Frankenstein

One productive thing I did do yesterday was finish the book "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelly.

It was a wonderful, powerful book that I highly recommend to anyone - anyone who doesn't mind reading an epitomizing Romantic text (of the Romantic era, NOT a romance novel).

With this post, I'd like to clear a few misconceptions:

1. Frankenstein is the monster. FALSE. The guy on the left of the picture right here is Victor Frankenstein, the poor man who created the beast. The monster himself has no name, but is frequently called wretch, fiend, and beast.
2. The monster is dimwitted. FALSE. He's actually quite genius and was able to read Paradise Lost, among other classics, within his first year of life.
3. The monster is slow and clumsy. FALSE. He's actually inhumanly quick and agile.
4. The monster has bolts sticking out of the side of his neck. FALSE. There's no such mention, nor even a direction mention of lightning or electricity being involved with his creation.

There are also serious misconceptions about his appearance - which is why I posted these pictures. The pictures represent the monster my mind envisioned while reading - very knarled, nasty, and ghastly. He's so horrifically ugly that every human (except two) who saw him in the book immediately tried to kill him, without thought.

This plays into a major theme of the book. The creation was, in fact, born an incredibly kind, noble, and benevolent being. He wished for nothing more than a friend, yet every person he approached immediately tried to kill him, no questions asked - even the kindest of people. He was simply that horrific.

The most tragic example of this was when the monster saves a little girl drowning in a river, and the father of the girl, finally catching up to her, sees her rescuer, pulls the rifle off his back and shoots him twice.

The monster was benevolent and kind - it was the spurning malice of every human he met that drove him to be the dark, wicked creature he was. May we not do the same.