Yeah, I should have clarified. I meant, "new" as in "not used," not "new" as in "just came out."

So, my literary Buffistas, what exactly is the (your) fascination with Frankenstein? I've got to write two papers about it today, and I need to be a little more interested in the subject than I am. Otherwise, the paper is going to be all, "I didn't like this, and I didn't like that. Oh! And that? Didn't like it either." So, I thought I'd see what other people's fascinations are to see if I can look at it in a new light.

Frankenstein is a study, not only of the fascination people feel for the grotesque, but of the moral issue of circumventing culture and death itself. The doctor can't be said to be altruistic in creating a "new" life. He's hoping to accomplish something for science, yes, but he's also hoping to call fame and attention on himself for being a genius. Or at least that's what I've always gotten from it.

Once his creature is animate, I do think he becomes protective and even somewhat fond of it, overlooking to a degree its horrific makeup in being delighted with its apparent new, childlike personality. How much fondness and protection is because of genuine delight in having "created" life, and how much is triggered by the nature of the creature itself is a matter of opinion.

The townsfolk's horror and hatred of the unknown, the strange, the "came back wrong"ness of the creature is standard fare for tv and movies these days, but must have been a more unique social commentary at the time the story was written. There's a dark thread of thill at the very wrongness of animating the dead, balanced on the side of "light" and "good" by wanting to destroy the anomaly--which is a paradox itself. When is destruction of a living thing considered good?

Then we come to the creature itself. Visually horrific, it awakes new to life as a child, an empty slate. It seeks knowledge, and uses its strength to find that knowledge and explore the world it's seeing for the first time. It's a classic example of nurture over nature--or is it? The longer the creature exists, the more it learns, the more familiar it becomes with its own body and with its history, the darker its personality becomes. Is it scraps of consciousness of the former owners of its body parts influencing the whole of the creature? Or is it the darkness of humankind itself manifesting in this creature, "born" adult, excessively strong, and without the sort of moral and ethical governors that childhood experience gives.

People have made up their own minds about the story, and the characters, ever since it saw print. For myself, I find the doctor reprehensible. His ostensible motivation was learning, which he could apply to medicine for mankind. I've always seen him as arrogant and self-aggrandizing. That may be just me.

For me, the tragic figure is the creature, suddenly sentient in a strange and beautiful though baffling world, bereft of the tools he needs to survive and succeed. I think all of us empathise at times with the creature.

I hope you can find some point of empathy with some element of the story or one of the characters.

t natter Beverly, I just sent you email-- I need some info. t /natter

Responded, Lee. And sorry.

Bug, I was going to add that DH said basically Frankenstein was a result of a drunken challenge over a druggy, drunken weekend, and so it was. But--and this is the sticking point for me--the bit of fantastical fluff was coming from a person steeped in the rules of societal and religious thought and conduct. Controverting those rules was a big rebellion, even in a short fiction. Today the elements of the story seem tame and almost commonplace. But that's a result of the changes in society, not in the merits of the story in its place in time.

I always find that even if I dislike a book, looking at it in the historical context will at least give me a place to grab a hold of it.

Actually, the edition I have of the book is kind of fascinating, and I want to grab a couple of their other books (they have Emma, THe Merchant of Venice, Pride and Prejudice, etc.). It's the Longman Cultural Edition. So, not only does it have the book, but it has all of the cultural information right. there. This stuff is actually pretty interesting. I just got done reading a bunch of the original reviews for the book. They were more negative than I imagined.

In a little while I'm going to read a story written by Shelley's mother that is said to have influenced Shelley. I can also read some of her husband's poetry, and probably will.

I have a little fondness for the story, I admit. I guess I've always felt a little freakish, and a sort of bond with the monster.

I hope at least you feel you've got a better handle on it, now.

Beverly, have you read Lives of the Monster Dogs, by Kirsten Bakis? I just read it, and it was pretty good. I haven't read Frankenstein yet, but it's in a very similar vein, down to incorporating journal entries and news articles as part of the narrative.

The movie "Gothic," while disturbing, is an interesting look at how MWS was inspired for Frankenstein.

I think the book is also about the force of creation; the unstoppable impetus some people feel to create, to hell with morals or social mores, they have to get the angels/demons inside them out. The creature can be read as an analogy for a book or a poem or a painting, but one born from the dark subconscious side of the creator's brain. Van Gogh or Picasso, not Kinkaide.

And that kind of creation tends to have a life of its own. Once the creator births it, it is in the world, and the world treats it as the world sees it. Readers critique books, viewers critique movies, and the creation has to survive these assaults on its own.

For me, the tragic figure is the creature, suddenly sentient in a strange and beautiful though baffling world, bereft of the tools he needs to survive and succeed. I think all of us empathise at times with the creature.

This though, for sure.