Book x SBA
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
E05
■ Text: Simon Lau
Aaron Yang explores the origins of Mary
Shelley’s classic book Frankenstein.
A monstrous
error
H
ALLOWEEN
is about trick or
treating. And it is
also the only time
of the year when you can go
around wearing gruesome masks
and costumes to scare people with
impunity.
Movie mistakes
Among the many monsters that people love to mimic
during Halloween, “traditional” monsters like Count
Dracula the vampire and Dr Frankenstein’s monster
remain firm favourites.
Many people refer to Frankenstein’s monster simply
as Frankenstein. However, some say this is not right.
They point out that if one goes strictly by the novel
Frankenstein (The Modern Prometheus) by Mary
Shelley, from where the monster originated, Frankenstein
was the monster’s creator, Dr Victor Frankenstein, not
the monster itself.
In fact the monster, created by putting together body
parts from corpses, was not given a name in the novel. It
was only referred to as “the creature,” “the fiend,” “the
daemon,” or “the wretch.” As such, the monster should
properly be called Frankenstein’s monster and not simply
Frankenstein.
THE movies, it seems, should be
blamed for causing this confusion. It
was noted that after the release of James
Whale’s popular 1931 film Frankenstein,
moviegoers started to speak of the monster itself as
“Frankenstein”. There was also a similar reference in
Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and in several subsequent
“Frankenstein” films as well as in film titles such as
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.
However, some argue that calling the monster
Frankenstein is proper because the monster can be seen
as the offspring of its creator.
In any event, the author of the book, Mary Shelley,
could not have imagined her book’s success when she
wrote it at the tender age of 19. Nor could she have
foreseen that the monster she created would become a
favourite with the public.
Mary Shelley was visiting the home of a friend in
Lake Geneva with her husband-to-be Percy Bysshe
Shelley when the party, stranded indoors because of the
bad winter weather, passed their time telling each other
ghost stories. The circumstances of the book’s creation
were recorded in its preface by the author:
Corner
About the story
Author: Mary Shelley
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Category: Horror
No. of pages: 352
Publishing date: 1818
Quotations
“I am alone and miserable; man will not associate with me; but
one as deformed and horrible as myself would not deny herself
to me. My companion must be of the same species and have the
same defects. This being you must create.”
“Was there no injustice in this? Am I to be thought the only
criminal, when all human kind sinned against me?”
Print fiction
Print non-fiction
“These tales excited in us a playful desire of imitation.
Two other friends (a tale from the pen of one of whom
would be far more acceptable to the public than anything
I can ever hope to produce) and myself agreed to write
each a story founded on some supernatural occurrence.”
A grave warning
AS it turned out, Mary Shelley was the only person
who managed to finish the book. Her companions all
went out for a good time when the weather turned
better.
Frankenstein was first published in 1818 in London.
In the story, the monster, not able to adapt to the world,
killed its creator’s family as revenge. Written at the start
of the Industrial Revolution, it was seen as a dire warning
that mankind would face disaster if it fiddled with forces
it could not fully understand or control.
Non-print fiction
Like this book? Watch this…
Young Frankenstein
“Alive! It’s alive! It’s alive!” Dr Frederick Frankenstein
proclaims when he creates his “Monster”. This 1974
comedy is a parody of famous black and white
Frankenstein films from the 1930s and is placed
at number 13 on the American Film Institute’s 100
Funniest American movies. Check out the monster
singing Puttin’ On the Ritz like in a Broadway musical
but being very clumsy.
Thinking questions
1. Is it right to play God and create life?
2. Why must a father/creator not reject his son/creation?
Non-print non-fiction