Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein has found its way into nearly every aspect of popular culture, from films and books to Halloween costumes and parodies. The images conjured by the story: an ecstatic, slightly mad scientist, his hunchbacked assistant, and a towering green creature with stitches in his face and his hands on backwards are familiar ones to today’s public. But just how authentic are these images? Where do they stem from? And how does the story that everyone “knows” today compare with Shelley’s original novel?
Most inquirers would likely be surprised at the answers to these questions. For the story first published by Mary Shelley in 1818 differs considerably from the one familiar to today’s society. These discrepancies are due in large measure to the 1931 film starring Colin Clive and Boris Karloff, which is responsible for the popular story most people know today. Perhaps the biggest discrepancy between Shelley’s novel and the popular film is the depiction of the monster himself. Shelley’s creature is not a green monster with metal poles sticking out of his neck and backward hands, though he is described as very tall, and appears hideous, on awakening, to his creator. Nor is the monster depicted as a clueless imbecile who can only communicate through grunts and body motions; Shelley’s monster learns speech through observing the interactions of a father with his two children, and afterwards speaks quite eloquently when he approaches his creator to ask a favor. Indeed, the monster’s capabilities may strike readers as a bit far-fetched and unbelievable.
A second difference likely to surprise most readers is the absence, in the novel, of Igor. Dr. Frankenstein’s distorted assistant has no place in Shelley’s story, and thus, neither does the whole brain episode, which, in the film, accounts for the “failure” of Dr. Frankenstein’s experiment. The monster’s violence and desperation stems instead from his frustration at being a societal cast-away whom no one wishes to interact with. He is not, as the film suggests, an innocent who unwittingly commits murder and other acts of violence. While he is at first innocent and naïve, he quickly becomes bent on the destruction of his creator and all those whom Dr. Frankenstein holds dear, this, unless the Doctor will consent to create a mate for him. Shelley’s monster still appeals in some ways to the reader’s sympathy, but not in the same degree that the film does.
Even the climax and culmination of the novel differs from that of the film and familiar story. Shelley’s novel does not even approach a happy ending, whereas the film ends happily for Dr. Frankenstein and his soon to be bride, if not for the monster itself. The climax of the novel does not even occur in a burning windmill, but out at sea, and, unlike the film, most of the characters are not left alive at the end of the story.
Admirers of the Frankenstein myth may still find Shelley’s novel interesting and enjoyable, if perhaps a little disappointing. The fact that it was conceived of by an eighteen-year-old girl and published at a time when women writers were scarce and writing as a profession was not generally encouraged for women is, after all, rather astounding. Despite the differences between the two stories and the fact that many probably admire the latter more than the original, Shelley must still be given credit for her originality and perseverance, and it must not be forgotten that without her, the present story would not exist.
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