Comparing Frankenstein And Romero's Night Of The Living Dead

To many, the end of October is a time of corn mazes, costume parties, and haunted houses. Many cultures celebrate harvest festivals during October, though none are as well-known as Halloween. Because Halloween is primarily descended from the Celtic festival of Samhain, when some think of Halloween, they think of bats and cats and witches. However, although Halloween as it is currently know is a wholly American creation with regional rituals handed down by generations, it did not become a “full-blown American holiday” until the turn of the century (Bannatyne). Because of the contemporary nature of Halloween, without Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Sylvia Plath’s “Lady Lazarus”, and George A. Romero’s Night Of The Living Dead, the holiday as we …show more content…
The novel opens with Walton’s letters to his sister in England, telling her about a mysterious foreigner his research vessel had pulled aboard. The stranger, whose name is Victor Frankenstein, shared his story. He was “an ambitious young scientist” who “creates a living man from bits and pieces, but when his creation comes to life, he is horrified by its appearance and flees” (Britton). Meanwhile, the Monster flees to a small French village. While watching a small family go about their life, he learns how to read, write, and speak. He approaches the blind patriarch of the family, and is treated for the first and only time with “compassion” (“Frankenstein”). The man’s children come back and are horrified by the Monster’s appearance. They chase him into the wilderness, where he comes across Victor’s brother, William. Terrified and angry, the Monster kills William and plants evidence on Justine Moritz. He then kills Elizabeth Frankenstein, Victor’s wife. Because of the creativity Shelley used with the narration, Frankenstein comes full circle in the end, with Victor chasing the Monster into the Arctic and being rescued by Robert Walton’s research …show more content…
Throughout the novel, “whereas his parents have taken in two orphaned children and treated them as their own, Frankenstein relinquishes responsibility for the only creature he has actually created” (“Frankenstein”). Frankenstein, who has taken two years of his life to bring his creation to life, abandons it as a newborn. According to “Frankenstein”, Shelley was likely influenced by John Locke’s idea of the “Tabula Rasa”, the “ idea that the mind is a ‘blank slate’ when we are born”. In Frankenstein, the Monster seems to corroborate this. When Frankenstein approaches him and questions the Monster about the death of his brother and the framing of Justine Moritz, the Monster replies, saying “No mother had blessed me with smiles and caresses. Remember, I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam but I am rather the fallen angel.... I was benevolent and good, misery made me a fiend. Make me happy and I shall again be virtuous.... Will no entreaties cause you to turn a favourable eye upon thy creature ... you my creator abhor me; what hope can I gather from your fellow creatures ... they spurn and hate me” (Shelley 78). Although the Monster seems to be this gruesome, horrible specimen of science going too far, he is eloquent and well-mannered, almost human despite its tragic