Frankenstein

The first Frankenstein film was produced by Thomas Edison in Two German films, The Golem and Homunculus , dealt with a similar theme derived from Jewish folklore.

This film was a great success and was followed by dozens of variations on the Frankenstein story in films such as Bride of Frankenstein and Frankenstein Conquers the World , a Japanese-made version. We welcome suggested improvements to any of our articles. You can make it easier for us to review and, hopefully, publish your contribution by keeping a few points in mind.

Your contribution may be further edited by our staff, and its publication is subject to our final approval. Unfortunately, our editorial approach may not be able to accommodate all contributions. Our editors will review what you've submitted, and if it meets our criteria, we'll add it to the article. Please note that our editors may make some formatting changes or correct spelling or grammatical errors, and may also contact you if any clarifications are needed. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Learn More in these related Britannica articles: Frankenstein is disgusted by his creation, however, and flees from it in horror.

Frightened, and unaware of his own identity, the monster wanders through the wilderness. He finds brief solace beside a remote cottage inhabited by a family of peasants. Eavesdropping, the creature familiarizes himself with their lives and learns to speak, whereby he becomes eloquent, educated, and well-mannered.

The creature eventually introduces himself to the family's blind father, who treats him with kindness. When the rest of the family returns, however, they are frightened of him and drive him away. Hopeful but bewildered, the creature rescues a peasant girl from a river but is shot in the shoulder by a man who claims her.

He finds Frankenstein's journal in the pocket of the jacket he found in the laboratory, and swears revenge on his creator for leaving him alone in a world that hates him. The monster kills Victor's younger brother William upon learning of the boy's relation to his hated creator. When Frankenstein retreats to the mountains, the monster approaches him at the summit and asks his creator to build him a female mate. In return, he promises to disappear with his mate and never trouble humankind again; the monster then threatens to destroy everything Frankenstein holds dear should he fail.

Frankenstein agrees and builds a female creature, but, aghast at the possibility of creating a race of monsters, destroys his experiment. In response, the monster kills Frankenstein's best friend Henry Clerval, and later kills Frankenstein's bride Elizabeth Lavenza on their wedding night; whereupon Frankenstein's father dies of grief. Frankenstein dedicates himself to destroying his creation. Searching for the monster in the Arctic Circle , Frankenstein falls into the freezing water, contracting severe pneumonia. A ship exploring the region encounters the dying Frankenstein, who relates his story to the ship's captain, Robert Walton.

Later, the monster boards the ship; but, upon finding Frankenstein dead, is overcome by grief and pledges to incinerate himself at "the Northernmost extremity of the globe". He then departs, never to be seen again. Shelley described Frankenstein's monster as an 8-foot-tall 2. His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.

A picture of the creature appeared in the edition. Early stage portrayals dressed him in a toga, shaded, along with the monster's skin, a pale blue. Throughout the 19th century, the monster's image remained variable according to the artist. The best-known image of Frankenstein's monster in popular culture derives from Boris Karloff 's portrayal in the movie Frankenstein , in which he wore makeup applied, and according to a format designed by, Jack P.

Pierce and possibly suggested by director James Whale. Universal Studios , which released the film, was quick to secure ownership of the copyright for the makeup format. But their makeup replicated the iconic look first worn by Karloff. To this day, the image of Karloff's face is owned by his daughter's company, Karloff Enterprises, for which Universal replaced Karloff's features with Glenn Strange's in most of their marketing. Since Karloff's portrayal, the creature almost always appears as a towering, undead -like figure, often with a flat-topped angular head and bolts on his neck to serve as electrical connectors or grotesque electrodes.

He wears a dark, usually tattered, suit having shortened coat sleeves and thick, heavy boots, causing him to walk with an awkward, stiff-legged gait as opposed to the novel, in which he is described as much more flexible than a human.

The tone of his skin varies although shades of green or gray are common , and his body appears stitched together at certain parts such as around the neck and joints. This image has influenced the creation of other fictional characters, such as the Hulk. In the TV mini-series Frankenstein: The True Story , a different approach was taken in depicting the monster: Michael Sarrazin appears as a strikingly handsome man who later degenerates into a grotesque monster due to a flaw in the creation process.

In the film Mary Shelley's Frankenstein , the creature is played by Robert De Niro in a nearer approach to the original source, except this version gives the creature balding grey hair and a body covered in bloody stitches. He is, as in the novel, motivated by pain and loneliness. In this version, Frankenstein gives the monster the brain of his mentor, Doctor Waldman , while his body is made from a man who killed Waldman while resisting a vaccination. The monster retains Waldman's "trace memories" that apparently help him quickly learn to speak and read. In the film Van Helsing , the monster is shown in a modernized version of the Karloff design.

The electricity is emphasized with one electrified dome in the back of his head and another over his heart. It also has hydraulic pistons in its legs, essentially rendering the design as a steam-punk cyborg. Although not as eloquent as in the novel, this version of the creature is intelligent and relatively nonviolent. In , a TV mini-series adaptation of Frankenstein was made by Hallmark. Luke Goss plays The Creature. This adaptation more closely resembles the monster as described in the novel: This version of the creature has the flowing dark hair described by Shelley, although he departs from her description by having pale grey skin and obvious scars along the right side of his face.

In this series, the monster names himself " Caliban ", after the character in William Shakespeare 's The Tempest. In the series, Victor Frankenstein makes a second and third creature, each more indistinguishable from normal human beings. As depicted by Shelley, the monster is a sensitive, emotional creature whose only aim is to share his life with another sentient being like himself. From the beginning, the monster is rejected by everyone he meets. He realizes from the moment of his "birth" that even his own creator cannot stand being around him; this is obvious when Frankenstein says "…one hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped…".

In Shelley's original work, Dr. Frankenstein discovers a previously unknown but elemental principle of life, and that insight allows him to develop a method to imbue vitality into inanimate matter, though the exact nature of the process is left largely ambiguous. After a great deal of hesitation in exercising this power, Frankenstein spends two years painstakingly constructing the creature's proportionally large body one anatomical feature at a time, from raw materials supplied by "the dissecting room and the slaughter-house" , which he then brings to life using his unspecified process.

The creature has often been mistakenly called "Frankenstein". In one author said "It is strange to note how well-nigh universally the term "Frankenstein" is misused, even by intelligent people, as describing some hideous monster". This also occurs in Frankenstein films, including Bride of Frankenstein and several subsequent films, as well as in film titles such as Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. Furthermore, the film Son of Frankenstein introduced an evil laboratory assistant, Ygor Bela Lugosi , who never existed in the original narrative. Mary Shelley maintained that she derived the name Frankenstein from a dream-vision.

Despite her public claims of originality, however, a number of other sources have been suggested as Shelley's actual inspiration. There is also a castle called Frankenstein in Bad Salzungen , Thuringia, and a municipality called Frankenstein in Saxony. It was at this castle that a notorious alchemist, Conrad Dippel , had experimented with human bodies, and Florescu reasons that Mary suppressed mention of her visit in order to maintain her public claim of originality.

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Day supports Florescu's position that Mary Shelley knew of and visited Frankenstein Castle before writing her debut novel. A possible interpretation of the name Victor is derived from Paradise Lost by John Milton , a great influence on Shelley a quotation from Paradise Lost is on the opening page of Frankenstein and Shelley even has the monster himself read it.

In addition, Shelley's portrayal of the monster owes much to the character of Satan in Paradise Lost ; indeed, the monster says, after reading the epic poem, that he empathizes with Satan's role in the story. There are many similarities between Victor and Percy Shelley, Mary's husband.

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Victor was a pen name of Percy Shelley's, as in the collection of poetry he wrote with his sister Elizabeth, Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire. Percy Shelley was the first-born son of a wealthy country squire with strong political connections and a descendant of Sir Bysshe Shelley , 1st Baronet of Castle Goring , and Richard Fitzalan, 10th Earl of Arundel.

Percy had a sister named Elizabeth; Victor had an adopted sister named Elizabeth. On 22 February , Mary Shelley gave birth to a baby two months prematurely, and the baby died two weeks later. Percy did not care about the condition of this premature infant and left with Claire, Mary's stepsister, for a lurid affair. The question of Victor's responsibility to the creature is one of the main themes of the book.

ADDITIONAL MEDIA

The Modern Prometheus is the novel's subtitle though some modern editions now drop the subtitle, mentioning it only in an introduction. He made a being in the image of the gods that could have a spirit breathed into it. Prometheus, being the creator, took back the fire from Zeus to give to man. When Zeus discovered this, he sentenced Prometheus to be eternally punished by fixing him to a rock of Caucasus , where each day an eagle would peck out his liver, only for the liver to regrow the next day because of his immortality as a god.

He was intended to suffer alone for eternity, but eventually Heracles Hercules released him. Prometheus was also a myth told in Latin, but was a very different story. In this version Prometheus makes man from clay and water, again a very relevant theme to Frankenstein , as Victor rebels against the laws of nature how life is naturally made and as a result is punished by his creation. Victor's work by creating man by new means reflects the same innovative work of the Titan in creating humans. Some have argued that Mary Shelley saw Prometheus not as a hero but rather as something of a devil, and blamed him for bringing fire to man and thereby seducing the human race to the vice of eating meat fire brought cooking which brought hunting and killing.

Byron was particularly attached to the play Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus , and Percy Shelley would soon write his own Prometheus Unbound The term "Modern Prometheus" was actually coined by Immanuel Kant in reference to Benjamin Franklin and his experiments with electricity. Shelley incorporated a number of different sources into her work, one of which was the Promethean myth from Ovid. Mary is likely to have acquired some ideas for Frankenstein's character from Humphry Davy 's book Elements of Chemical Philosophy , in which he had written that "science has Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem " Mutability " is also quoted and its theme of the role of the subconscious is discussed in prose.

The Creature also quotes a passage of the poem.

His name has never appeared as the author of the poem although other poets are cited by name in the novel, implying that Mary wrote the poem and developed the psychological ideas. Another potential reason is to conceal his contributions to the novel. Within the past thirty years or so, many writers and historians have attempted to associate several then popular natural philosophers now called physical scientists with Shelley's work on account of several notable similarities.

Two of the most notable natural philosophers among Shelley's contemporaries were Giovanni Aldini , who made many public attempts at human reanimation through bio-electric Galvanism in London [56] and Johann Konrad Dippel , who was supposed to have developed chemical means to extend the life span of humans.

While Shelley was obviously aware of both these men and their activities, she makes no mention of or reference to them or their experiments in any of her published or released notes. Frankenstein has been both well received and disregarded since its anonymous publication in Critical reviews of that time demonstrate these two views, along with confused speculation as to the identity of the author. The Quarterly Review stated that "the author has the power of both conception and language" Sir Walter Scott , writing in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine , congratulated "the author's original genius and happy power of expression" , although he is less convinced about the way in which the monster gains knowledge about the world and language.

On the other hand, the Quarterly Review described it "a tissue of horrible and disgusting absurdity". In two other reviews where the author is known as the daughter of William Godwin, the criticism of the novel makes reference to the feminine nature of Mary Shelley. The British Critic attacks the novel's flaws as the fault of the author: Godwin's novels" produced by the "daughter of a celebrated living novelist" Despite the reviews, Frankenstein achieved an almost immediate popular success.

It became widely known especially through melodramatic theatrical adaptations—Mary Shelley saw a production of Presumption; or The Fate of Frankenstein , a play by Richard Brinsley Peake , in A French translation appeared as early as Frankenstein: Critical reception of Frankenstein has been largely positive since the midth century. Goldberg and Harold Bloom have praised the "aesthetic and moral" relevance of the novel, [61] although there are also critics such as Germaine Greer , who criticized the novel as terrible due to technical and narrative defects such as it featuring three narrators that speak in the same way.

Film director Guillermo del Toro describes Frankenstein as "the quintessential teenage book", adding "You don't belong. You were brought to this world by people that don't care for you and you are thrown into a world of pain and suffering, and tears and hunger. It's an amazing book written by a teenage girl. Why are we here, what can we do?

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. This article is about the novel by Mary Shelley. For the characters, see Victor Frankenstein and Frankenstein's monster. For the historic German castles and other uses, see Frankenstein disambiguation. Further information on derivative works: Frankenstein in popular culture.

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. March Learn how and when to remove this template message. List of films featuring Frankenstein's monster. United Kingdom portal Books portal. Essays on Early Science Fiction and its Precursors.

Retrieved July 19, This day is published, in 3 vols. Mary Shelley and the Curse of Frankenstein.

Back Bay Books; 20 August Penetrating the Secrets of Nature: The Birth of Frankenstein". Journal of Religion and Health. Johns Hopkins University Press, Retrieved 13 November Retrieved 28 August Archived from the original on 25 September Vintage Books has an edition presenting both versions. Archived from the original PDF on 4 December Retrieved 31 December Fantasmagoriana Tales of the Dead.

The Literary Dictionary Company. Retrieved 2 January Department of English, Dickinson College. A letter from Hookham to say that Harriet has been brought to bed of a son and heir. Shelley writes a number of circular letters on this event, which ought to be ushered in with ringing of bells, etc.

But in other versions, such as several of Aesop's fables See in particular Fable , Sappho Fragment , and Ovid's Metamorphoses, Prometheus is the actual creator of humanity. Retrieved 8 August The Public Domain Review. It's obvious - because the book is so bad". Published in the Norton critical edition. Retrieved 27 August Behind the monster smash". Reshaping the image of a literary family".

Retrieved 8 July Scarecrow Press, , p. Retrieved 8 January Retrieved 23 May Retrieved 6 December