taught himself to fight in order to survive. I, Frankenstein might not be what Shelley’s initial work had in mind, but it is better than the creature wandering around grunting as shown in most
Later on, the creature without having knowledge of what is life and what is dead, he goes on rampage but he feels the hate and eventually wants to kill his creator. In Frankenstein we see the scientist in a small sympathetic way since he wants to redeem his actions and destroy what he made. That is not the scientist we see in Hammer’s version. In Hammer’s version we see how Frankenstein is deeply obsessed on his experiments. Frankenstein’s monster shows to be in the sympathetic part, even if he had less participation that in 1931 Frankenstein, he shows darkly comedic way how he is brought to life and suddenly dies just to be resurrected again. The spectator has a sympathetic perception of this character whose goal in life is no more than
Despite popular belief, Frankenstein is not the name of the monster but instead its creator. Victor Frankenstein created the “tremendous and abhorred” (page 76) creature that is known as the Monster after he discovers how to give
To begin with, Victor Frankenstein's creature thinks, reacts and acts like a human. For example, When the creature was in the woods he noticed that a girl was drowning in the lake. When he went in the lake to go save her from dying a man comes and thinks that the creature was doing harm to the girl. When all the creature was trying to do was to save the girl from drowning. In this case the creature reacted and acted just like a human would. To add on, the creature also made some horrid mistakes in which he regrets in doing. The creature regrets and admits that he did wrong ''But now vice has degraded me beneath the meanest animal''(192). In this quote it states that the creature calls himself an "animal'' because of all his wrong doing. The creature
When you hear the word “Frankenstein”, the first thing that comes to mind is a creepy, zombie-like monster; but this is not exactly what the story is all about. The monster is not actually named Frankenstein; it’s the creator of the monster whose name is Victor Frankenstein. Because of Victor’s interest in natural science and creation of life, he decided to study relentlessly and create his own human out of something inanimate. Once brought to life though, the creature ends up being more of a curse than an amazing invention. Victor then spends the rest of his life in fear and grief to try and put an end to the monster he created. The novel Frankenstein shows remarkable and deliberate connection with the myth of Prometheus from the cover page to the creation scene and is tied in through the rest of the book. (Whisenant)Victor Frankenstein can be called a modern-day Prometheus because of his creation of a being, their love for human kind, and their fate at the end.
Most Americans have some idea of who Frankenstein is, as a result of the many Frankenstein movies. Contrary to popular belief Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a scientist, not a monster. The "monster" is not the inarticulate, rage-driven criminal depicted in the 1994 film version of the novel. Shelley’s original Frankenstein was misrepresented by this Kenneth branagh film, most likely to send a different message to the movie audience than Shelley’s novel shows to its readers. The conflicting messages of technologies deserve being dependent on its creator (address by Shelley) and poetic justice, or triumph over evil (showed by the movie) is best represented by the scene immediately preceding Frankenstein’s monster’s death.
Mary Shelley was a big fan of Romanticism. So the creature is evident of Gods work. A monster is not characterized only by its physical appearance but by its actions and attitude. That’s the reason that Frankenstein’s creation is not the true monster in this novel. Even though it may express many monstrous qualities throughout the story it has many more human ones. The creature’s humane characteristics greatly outnumber the monstrous ones and should be recognized by the reader. It is truly amazing how a creature with so much hatred and despair can have so many humane qualities.
Frankenstein was and still is one of the greatest horror books written. It is still relevant to incidents happening today. Children dress up as the monster at Halloween and directors still try producing newer versions of the movie. People view the creature as a monster purely based on its aesthetics, “I had gazed on him while unfinished; he was ugly then…” Victor comments on the monsters looks a lot throughout the novel and as the story progresses the creature realises how hideous he is too.
As a tragic hero, Victor’s tragedies begin with his overly obsessive thirst for knowledge. Throughout his life, Victor has always been looking for new things to learn in the areas of science and philosophy. He goes so far with his knowledge that he ends up creating a living creature. Victor has extremely high expectations for his creation but is highly disappointed with the outcome. He says, “I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart” (Shelley 35). Frankenstein neglects the creature because of his horrifying looks, which spark the beginning of numerous conflicts and tragedies. At this point, the creature becomes a monster because of Victor’s neglect and irresponsibility. The monster is forced to learn to survive on his own, without anyone or anything to guide him along the way. Plus, the monster’s ugly looks cause society to turn against him, ad...
As a romantic novel Victor is responsible, because he abandoned his creation. As an archetype novel, Victor is the villain, because he was trying to play god. Finally, Victor as a Gothic novel, Victor is at fault, because, he and the creature are two different parts of the same person. If Frankenstein is looked at as a romantic novel, Victor, not the creature, is truly the villain. When Victor created the creature, he didn't take responsibility for it. He abandoned it, and left it to fend for itself. It is unfair to bring something into the world, and then not teach it how to survive. The creature was miserable, and just wanted a friend or someone to talk to. On page 115, the creature said, "Hateful day when I received life! Accursed the creator. Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust." This line shows the agony the monster was in, because of how he looked when he was created which led to even Victor running away from him. If Victor didn't run, he could have taught the monster and made his life happy. After the creature scared the cottagers away he said, "I continued for the remainder of the day in my hovel in a state of utter ...
People’s impression of the Creature has become so twisted and turned by time and decades of false film posters and article titles that most use the name “Frankenstein” to refer to the Creature itself, rather than the scientist who created him! It’s a shame, he said! An understanding of literary history is a necessity to comprehend the truth of the Creature’s tragic history and how decades of film adaptations changed him into the hulking beast most people know him as today. Illustration from the frontispiece of the 1831 edition of Shelley’s Frankenstein novel by Theodor von Holst. First of all, Mary Shelley describes the Creature as "yellow skin scarcely covering the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was luxurious black, and flowing; his teeth of pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight Despite his appearance of a "monster" the original Creature portrayal is that of a sensitive, intelligent being rather than a nonspeaking idiot and killing machine.
Imagine an eight-foot-tall, misshapen human child. You might complain that this is contradictory - but do it anyway. Imagine some sort of humanoid being with the mind of a human child in an eight-foot body, green with a nail in its head if you want. This is what Frankenstein's creature is. Frankenstein's creature is mentally a child, and we see its evolution through traditional child development in the course of its narrative. But the creature is the only member of its species, and therefore its narrative can be taken to represent the history of an entire species - the creature's first experiences can be viewed as an amalgam of creation myths.
There are a number of differences between the book and movie adaptation of Frankenstein. The first evident difference is that, in the book, the novel gets some books and learns on his own to read and write from them .Comparably, in the movie adaptation, the monster learned from watching the De Lacy family and how they communicated to each other. The book goes in great detain to explain the monsters education and how the books helped whereas, in the movie, little is shared of how fast the monster acquired education. The monsters education is reflected best in the book compared to the movie. In addition to this, the monsters appearance is very different in the movie compared to how he is described in the book. In the book, the creature taught himself how to read and write from the classic literature the Prometheus and Milton’s Paradise Lost, where he learnt to speak very clearly. In the movie, the creature is inarticulate.
The Creature, Victor Frankenstein’s creation, is shaped into a monster through its experiences, instead of the nature of itself, which is more expected. Victor Frankenstein, on the other hand, is shaped into a monster because of his mind’s power-hungry nature. Victor treats his creature poorly and he himself becomes wicked. While the Creature also becomes wicked in the end, its actions are more justified because multiple people treated it poorly, causing the Creature to lash out. Even though Victor Frankenstein and the Creature both turn into wicked monsters, to some extent, only one of
Since the original novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, to the multiple movie adaptations, the monster is almost always predicted as the monster of the story. It may be his physical appearance, from his tall, broad frame, to the signature screws in his neck. It may also be his unnatural upbringing and interpreted evil characteristics. We have grown to fear the monster, which ultimately, has masked the true monster, Dr. Frankenstein. With each coming movie, the good side of the monster is brought to light, while the real monster shows his true colors.
In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein we are introduced early in the story to one of the main characters Victor Frankenstein and subsequently to his creation referred to as the monster. The monster comes to life after being constructed by Victor using body parts from corpses. As gruesome as this sounds initially we are soon caught up in the tale of the living monster. Victor the creator becomes immediately remorseful of his decision to bring the monstrous creation to life and abandons the borne creature. Victor describes his emotions and physical description of his creation as follows: