FRANKENSTEIN: WHAT
MAKES A MONSTER?
“Before, I looked upon the accounts of
vice and injustice, that I read in books
or heard form others, as tales of ancient
days, or imaginary evils; at least they
were remote, and more familiar to
reason than to the imagination; but
now misery has come home, and men
appear to me as monsters thirsting for
each other’s blood” (63)
Plot Review
• Victor’s education consists of a turning away from alchemy,
necromancy, etc. and towards chemistry and the natural sciences.
• After Justine’s death, Victor’s “immoderate grief” and failed
“duties” consume him (61); he considers suicide by drowning (62)
• Landscape, exploration, and loneliness: a culmination in the path to
the summit of Montanvert; when he reaches the top, he exclaims:
‘Wandering spirits; if indeed you ye wander, and do not rest in your
narrow beds, allow me this faint happiness, or take me, as your
companion, away from the joys of life.”
• The monster “easily eludes” Victor’s violent advances and begs him
to “listen” to his tale (69-70).
• The monster’s tale of how he came to be who / what he is, up to the
history of De Lacey family and Safie’s arrival.
The Sublime and Landscapes
the sublime: “Affecting the mind with a sense
of overwhelming grandeur or irresistible
power; calculated to inspire awe, deep
reverence, or lofty emotion, buy reason of its
beauty, vastness or grandeur”
Edmund Burke coined the term in a 1757
treatise: "all that stuns the soul, all that
imprints a feeling of terror, leads to the
sublime.
Different from Kant’s idea of beauty which is
differentiated from use, desire, or pleasure.
“These sublime and magnificent scenes
afforded me the greatest consolation that I
was capable of receiving” (65).
“something like joy”
I Frankenstein
• What does the title of the
adaptation suggest?
• How are the monsters
characteristics similar and / or
different (appearance, ability, etc.)
• How does the statements made
about the monster compare /
contrast with the reading for
today?
• What do we hear the monster say
about himself in this short preview
and how does it compare with the
monsters story in the reading from
today?
Discussion
• The trailer depicts Frankenstein
200 years in the future; address
the strengths assigned to
Frankenstein; the war between
monsters and the “human” race /
“mankind”
• “You’re only a monster if you
behave like one”
• “When I looked into your eyes, I
saw darkness.”
• “God will surely damn you.”
• “He already did”
• Was I then a monster, a blot upon
the earth, from which all men fled,
and whom all men disowned?...Who
was I? What was I? Whence did I
come? What was my
destination?...Cursed, cursed
creator! Why did I live?
• There are some clean, comic-book
compositions and neat
• Eckhart described his character
thus: "Frankenstein is an
architectural interlacing, but the
intelligent, evolved man, and
blinkered screenplay and
that’s how he is portrayed in this
indifferent performances fail to
movie, for sure.“
lift the eschatology and self• Creator of comic book and
searching off the page. –New York
screenplay, I Frankenstein:
Times
• I guess because he's just the classic • Long on talk and incoherent action,
motif of an action hero: He's big
devoid of humor, this listless
and strong…Using Frankenstein
supernatural actioner surely has
and looking at the original novel,
Mary Shelley turning in her
this was a very intelligent
grave.—Variety
creature. He was smart, he was
cunning, he asked questions about • 4% on Rotten Tomatoes (critics);
his existence, things like that.
46% (audiences)
There is a lot of mythology there
that you can pull from in terms of
his motivation—why he is like he is
right now—and I like that.
Building Monstrous Characters
Education and Experience in Frankenstein: What
“Makes” A Monster?
• The power of situational factors to
“lead people who ordinarily
behave decently to act
inhumanely,” and the general
belief that the capacity for evil acts
is within us all if placed in the right
situation
• Philip Zimbardo’s definition of evil
is “the exercise of power to
intentionally harm
(psychologically), hurt (physically),
or destroy (mortally or spiritually)
others”
• “it was indeed I who was reflected
in the mirror; and when I became
fully convinced that I was in reality
the monster that I am, I was filled
with the bitterest sensations of
despondence and mortification.
Alas! I did not yet entirely know the
fatal effects of this miserable
deformity” (79)
• “But where were my friends and
relations? No father had watched my
infant days, no mother had blessed
me with smiles and caresses; or if
they had, all my past life was now a
blot, a blind vacancy in which I
distinguished nothing” (84).
The Important of Perspective, Context, and
Narration in Reading Monstrous Characters
Some “ingredients” that will lead people to evil acts, according to
Zimbardo:
• the luxury of ignoring, minimizing, distorting, or disbelieving the
impact of the act, making subjects freer to act without restraint
• opportunities for diffusion of responsibility for negative outcomes;
others will be responsible, or it won’t be evident that the actor will be
held liable.”
• “altering the semantics of the act and action, from hurting victims to
helping learners by punishing them”; this involves dehumanization of
the other
An Eye for an Eye…
“…remember that, and tell me why
I should pity man more than he
pities me? You would not call it
murder, if you could precipitate me
into one of those ice-rifts, and
destroy my frame, the work of your
own hands. Shall I respect man,
when he contemns me? Let him live
with me in the interchange of
kindness…But that cannot be; the
human sense are insurmountable
barriers to our union” (102).
Questions to Consider for Monday: Narrative
Truth
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“When falsehood can look so like the truth, who can look so like the truth,
who can assure themselves of certain happiness?” (63)
How does the socio-political context in which the piece was written
inform the questions explored in Frankenstein (as well as the questions /
issues that are not explored)
In different sections of the text, who is telling their story? to what
audience(s)? and what difference does this make—if any—in how they
tell it?
When and where do we hear characters speak for themselves? for other
characters?
In Frankenstein, how does the framing narrative complicate this
“telephone-like” process?
There are many letters reproduced in the narrative, or said to be
produced outside of the narrative; “I have copies of these
letters…before I depart I will give them to you” (86; 2.6). Are letters
more reliable “evidence”? How do the letters written and exchanged
throughout the text challenge Victor’s presumption? Do they reflect
events as actually occurred?
Why are the characters in Frankenstein motivated to tell, account for,
and evidence this tale? How are their perspectives different?