Frankenstein Response

I have heard Frankenstein so many time, however, I never get a chance to finish the Novel. Before I start reading this novel, the word “Frankenstein” gives me the impression of a brutal heartless man-made monster. When I started to read it, I was amazed. This novel illustrates both romantic and gothic elements and creates a magnificent story. Even some people considered this novel as science fiction, but I think the novel did not focus on the scientific explanation behind the creation of the monster, it mainly focuses on the moral issues and consequences of such a creation.

Frankenstein was written to take place in Switzerland and Germany which creates sort of a fantasy and distant atmosphere for the reader. In addition to this, Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory, where he creates life, is a concept people never heard of, which adds mystery and suspense. 

In Frankenstein, just like other gothic horrors, it contains darkness, lonely, horror and despair, and it’s a reflection of Mary Shelley’s rugged life. In Mary Shelley’s life, she never had a mother or being a proper mother. Therefore, in her life, she never has the person who can guide her to the right path, just like the monster in the novel.  The monster in the novel unlike any kind of monster in another gothic novel. It was unique in the way that he was manmade and behaves like a new brown baby. In the novel, the monster was just trying to find his place in the world and wanted to make friends and please Dr. Frankenstein, but it was mistreated by everybody from the very beginning. Personally, I felt the if Dr. Frankenstein took his responsibility to educate the monster, to teach it how to behave like a human.  The story might have a different ending.

Same with the film, even the monster has an abnormal brain, but at the beginning, it never has the intention to kill people, all it did is trying to defend itself. In the novel, the director used a lot of low key lighting to creates the horror atmosphere, but when the scene of the monster playing with the little girl, the director used high key lighting to create the peaceful atmosphere. We can definitely see the monster has no intention to kill the little girl. He thought if you like something you should throw it into the water just like the little girl showed him with the flower. After the monster throws the little girl into the river and saw her is drowned. It faces tells the audience it was panicking and scared. If its creator Victor and sept out and take the responsibility to teach him how the human society works, he might become one of us, a real human, not a monster.

In general, Frankenstein is a great gothic horror novel, it blends the mortal and supernatural worlds together, and wake up the reader and introduced them into the horror world.