Frankenstein and His Monster on the Big Screen

     Many of the changes from Frankenstein's monster from book into the movie adaptation can be attributed to Hollywood and packaging complex ideas in simple terms so that people can understand them in 2 hours in less. However, I think the differences themselves can explain much in themselves. For example, the monster's intelligence, appearance, actions, and why Frankenstein's name is given to the monster are all excellent differences that can be examined.

     In the original book Frankenstein's monster, while originally lacking in language and intelligence, quickly grasps modern language and ideas and in fact becomes quite eloquent and persuasive. In almost every movie, however, the monster is portrayed as a violent simpleton. I think much of the change is in fact due to fear. A monster that can reason, that can speak its thoughts clearly and argue ideas persuasively is terrifying. A monster, perhaps in the most simplistic view that people hold of it, is something that is evil and violent and unreasoning. It cannot be stopped and feels no remorse, much like Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th or Michael Myers from Halloween. The concept of a reasoning, seductive monster had actually already been released in 1931 prior to "Frankenstein" with the movie "Dracula", and was made even more famous with Hannibal Lector in "Silence of the Lambs". The book Frankenstein portrayed Frankenstein's monster as a tortured soul who had in fact been turned to evil by the acts of mankind. This type of self - reflection may not have been a popular idea with audiences, so the monster was made to be idiotic. However, when combined with examination of the differences in appearance, another idea may emerge.

     In the book, the monster's appearance was never fully described besides at the end, when Walton describes the monster's hand as "...in colour and apparent texture like that of a mummy" (156). Victor pieced together the monster from different dead bodies, meaning the skin would be piebald. But in the movie, the monster is completely green, with bolts in his neck to absorb the electricity from Frankenstein's maniacal experiment. It would have been easier for the producers to make the monster all one color rather than a mishmash of other colors, and cheaper as well. But when taken with the monster's staggering lack of intelligence, perhaps Hollywood is giving a different view of a monster. One that is not any one of different skin colors, where a viewer could take their pick of what color made the monster the most evil, but rather that any color other than the viewer's own skin tone was evil. And rather than being eloquent, the monster is portrayed as ignorant. So perhaps Hollywood intended for the viewer to believe that ignorance is evil, that anyone different in appearance is in fact a savage, and is therefore evil.

     Finally, why did Frankenstein's name become synonymous with his monster? In the book Frankenstein is guilty of abandoning his creation without love or respect, and grows to hate it, forcing the monster into isolation. In the movie, the monster is given a criminal's brain and murders when it is scared by a torch. The similarity here is that in both cases, the monster is presumed to be evil by its creator immediately after its conception, due to its grotesqueness or its evil mind. But in both cases Frankenstein does wrong by abandoning it (in the book) and imprisoning it (in the movie), in both cases without attempting to accept it or teach it. Perhaps what is implied is that a monster beget a monster, and that Frankenstein's monster deserves the name of its creator because of the atrocities they both committed. And because Frankenstein gave the monster life, perhaps it is even more appropriate to say: like father, like son.