It's Okay to Call Frankenstein's Monster Frankenstein | The Mary Sue It’s Not Wrong to Call the Monster “Frankenstein” Consider the following before you try to correct someone. by Glen Tickle | 10:19 am, October 18th, 2013 It seems any time someone refers to The Creature in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as “Frankenstein” some pedant will chime in with a condescending, “Uhm, actually, Frankenstein is the doctor. Not the monster.” In reality, it’s actually perfectly acceptable to call The Creature “Frankenstein.” Here’s why. In Frankenstein: Or the Modern Prometheus Mary Shelley tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a scientist determined to penetrate the secrets of nature and create a living being from dead tissue. Why he chose to start that venture with an eight-foot-tall hulk of a man and not, say, a gerbil, is a mystery all its own. We won’t spoil it, but things don’t go so great for Victor after that.

Neither Shelley, nor Victor Frankenstein give The Creature a name in the book, which has created the problem of what to call the thing since the book was first published in 1818. “The Creature,” “The Monster,” “Frankenstein’s Monster,” or variations are all common. Shelley herself is said to have enjoyed the way the monster was credited simply as “——” in a 1823 stage adaptation titled Presumption: or, The Fate of Frankenstein . Somewhere in the past 195 years, people began referring to The Creature itself as “Frankenstein.” We’re not sure exactly when that happened, but our theory is that it happened around the time of the 1931 James Whale Universal Studios adaptation. The poster for which, prominently features The Creature and the word “Frankenstein”. Anyone not familiar with the story, could easily conclude that the monster in the poster is named Frankenstein. Lobby Card for Frankenstein, image via Wikipedia It’s an easy mistake to make, but it’s not actually a mistake. No one in the book gives The Creature a name, but unlike Boris Karloff’s grunting portrayal, Frankenstein’s monster is actually quite intelligent.

He has a number of conversations with Victor Frankenstein. In Chapter 16 of Frankenstein when The Creature is confronting Victor he says: At length the thought of you crossed my mind. I learned from your papers that you were my father, my creator; and to whom could I apply with more fitness than to him who had given me life? The Creature considers himself the child of Victor Frankenstein. He self-identifies as a Frankenstein, and we think that choice should be respected. That’s why calling The Creature by that name isn’t actually incorrect. He thinks he is the son of Victor Frankenstein, so it makes sense that he would take that name. The Creature also compares himself to the Biblical Adam a few times in the book, so if we were to give him a name, we’d suggest calling him Adam Frankenstein. So there you have it. Next time someone tries to call you out for calling The Creature “Frankenstein” you can one up them with a quote from the text to support the name. Of course, it’s still probably a good idea to differentiate between Victor Frankenstein, the doctor, and Adam Frankenstein, the monster, if you need to make it clear in your statement which one you’re talking about.

Even if it’s not incorrect to call The Creature “Frankenstein” that’s no excuse to be confusing. If you really want to geek out on some Frankenstein discussion, let’s hash it out in the comments over whether Victor or Adam are the real monster in the story, because we’ll also make the case that Adam wasn’t really a bad guy. Frankenstein Frankenstein: What's in a Name? The full title of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley's novel is Frankenstein, or, the Modern Prometheus. What influenced her to use "Frankenstein" as the name for her protagonist? And why should she give it a subtitle referring to an ancient Greek god? Given the importance of electricity as an animnating force in the novel, most readers, particularly her immediate audience of the early 1800s, would connect the name Frankenstein with Ben Franklin. All Europe was familiar with Ben Franklin's recent experiments with electricity and Mary included a direct reference to him in the first edition of the novel. But she didn't just make up a German name that sounded like the anglican Franklin.

Frankenstein is the name of an old aristocratic German family whose ruined castle she passed on her way home from Europe in 1814 . The name--literally, the stone of the Franks--derives from the fact that this Frankish family (the Franks were a Germanic people who settled in Western Europe during the decline of the Roman Empire) built their castle near a quarry . Mary's novel radiates meanings on several levels, and ideas associated with the name Frankenstein resonate throughout the novel in many ways. While the novel may be a critique and a parody of Romanticism on one hand, it also very much embodies Romantic values--particularly that of the Romantic hero. She surely would be struck by the Romantic heroes in the history of the Frankenstiens . Clearly, the novel is concerned with the search for secret knowledge and the creation of life, and the historical Frankensteins also had a connection with these issues. Fortuitously, the philosopher's stone --a term associated with alchemy and Paracelsus --is also suggested by Frankenstein-- "FranksStone." Significantly, Mary has her protagonist study the works of Paracelsus as a youth.

Also, the Frankenstein Castle ruins no doubt served as a magnet to travelers of romantic temperaments and interest in legends. The site and its history had an inspirational effect on Johann Goethe and his Faust . In Goethe's epic, the hero sells his soul to the devil in seeking the secret of life; the work and creates an artificial man in his laboratory. Mary Shelley was very familiar with Goethe's work. But what of the subtitle--the modern Prometheus? Mary knew the Prometheus myth as a fusion of two earlier versions--Prometheus plasticator (creator) and Prometheus pyrphoros (fire-bringer). In this modern version, the fire stolen by Prometheus became the fire of life with which he animated his man of clay. When Mary Shelley subtitled her novel "The Modern Prometheus," she forcefully directed our attention to the books critique both of the promethean poets she knew best, Byron and Percy Shelley , and of the entire Romantic ideology as she understood it. Victor Frankensteins failure to mother his child has both political and aesthetic ramifications . The father who neglects his children can be seen as the archetype of the irresponsible political leader who puts his own interests ahead of those of his fellow citizens.

Victor Frankensteins quest is nothing less than the conquest of death itself. By acquiring the ability to "bestow animation upon lifeless matter" and thus "renew life where death had apparently devoted the body to corruption" (49), Frankenstein in effect hopes to become God, the creator of life and the gratefully worshipped father of a new race of immortal beings. In contrast to this unchecked prometheanism, Mary Shelley realized that means become ends: no political ideology can be detached from its modes of production. At every step one must balance the abstract ideal one serves against a moral obligation to preserve the welfare of living individuals, especially those family members most dependent upon one. Mary Shelley grounded her alternative political ideology on the metaphor of the peaceful, loving, bourgeois family. She thereby implicitly endorsed a conservative vision of gradual evolutionary reform, a position articulated most forcefully during her times by Edmund Burke. In popular culture, many people often mistake Frankenstein as the name for the monster, not the scientist/creator.

Frankenstein Day: Five Myths About The ‘Frankenstein’ Monster Frankenstein Day: Five Myths About The ‘Frankenstein’ Monster 08/30/13 AT 11:51 PM Close Conceived during the summer of 1816, Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” is lauded as one of the earliest examples of science-fiction literature. Telling the story of the talented but misguided Dr. Victor Frankenstein and the hideous monster he creates, Shelley’s novel is recognized as one of the most engaging horror stories ever written. The creation myth within the book has served as inspiration for modern films, graphic novels, songs and even horror-themed episodes of numerous television shows. But with creative license also comes the blurring of fact and fiction about the book’s iconic creature, known simply as the monster. From his green complexion to his lack of intelligence, we’ve gathered five untrue myths below about the Frankenstein monster. 1. His Name Is “Frankenstein” [[nid:1402032]] Although many mistakenly believe the monster’s name to be Frankenstein, he is actually never referred to by any name in the book. Dr.

Frankenstein does call him other hateful names such as “devil” and “fiend,” according to Chris Baldick, who wrote “In Frankenstein's Shadow: Myth, Monstrosity, and Nineteenth-Century Writing.” 2. He Is Green With Bolts In His Neck In Chapter 5 of the book, Victor described the monster as having been designed to have limbs “that were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! -- Great God! 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.” You see, the monster was definitely not as hideous as popular culture has updated his look to be! 3. He Died At The End Of The Book While many assume that the monster dies after running off into the frozen arctic wasteland after his creator dies, it is never specified whether the monster survives in the harsh wilderness, as noted by Mental Floss . 4. He Lacked Intelligence Throughout the book, the monster is portrayed as both sensitive and intelligent. He lacks only the companionship of another being just like him.

And his only acts of rage and cruelty come as a result of his loneliness. So there you have it, the monster was both compassionate and knowledgeable -- not some heartless creature. 5. The Monster Is Larger Than Any Human The monster was actually eight feet tall in the book. Thus, there have been living human beings who could look him in the eye. Nonetheless, he would still stand among the world’s tallest humans, so that definitely warrants recognition. Frankenstein Was Not a Doctor - CSI Skeptic Authors Steven Salzberg and Joe Nickell to Receive Balles Prize in Critical Thinking June 14, 2013 Forbes columnist Steven Salzberg and author-investigator Joe Nickell will each be awarded the 2012 Robert P. Balles Prize in Critical Thinking, to be presented by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry at the CFI Summit in October. Frankenstein Was Not a Doctor Skeptical Inquirer Volume 34.6, November/December 2010 The concept many people have of Frankenstein is the story of a mad doctor who creates a monster from stolen, dead body parts but mistakenly endows it with a criminal brain.

The resulting creature-called “Frankenstein”-is an uncontrollable, murdering fiend who eventually kills his own creator. Though widely recognized as the authentic telling of the classic horror tale, this concept, which stems from various film adaptations, is not the story written by Mary Shelley published in 1818. It is true that movies often differ from the books on which they are based, but critical misconceptions about Shelley's brilliant work that have become ingrained into the public consciousness over the years can be traced back to the movie versions of the story, beginning with Universal Pictures's Frankenstein in 1931. The movie has become more familiar to people than the original novel. It has a life of its own, apart from the book, and has little to do with Shelley's work itself, other than the title. In the novel there is no criminal brain; the creature does not kill his creator; and though he may have been mad, Frankenstein was not a doctor! Most people probably realize that the name “Frankenstein” is properly applicable to the creator, Victor Frankenstein, and not his creation, which is often referred to as “the creature” in the novel Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus.

Still, popular culture continues to identify the creation, or “the monster,” as “Frankenstein.” This corruption of the name can be directly attributed to the numerous motion pictures stemming from the extraordinary novel, in particular the eight made by Universal Pictures during the 1930s and '40s (beginning with 1931's Frankenstein and ending with 1948's Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein). The latter movie and some of the others-namely The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942), and Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman (1942)-compound this confusion because their titles refer directly to the creature, not the creator. Although Universal's Frankenstein and its sequel, The Bride of Frankenstein, are now considered classics, it is most likely in the original film that the misapplication of the name began.

When the newly created and somewhat unsteady being first appeared on screen, his creator cautioned him, “Take care, Herr Frankenstein, take care!” This endearing scene is not found in the novel, in which the initial encounter between Frankenstein and his creation is quite different: I beheld the wretch-the miserable monster whom I had created. He held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they may be called, were fixed on me. His jaws opened, and he muttered some inarticulate sounds, while a grin wrinkled his cheeks. He might have spoken, but I did not hear; one hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped and rushed downstairs. (Shelley 1991, 43) In addition to the misuse of Victor's last name, the Universal screenwriters took the curious step of reversing the first names of Victor Frankenstein and his friend Henry Clerval; Frankenstein becomes “Henry” and his friend is “Victor.” There seems to be no motivation for, or benefit derived from, such an alteration.

Shelley saw Victor Frankenstein as playing God and may have drawn his name from Paradise Lost, in which Milton refers to God as “the Victor”; thus the filmmakers violated Shelley's original intention with this unwarranted editing. Another misconception from the movies is the belief that the creature is inarticulate, though an attempt is made in The Bride of Frankenstein to follow the novel by giving him speech. Able to communicate, the creature forces Frankenstein to create a mate for him. Although this storyline is similar to what happens in the book, the results differ sharply. In the original story, Frankenstein destroys his work on a female being before completion, thus incurring the further wrath of the creature. In the movie, Frankenstein completes his work, but the creature experiences another rejection when his intended “bride” finds him repugnant and will have nothing to do with him. In this same film, the creature learns language from a blind hermit with whom he shares some tender moments, learns to laugh, and even sheds some tears. These appealing scenes are not found in the novel, but they do resemble a meeting therein between the creature and a blind man named De Lacey who lives with his family in the woods.

Unfortunately, while The Bride of Frankenstein makes an effort to develop the creature along lines similar to the novel, later film versions return him to the role of dumb, murderous brute. On the contrary, Mary Shelley's creature becomes an articulate, educated being who learns to speak and read French. He knows the history of prior civilizations and is familiar with great literature, such as Milton's Paradise Lost, in which he compares himself to the rejected Satan instead of the nurtured Adam. Frankenstein's creation achieves all this while hiding in a hovel next to the De Lacey family cottage, observing them for a year. At one point, while the rest of the family is away, he presents himself to the blind family patriarch in a passionate but naive appeal for friendship. He experiences initial success because his host cannot see his hideous appearance but hears only his inner suffering and need, a further indication of the creature's humble, not hostile, nature. Sadly however, the returning family, who see only the creature's outward ugliness, drive him away to continue his friendless wandering. His hatred toward his creator for abandoning him intensifies daily. The creature becomes capable not only of logical thought and speech but also of diabolical scheming.

He innocently approaches Victor's little brother William for solace but strangles him when the boy also rejects him. The creature then plants the boy's locket on Justine, Frankenstein's sleeping servant girl, in a successful attempt to have her accused of the crime and hanged. Such devious planning and forethought reveal a mind capable of complex reasoning. Thus the creature is, admittedly, quite a vengeful character in the book and does commit murder to cause suffering to Frankenstein and family. In his tormented mind, he feels justified for his crime; there is rationale and purpose to his horrific deeds, and he is not the ignorant automaton of the movies. In the novel, Victor Frankenstein tells us through his journal that his time and effort during his stay in college were devoted to the study of the human frame and, in particular, the monumental question of just where life originated. In reading the novel, we too become curious and wonder just what secret Frankenstein discovered and by what process he applied it to his creation.

Because we are so engrossed in the story that we half expect a valid answer, we find Frankenstein's rather casual revelation somewhat disappointing: After days and nights of incredible labor and fatigue, I succeeded in discovering the cause and generation of life; nay, more, I became myself capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter. (Shelley 1991, 37) After this profound understatement, Frankenstein refuses to share the secret of life on the grounds that it will lead the reader to “destruction and infallible misery” and “mankind will be happier without it.” Obviously Mary Shelley did not know the secret of restoring life to the dead. Hollywood answers the question of the life-giving process with an awesome and frightening display of lights and electricity amid showers of sparks and explosions produced by an array of electrical machines. The machines harness the lightning and feed it through the electrodes attached to the creature's neck, causing a quickening of muscles, activation, and life. The process described in the novel is not nearly as dramatic: I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse some spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet.

It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs. (Shelley 1991, 42) Frankenstein's success seems to stem more from chemical or mechanical stimuli that result in a slow physiological transformation than from a sudden “shocking” into existence. Furthermore, the scientist's studies had always been devoted to natural philosophy, including fields such as chemistry and mathematics, not electricity-which would support a quieter, less spectacular event than what the movies give us. (Just what the “instruments of life” are, we're left to ponder.) In her author's introduction to the novel, Shelley is a bit more specific when she describes her dream that inspired the frightful tale: I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a Man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life and stir with an uneasy half-vital motion.

(Shelley 1991, xxv) Still, it is not clear exactly what transpired to quicken and give life to Frankenstein's assembly of dead tissue. “The working of some powerful engine” should not be equated with Hollywood's shocking electrical display because the phrase was used in Shelley's time and earlier as a vague catch-all referring to any mysterious or seemingly magical device, procedure, or manifestation. (See, for example, chapter 2 of Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, in which Gulliver's watch, comb, and razor are called “powerful engines” by the Lilliputians.) All the descriptions in the novel and the movies of Victor Frankenstein's obvious scientific knowledge and surgical skills lead us to assume that he must have been a doctor, and he is often referred to as such in films, television, and commentary. However, he is never referred to as such in the novel. Had Victor achieved such status, surely he would have been addressed as “Dr. Frankenstein” by Shelley.

Although Frankenstein was educated in the schools of Geneva and attended the University of Ingolstadt, where he became quite successful with his studies and experiments, there is no evidence in the novel that the scientist ever graduated or received any kind of medical degree. In fact, the title character tells us that he had reached the point where he felt he could learn no more, and that his presence at Ingolstadt was no longer conducive to his improvements; thus, he considered returning home to Geneva, until his astounding discovery prompted him to delay his departure. After his discovery, Frankenstein pushes his efforts to their eventual horrible success, but he is wracked with regret over what he has done and lapses into bouts of intense fear and fever-requiring medical attention and a return home. The rest of his life is consumed by determined but frustrating efforts to right his wrong and destroy his creation due to the death and sorrow it has inflicted upon his family. Shelley gives no account of Frankenstein returning to the university or receiving any medical award that would qualify him as a doctor.

For those who “grew up” with the Frankenstein films but have not read the novel, these movies are their first, and perhaps only, exposure to the story; people may be surprised to learn that they don't know the real version at all. Subsequent films and television shows have missed opportunities to correct this problem, and in fact they may have exacerbated it by claiming to be “the true story of Frankenstein.” Kenneth Branagh's 1994 film interpretation is entitled Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, which implies that the movie is based directly on the novel. Though it is faithful to a point, there are many errant details, culminating in a silly sequence that has Victor revive his wife, Elizabeth (whom the creature has killed), only to have her die again in a fiery suicide. This drama is not taken from the book, in which Elizabeth dies just once, permanently. Aside from plot details, there are also major thematic differences in the story between the novel and the film interpretations. The question of how far scientists should go in their quest for knowledge is a major theme of the novel but is only implied in the films. This is still an important and relevant question in this age of technological developments such as cloning.

Secondly, the intense suffering resulting from the rejection and isolation of Frankenstein's creation-because he is different-forms a very important theme of the work, which Shelley clearly emphasizes but the movies fail to consider. Richard Holmes, in his remarkable study, The Age of Wonder (2008), reveals that the corruption of Mary Shelley's novel began in stage plays soon after its publication. Holmes goes on to state that the changes in these plays have influenced almost all subsequent stage and film productions (p. 334). However, it is difficult to believe that these early stage productions, so far removed from the Universal films of the 1930s and '40s, could have had any direct influence on them, and it is not these stage plays with which most people identify when they contemplate Frankenstein. Although Holmes's work does reveal an early tendency to change Shelley's plot details, such as portraying the unfortunate creature as an inarticulate monster, these changes have been burned into the human psyche not by the stage plays but by the various movies with which most people are familiar. Does it really matter that a work of fiction has been so misinterpreted?

After all, the movies are fun to watch, the story they tell is an intriguing one, and a movie can't be expected to replicate a book in all aspects. While all this may be true, it does matter that the Hollywood versions of this story are lacking the novel's major themes and plot details. What we believe about this classic literary work is simply false, yet society has accepted it as true. It's as if the novel has been cast aside and forgotten, and that probably matters most of all. Hollywood filmmakers have created such a vast gap between the novel and the films that what we have today is not just two types of media telling the same story, but two types of media telling completely different stories. They are both about a man who creates a man, but that is where similarities end. Other film adaptations, such as Gone with the Wind, have been much more successful in maintaining the integrity of the original work. Original books can often still be recognized in their associated films, but Frankenstein has been so overshadowed by film versions that the book is no longer relevant to most people.

This is a shame because Shelley's Frankenstein is a great work of literature with multiple levels of meaning; however, contrary to popular belief, Shelley's story has never been told accurately on the screen. References Shelley, Mary. 1991. Frankenstein. New York: Bantam Books. Holmes, Richard. 2008. The Age of Wonder. New York: Pantheon Books. Ron Watkins Ron Watkins, who has master’s degrees in theology and education, taught high school English for fifteen years. His previous articles have appeared in Writing Award, Discovery, and Reminisce magazines and English Journal. Frankenstein | Mary Shelley Mary Shelley Frankenstein Frankenstein – Mary’s Best Known Story Mary Shelley is mainly remembered for writing Frankenstein. She was eighteen when she started it and the idea came from a challenge from Lord Byron as to who could write the best ghost stories. She and Shelley were staying in a small cottage next to Byron’s Villa Diodati on Lake Geneva. With them was her step-sister, Claire, who was Byron’s mistress at the time. Gothic romances and ghost stories were very fashionable, and they read them as light relief from studying greek philosophers and political theory.

The gothic mood was heightened because that year, 1816, was known as the year without a summer . A volcano erupted, Mount Tambora in Indonesia, sending volcanic ash into the atmosphere which spread around the work and blocked the sun. It was an average of 13 degrees, one of the coldest summers on record! There were crop failures, famine, rioting and predictions of doom. Frankenstein was published in 1818 in three volumes, as was usual at the time. In 1831 Mary revised it and the illustrated single copies appeared, as in the picture. Stage and Screen In Mary’s novel, Victor Frankenstein created a monster which has become an iconic representation of the monster in horror fiction. Just a few years after publication of the book, it was already wowing audiences with stage adaptations. Presumption; or, the Fate of Frankenstein, written by Richard Brinsley Peake, was produced at the English Opera House in London in 1823. One of the first things Mary did when she came back to London from Italy, was to go to a performance.

Frankenstein: 10 possible meanings - BBC News BBC News By Tom Geoghegan BBC News Magazine 14 March 2011 Read more about sharing. Close share panel A global cinema audience will this week watch Danny Boyle's stage production of Frankenstein. It's the latest take on Mary Shelley's famous Gothic novel. But what's the book really about? The idea emerged from a summer that didn't happen. Due to the largest volcanic eruption for more than 1,600 years, in Indonesia in late 1815, the northern hemisphere was plunged into a freakishly cool and sunless summer the following year. On the shores of Lake Geneva, the miserable weather kept five British tourists cooped up inside a villa for days, where they passed the time in a horror story-writing competition. The 19-year-old Mary Godwin, in Switzerland with poet Percy Shelley, envisioned "the hideous phantasm of a man" and turned her contribution into a novel published anonymously in 1818. It told the story of a Swiss scientist, Victor Frankenstein, who is so horrified by the ugly creature he brings to life from assembled body parts that he abandons him, with terrible consequences.

Live screenings of Frankenstein Readers' new meanings for Frankenstein Within a few years, the novel was being adapted for the stage, and in the 20th Century there were many memorable film versions that took the work in different directions. This week, a production by Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle at London's National Theatre is being screened live to 400 venues in 22 countries. Nearly 200 years after that sunless summer, the novel is considered a landmark work and every decade brings a new interpretation. Here is a selection - some include plot details. 1. Science can go too far The term "Frankenstein foods" - applied to genetically modified products - suggests the name of the novel has become a byword for bad science. But this metaphor is unfair, says Angela Wright, a lecturer in Romantic literature at the University of Sheffield. "There's evidence that she was very conversant with the scientists of her day. But she believed in the sanctity of human life and knew the work of Lawrence and Abernethy, who were working in Edinburgh in the 1810s in dissection theatres, on the re-animation of corpses.

[Her husband] Percy Shelley was also very interested in that." She thought these people had crossed a line, says Wright, but she had a lot of admiration for scientific thought in general. 2. Actions have consequences Frankenstein's Wedding It's not just the responsibility of creating life that Shelley wants to emphasise, says Wright, and this is clear in the letters of Robert Walton that frame the Frankenstein story - the wider narrative that is often overlooked. Walton is the seafarer who rescues Frankenstein from an ice float deep in the Arctic, as the scientist pursues the monster. Encouraged by Frankenstein, the captain ignores the pleas of his crew to to turn back, actions that Shelley appears to condemn. "Walton doesn't take responsibility for the safety of his men and that is criticised within the novel. He comes round but regretfully, simply because the atmospheric conditions are against him, not out of concern for his men. "He seems to be a very shadowy double of Victor Frankenstein in many ways, because he pants for tales of romance and adventure in the same way." 3.

Don't play God "As suggested by the novel's subtitle, The Modern Prometheus, Victor Frankenstein is an example of the Romantic over-reacher, who transgresses boundaries between the human and the divine," says Marie Mulvey-Roberts, author of Dangerous Bodies: Corporeality and the Gothic. According to Greek myth, Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to man, and suffered eternal punishment. The sense that Frankenstein has pursued forbidden knowledge is further underlined by the references to Milton's Paradise Lost, a work the creature reads and recites. His rejection by his creator can be seen as a second Fall of Man. 4.

A warning about freed slaves A life among the literati 1797: Born in London to two major literary figures, Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin 1814: Meets one of father's acolytes, the married Percy Shelley, with whom she runs off to France 1815: Gives birth prematurely and baby dies 1816: Begins Frankenstein in wet summer on Lake Geneva with Shelley, Lord Byron and others Dec 1816: Shelley's wife dies, he marries Mary 1818: Frankenstein published 1822: Percy Shelley dies 1851: Dies after long writing career Shelley was writing the novel a mere 10 years after the abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire, and she did so in Bath, not far from the port of Bristol, where many of the slaving ships departed the country. There are references to it in the novel, says Mulvey-Roberts. "Frankenstein says he is enslaved to his work, and the creature escapes like a refugee slave, pursued by his master.

But then there's a power shift, so you get a hegemonic master-slave dialectic where the slave is a master and the master is a slave to his work and to his obsession. "Mary Shelley was certainly no supporter of slavery but she did not protest when [Foreign Secretary George] Canning used the analogy of the Frankenstein as a spectre warning of the danger of slaves being emancipated too quickly. In the novel when the creature assumes mastery, he causes mayhem leading to the loss of life." 5. Shelley's maternal guilt Many critics think the novel is shaped by the tragic events in Shelley's own life. Her mother died days after she was born and Shelley herself lost her first child, born prematurely. The first feminist interpretation of Frankenstein was by Ellen Moers, who read Shelley's novel as a sublimated afterbirth, says Diane Hoeveler, from Marquette University in Wisconsin, US. "The author expels her own guilt both for having caused her mother's death and for having failed to produce a healthy son for Percy, as his legal wife Harriet had done three months earlier.

"For Moers, the novel's strength was to present the 'abnormal, or monstrous, manifestations of the child-parent tie' and in so doing, 'to transform the standard Romantic matter of incest, infanticide, and patricide into a phantasmagoria of the nursery'." 6. Post-natal depression The rejected child The novel can be read as a critique of the family as much as a longing for one. The monster can be seen as a way of coping with the loss of her mother shortly after Mary Shelley's birth as well as the loss of her own babies. It deals with the rejection, the lack of nurture - Victor's solitary male propagation. Marie Mulvey-Roberts The feminist movement has championed the elevation of Mary Shelley to canonical rank, says Prof John Sutherland, former Booker Prize judge and an expert on Victorian fiction. And there are moments when the creation appears to be presented as a birth and Victor Frankenstein as a stricken mother. "It was on a dreary night of November, that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils...

It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs. How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form?" (Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Chapter five) Is this, asks Sutherland, inventor's remorse or post-natal depression? 7. Monsters are not born monsters Image caption Boyle's production suggests the scientist is the real monster The creature's initial innocence suggests you are not born a monster, says Vic Sage, a professor at the University of East Anglia who has written extensively on the Gothic tradition. "When he looks into the pool and sees himself, you want to shout out at him 'You're not a monster, you're OK.'" Many of the Hammer films didn't even give the monster a voice, he says, only capable of grunting the odd word.

"Even with [director] James Whale, it doesn't ever feel like history could ever be on Boris Karloff's side. They are thought to be great films but they missed the point of the book. "Mary Shelley gave him a voice. It's great that he talks like an 18th Century philosopher because then you have this disparity between his appearance and his speech, which tests the viewer." 8. Difference should be celebrated, not shunned Today's society has a greater understanding of the notion of difference, says Dr Sage, so the scene where Frankenstein rejects his creation, so repulsed is he by his disfigurement, has a wider resonance. "Everyone reading it now knows that she's dramatising difference in the most absolute way possible. Differences in race and class. That's why it's very important to think that the creature is a creature and not a monster, and that he has a voice." 9. Vive la revolution The violence of Irish nationalism Within decades of the book's publication, the central theme was picked up by cartoonists and used satirically, says Chris Baldick, author of In Frankenstein's Shadow: Myth, Monstrosity and Nineteenth-Century Writing.

In 1843, a cartoon entitled The Irish Frankenstein appeared in Punch, and depicted Irish political leader Daniel O'Connell being threatened by a thuggish Irish peasant. Forty years later, Charles Parnell appeared in the same magazine after the Phoenix Park murders, cowering from a simian-looking creature. The inference in both cartoons was that the politicians had helped to create a monster. Frankenstein's creature has been interpreted as symbolic of the revolutionary thought which had swept through Europe in the 1790s, but had largely petered out by the time Shelley wrote the novel. Critics said the creature's failure to prosper and the havoc unleashed was evidence that Shelley was anti-revolution, unlike her radical parents and husband, and supportive of the old order. But by applying modern values to the narrative, it is clear that the failings lie with man, the creator, and not the creature, says Dr Sage. "That's the notorious riddle: Who is the 'new Prometheus' of the title - Victor or his creature? You can read into it that it's a failure of the revolution that he represents, but only if you don't have the psychological and social attitudes of today." 10.

Christian allegory The book is really a dialogue between reactionary and progressive points of view, says Sage, and this applies to the question of the presence of Milton and the Christian story - the treatment of the Fall - which it puts under the glass. "The creature has read Milton but, as he says, he feels more like the fallen angel than Adam in that story, because he has to play the part of the outcast. Mary Shelley dramatises the conflict between the Romantic view of Satan as a Promethean hero, out to take God's place, which was the projection of a set of male poets - Blake, Shelley, Byron and Goethe, for example - and the havoc that such idealistic projects wreak domestically, in people's actual lives." Bride of Frankenstein - The New York Times The New York Times Illustrated. 655 pp. New York: Grove Press. $35. Mary Shelley was only 19 when she wrote ''Frankenstein,'' the book that made her famous. Published in 1818, the novel had spawned at least five stage versions by 1823.

There are almost two dozen film and television adaptations, from Thomas Edison's silent film (1910) to Kenneth Branagh's star-encrusted spectacular (1994), with Robert De Niro as the monster. The story has been so deeply mythologized -- embedded into the public imagination independently of the book itself -- that the name ''Frankenstein'' is often assumed to belong to the monster, and not, as is actually the case, to the man who made him and was appalled by the result. Frankenstein's experiment depended more on electrical impulses (then a hot scientific topic) than on cell biology, and Mary Shelley was not very knowledgeable about the science anyway. But the novel still speaks to our time, largely because human cloning is now frighteningly achievable. ''Mary Shelley,'' Miranda Seymour's affectionate and well-written biography, concisely sketches the background of scientific inquiry that influenced Shelley's early intellectual development.

Mary Shelley was born in 1797, the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft, author of ''A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,'' and William Godwin, the radical philosopher whose works include ''An Enquiry Concerning the Nature of Political Justice'' and the novel ''The Adventures of Caleb Williams.'' Two weeks after Mary Shelley was born, her mother died of puerperal fever. She had evidently been infected by the hands of those attending to complications after the birth. These circumstances may have had a bearing on the genesis of ''Frankenstein,'' in which a humanoid creature is ''scientifically'' brought into the world without a mother. Seymour wonders, suggestively, ''to what degree Mary felt that her own birth had robbed this beautiful, vital woman of her life.'' In an age of poor hygiene and inefficient contraception, the idea of ''scientific'' rather than biological reproduction, of painless nonvisceral birth, provoked an ambivalent fascination. Seymour keenly brings out how fraught Mary Shelley's own life was with tragedies of childbirth and infant mortality. Not only did her mother die as a result of childbirth, but her father's first child with his new wife did not survive. Neither did Mary's two daughters.

Her son William died of malaria at the age of 3, and her fifth pregnancy miscarried. Only one son, Percy, grew up. It is possible that her stepsister Claire Clairmont was pregnant by Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley's husband, and that the child was aborted or miscarried. Births and deaths coexisted violently in Mary's world. Her mother had twice attempted suicide during her unhappy affair with her lover, Gilbert Imlay. Their child, Mary's half sister Fanny, did commit suicide, perhaps out of love for Percy Bysshe Shelley. His first wife, Harriet, killed herself while pregnant. Byron's friend John Polidori, an admirer of Mary Shelley, committed suicide too (but not, as Seymour thinks, at the age of 21.) Mary grew up in the brilliant company of her father's friends, the critic Hazlitt, the essayist Lamb, the poet Coleridge and others.

Coleridge, whom Mary sometimes met in later years, recited his ''Rime of the Ancient Mariner'' one evening, with Mary ''hiding behind a sofa when she should have been in bed.'' The poem's icebound sea, its hero stalked by ''a frightful fiend,'' were remembered in ''Frankenstein.'' In 1812, Percy Bysshe Shelley came into Godwin's circle. He had been expelled from Oxford for circulating an atheist pamphlet, and had eloped with Harriet Westbrook. He had quarreled with his landowner father, and looked to Godwin for a father substitute with good revolutionary credentials. He offered Godwin financial patronage, but the relationship was troubled. Shelley was more radical than his mentor, and Godwin cared more for Shelley's money than his discipleship. Continue reading the main story Mary and Shelley fell in love. They eloped to France, with Jane (later Claire) Clairmont in tow, in 1814. The discarded Harriet was pregnant by Shelley. Mary became pregnant too, but the baby died. Shelley also encouraged his women to have sexual relationships with others.

He thought he was implementing ideas of free love once advocated by Wollstonecraft and Godwin. (Godwin, more bourgeois than his own principles, was scandalized.) This history haunted Mary Shelley's reputation when she settled in England again after Shelley's death in a sailing accident in Italy. In spite of the success of ''Frankenstein,'' she never had the rewards of celebrity, only a bad name. Advertisement Continue reading the main story They returned to England from Switzerland in 1814, but went back in 1816, settling near Geneva, where Byron, by whom Claire was pregnant, had moved. Mary Shelley, whose account may not be reliable in some details, says Byron suggested they all write a ghost story. ''Frankenstein'' was Mary's contribution. In 1818, the Shelleys moved to Italy. In 1822, they settled, with their friends Edward and Jane Williams, at Lerici, near Pisa, where Byron now was. They formed a tense and inbred circle, sharply evoked by Seymour: the women eyeing each other jealously, each serially or simultaneously in love with Shelley or Byron or both. Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box.

Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up Privacy Policy By then, the Shelleys' marriage was on the rocks. Things worsened after Mary's miscarriage. Then Percy Shelley and Williams drowned while sailing back to Lerici from Livorno, where they had visited Leigh Hunt, the writer and editor. Mary Shelley returned to England and wrote other novels, including ''Valperga'' (1823) and ''The Last Man'' (1826). She supported herself by writing stories for ladies' annuals and jobbing for publishers. Her mission was to edit her husband's works and shape his reputation. In this, and much else, she was obstructed by her father-in-law, Sir Timothy Shelley, who had disowned the poet in his lifetime and now harassed her with restrictions in exchange for grudging financial support for her and her son Percy. In spite of ostracism, Mary Shelley insisted for years on disclosing frankly that she had eloped with Shelley while he was married to another woman and was angered by the efforts of friends to sanitize the story.

Only in the 1830's, struggling to place her son in an upper-class school, did she seek conventional social acceptance. By then, her opinions were becoming less revolutionary, and her increasing conservatism showed itself clearly in the revolutionary climate of 1848. Her life as a widow was punctuated by inconclusive flirtations, one of them with the young French writer Prosper Mérimée, future author of the story on which Bizet based his opera ''Carmen.'' John Howard Payne, author of the lyric ''Home, Sweet Home,'' courted her. She hoped to marry Maj. Aubrey Beauclerk, a neighbor of Sir Timothy, who twice chose other wives. She remained friends with him, as with many others, male and female, who disappointed or behaved unkindly toward her. She was seldom really happy, and seems to have been a victim in almost every social relationship. She responded by taking increasing pride in her mother's feminist achievements and by helping other women in hardship. After her death in 1851, survivors often tried to fake the record, either blackening or cleaning up her or her husband's reputation.

Miranda Seymour is a novelist as well as an experienced biographer whose earlier subjects include Lady Ottoline Morrell and Robert Graves. She has vivid narrative gifts and a perceptive understanding of the main personalities. Her account of Mary Shelley's writings is generally competent but pedestrian, and her view of ''Frankenstein'' inflated. The novel, Seymour tells us in a fit of much-recycled nonwisdom, ''is a great work because we can read what we will from it.'' Is there any work in the world from which, if we put our minds to it, we cannot read what we will? For all its interest as a cultural icon and its tapping of sensational fantasies, ''Frankenstein'' is an immature production, overburdened with literary baggage, by a gifted young person living in highly literate company. The monster is an unassimilated amalgam of bookish ogres: Caliban, Milton's Satan, travel-book giants. The novel cannot make up its mind whether this creature is an obscene freak or a lonely and generous savage with a cruelly unrequited yearning for love. The book is, in parallel ways, politically confused in its view of conquered peoples.

That it laid itself open to vulgar adaptations onstage and elsewhere should not be put at Mary Shelley's door. But when, for example, the monster becomes a staple of political cartoons about rebellious Irishmen, as it did in Victorian times, our ability to ''read what we will'' from the book falls well short of conferring genius upon it.

Question: In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein what is Frankenstein’s first name?
Answer: Victor