Frankenstein
Jul. 11th, 2015 03:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grimrose_eilwynnI read this article and liked it, about Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein:
http://amysmartgirls.com/mary-shelley-meet-the-teenage-girl-who-invented-science-fiction/
It's not a perfect article. It glosses over a lot of the little uncomfortable details, like the fact that Percy was married when he and Mary ran away together, and a lot of the sad ones, like the deaths of Mary's children. But it's a good introduction to a strong, interesting, and controversial feminist lady.
I've got to admit, I liked Mary's book better than any of the Frankenstein movies. The movies butcher the story.
(SPOILER ALERT)
For example, in the book, when Victor Frankenstein creates the monster he is a young, lonely, and brilliant man at university -- not an aged scientist with an assistant. This makes much more sense because Victor's age makes him foolish enough to think he can control anything, his loneliness isolates him from adverse opinions, his obsession with learning science drives him, and the recent death of his mother makes him reckless enough to try to revive a dead corpse.
That's right. Tim Burton's Frankenweenie is a more accurate representation of Mary's masterpiece than a lot of the original Frankenstein films.
The monster is much more human in the novels. He is intelligent, can carry on conversations, and contemplates his own existence. He is capable of kindness as well as ferociousness. The reason he becomes so murderous is because Victor abandoned him to a world that would reject him because of his appearance. This adds weight to the monster's kills -- they become more meaningful, and frankly more frightening, when a thinking person did them. There's also a little moral in there about the power of judging based on appearance.
The monster decides to murder everyone Victor cares about, in revenge for his abandonment and bad treatment at the hands of humans. We get to know every single person murdered, because they all love Victor, and there's a slow agony as one by one they are taken from him in horrific and methodical ways. This makes, in my opinion, for a much better horror story than just one in which random people are killed by a faceless being for no apparent reason.
It's just a completely different story when you read the book. I don't have any of the movies, but I have the book. I seriously recommend the read for anyone interested in the beginning pulses of horror and science fiction.
http://amysmartgirls.com/mary-shelley-meet-the-teenage-girl-who-invented-science-fiction/
It's not a perfect article. It glosses over a lot of the little uncomfortable details, like the fact that Percy was married when he and Mary ran away together, and a lot of the sad ones, like the deaths of Mary's children. But it's a good introduction to a strong, interesting, and controversial feminist lady.
I've got to admit, I liked Mary's book better than any of the Frankenstein movies. The movies butcher the story.
(SPOILER ALERT)
For example, in the book, when Victor Frankenstein creates the monster he is a young, lonely, and brilliant man at university -- not an aged scientist with an assistant. This makes much more sense because Victor's age makes him foolish enough to think he can control anything, his loneliness isolates him from adverse opinions, his obsession with learning science drives him, and the recent death of his mother makes him reckless enough to try to revive a dead corpse.
That's right. Tim Burton's Frankenweenie is a more accurate representation of Mary's masterpiece than a lot of the original Frankenstein films.
The monster is much more human in the novels. He is intelligent, can carry on conversations, and contemplates his own existence. He is capable of kindness as well as ferociousness. The reason he becomes so murderous is because Victor abandoned him to a world that would reject him because of his appearance. This adds weight to the monster's kills -- they become more meaningful, and frankly more frightening, when a thinking person did them. There's also a little moral in there about the power of judging based on appearance.
The monster decides to murder everyone Victor cares about, in revenge for his abandonment and bad treatment at the hands of humans. We get to know every single person murdered, because they all love Victor, and there's a slow agony as one by one they are taken from him in horrific and methodical ways. This makes, in my opinion, for a much better horror story than just one in which random people are killed by a faceless being for no apparent reason.
It's just a completely different story when you read the book. I don't have any of the movies, but I have the book. I seriously recommend the read for anyone interested in the beginning pulses of horror and science fiction.
