Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Hollywood

The Monster’s Human Nature Summary Essay

Hollywood has played a big part is our lives. Growing up we’ve seen numerous movies, some that scared us others that touch us, and those images stayed with us forever. So what happens when Hollywood takes a classic piece of literature such as Frankenstein and turns into a monster movie. It transforms the story so much that now some 50 years later, people think of Frankenstein as the monster instead of the monster’s creator. It became a classic monster movie and all the high values of the original were forever lost.

Hollywood has managed to reeducate the world of the timeless and classic literature by altering the story to the point beyond recognition. Starting back with 1931 Frankenstein, where producers took a simple strategy and altered the theme of the story in a way they thought audiences would enjoy more. An ambitious man of science that tries to play a god by creating a man of his own vision. The sequel followed in 1935 named The Bride of Frankenstein, which took off even farther form the original novel by introducing audiences to the author Mary Shelly, and her husband Percy.

In the original text Victor Frankenstein, whose name in the movie was changed to Henry, was never guilty of abusing technology to become god. He tired to revive life, in which he party succeeded. From the speech in his deathbed, Victor tells Walton that his intentions were only to help life, and he hoped that others would succeed where he has failed. Hollywood has disregarded this crucial part of the story and turned Victor into a mad scientist.

Other versions of the film followed, one even explained monster being evil because Victor puts a crazy brain into him. Some critics argue that American audience just can’t comprehend intellectual complicity and they would just rather see a classic horror movie, then put some thought into one. Besides altering Victor, Hollywood altered the monster as well, making him seem even more wicked and horrific. As opposed to the original text where Shelly sympathizes with the monster, by letting us know his side of the story and how it was for him to grow up alone, and to be rejected by the society. Victor’s creation was alone and his misery and anger grew stronger by the day, at which point he starts to kill those close to Victor in order to get his revenge on the heartless creator that abandoned him.