Frankenstein

FRANKENSTEIN

Author:

First edition:

Frankenstein or the modern Prometheus, 1817

Main illustrator:

In short:

Sailing towards the North Pole, Captain Walton meets a man, Victor Frankenstein, who tells him his story. In an intense excitement, Dr. Frankenstein created a human being. But when he saw the creature move, he run away, terrified. Later the monster pursued him, kills his little brother and Frankenstein's best friend. He also kills his fiancé in their wedding night. Finally, when the monster joins Frankenstein, he explains to the Doctor his feeling of being left stranded. All alone, on his own, he became a monster and he claims a partner for him to Frankenstein, in order to be loved and understood.

What is unique about Frankenstein is that it represents and almost foreshadows the Romantic disinllusionment with the established order. After the wars of 1848, Romantics saw that the possibility of a society transformed by individuals was less and less believable.
In the novel, Victor Frankenstein feels discontented with the medical breakthroughs of that time and he achieves satisfaction by exploring himself the realms of life and death. But his ambition is mislead and he gives life to a monster.
The book pretends to be moralizing, as Dr. Frankenstein sais to Captain Walton:
"Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow" [Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1816), London: Oxford University Press, 1971, page 53]
"The world was to me a secret which I desire to divine" [ibid, page 36] and these God-like ambition makes his life a living hell. Frankenstein has to run away from his own creation, a monster driven mad and wicked by our society which rejected and outraged him for nothing.

Selection of edition:

Frankestein, illustrated by Bruno Pilorget, Gallimard, 1982.
Frankenstein (abridged), illustrated by Thea Kliros, Dover Children's Classics Thrift Classics, 1997.

More about Frankenstein:

The circumstances under which Shelley wrote Frankenstein, the greatest Gothic Romantic novel, are also novel-like. She conceived the masterpiece during one of the most famous house parties in literary history. In June 1816, by the shores of Lake Geneva in Switzerland, the Shelley couple, Polidori and Byron were lodged in Villa Diodati. To amuse themselves, Mary begins to narrate ghost stories.

Adaptations:

Since 1910, directors have been fascinated by Mary Shelley's book and have adapted the novel in a more or less accurate way. The most weel-known films are:
James While's Frankenstein (1910) with the mythical and unforgettable role of Boris Karloff
Tarence Fisher's The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) with Christopher Lee
Mel Brooks' parody Young Frankenstein (1974)
Kenneth Branagh's really accurate version with an unrecognizable Robert De Niro playing the monster in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein(1995)