When I was little, I loved the 1960’s TV show The Munsters. The comedic TV show centered around a family of several monsters and one normal girl. The family included two vampires, a werewolf, and Frankenstein’s monster. It is difficult to know for sure if I was exposed to Frankenstein’s monster before watching this show, but it is reasonable to assume I did. The imagery of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and its adaptations is impossible to escape from. From Halloween to 1960’s comedy shows, Frankenstein’s monster has become an integral part of American, British, and even worldwide culture. So how did this book go from an originally anonymous horror story to a worldwide phenomenon? What differences have come to separate the original Frankenstein
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Frankenstein's monster is one of the most iconic images of pop culture in the western world. Everyone knows the iconic giant, bright green, flat-headed monster with bolts and a forehead scar. This character is seen everywhere from every decade since the first book. But where does this image of the monster come from? As it turns out, Boris Karloff’s portrayal as Frankenstein’s monster in a series of Universal horror films in the 1930’s has shaped the perception of the monster far more than Mary Shelley’s original description. Mary Shelley originally describes the character in the following …show more content…
The popular monster is a “green-faced creature with bolts in his neck, wearing a jacket and stumbling away from torch-bearing peasants” ("Frankenstein" 152). He is a caveman and a fiend, with no capabilities of speech. Rather than being equals, the monster and Frankenstein are vastly different. The monster, for example, is completely non-verbal in Universal Picture’s films starring Borris Karloff. And as author Susan Hitchcock says “”not only the face but the full figure of Karloff’s monster set the standard” (153). But how does this compare to the book? Does this quasi-sentient corpse speak? Does he live only to terrorize? In Mary Shelley’s book, the monster is philosophical, sad, and very intelligent. This difference between these two versions of the same character is as vast as the Sahara desert. While the classic interpretation of the monster only grunts around, Shelley’s monster has the mind of tormented scholar with the body of an inhuman ghoul. Throughout the novel, the monster waxes on his melancholy life using language far more advanced than his two or three years of age. For example,“I am malicious because I am miserable. Am I not shunned and hated by all mankind” (Shelley 134). Pop culture has changed Frankenstein’s monster from a sad. philosophical man, to a mumbling
Frankenstein's monster is one of the most iconic images of pop culture in the western world. Everyone knows the iconic giant, bright green, flat-headed monster with bolts and a forehead scar. This character is seen everywhere from every decade since the first book. But where does this image of the monster come from? As it turns out, Boris Karloff’s portrayal as Frankenstein’s monster in a series of Universal horror films in the 1930’s has shaped the perception of the monster far more than Mary Shelley’s original description. Mary Shelley originally describes the character in the following …show more content…
The popular monster is a “green-faced creature with bolts in his neck, wearing a jacket and stumbling away from torch-bearing peasants” ("Frankenstein" 152). He is a caveman and a fiend, with no capabilities of speech. Rather than being equals, the monster and Frankenstein are vastly different. The monster, for example, is completely non-verbal in Universal Picture’s films starring Borris Karloff. And as author Susan Hitchcock says “”not only the face but the full figure of Karloff’s monster set the standard” (153). But how does this compare to the book? Does this quasi-sentient corpse speak? Does he live only to terrorize? In Mary Shelley’s book, the monster is philosophical, sad, and very intelligent. This difference between these two versions of the same character is as vast as the Sahara desert. While the classic interpretation of the monster only grunts around, Shelley’s monster has the mind of tormented scholar with the body of an inhuman ghoul. Throughout the novel, the monster waxes on his melancholy life using language far more advanced than his two or three years of age. For example,“I am malicious because I am miserable. Am I not shunned and hated by all mankind” (Shelley 134). Pop culture has changed Frankenstein’s monster from a sad. philosophical man, to a mumbling