'Frankenstein'
Film review
Death is the only absolute of Life. ​
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Everything that is born must live, and everything that lives must die. It is inescapable, unavoidable and cannot be compromised. But what if there was a way? What if humans could create something that could not only cheat death, but deny it? Two hundred and eight years ago, eighteen-year-old Mary Godwin awoke in the dead of night from her bed in Switzerland, shaken and alert. She had experienced a nightmare, the contents of which would go on to alter the course of her life entirely. She had dreamt of a man curated from the parts of others and brought to life under impossible circumstances. She watched the corpse twitch, move, then rise from the ground.
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The nightmare had been a result of a combination of factors. Mary was in Switzerland visiting her friend George Byron, with her soon to be husband Percy Shelley, at his home in Lake Geneva. The previous year, Mount Tambora had erupted, leaving the world in a state of climate turmoil. Days never came light or warm, and 1816 became known as “the year without summer”. To help pass the time of being indoors, Byron suggested that they host a ghost-writing competition between themselves after spending their evenings reading tales of the supernatural and horror from authors around the world. The night before her dream, Mary had been sat around a fire, listening whilst Byron and Shelley went back and forth discussing galvanism. Galvanism explores the concept of electrifying muscle tissue in the human body in order to generate a reaction. All these factors undoubtedly came together as their own kind of Frankenstein, presenting themselves to Mary and showing her a story that could be told.
She finished the novel, titled Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus, at the age of eighteen and published the work anonymously at nineteen with the support of Percy Shelley. There was a brief window of time where the public mistakenly believed that Percy had wrote the novel, due to him providing an introductory preface. However, at twenty years old, Mary published the second edition of the story, crediting herself as the author. The book was an instant success, and would be the fuel Mary would need in order to propel herself into the world of writing and fiction. She would go on to create many works of literature in her lifetime, such as The Last Man, which is believed to have been the inspiration behind Richard Matheson’s ‘I Am Legend.’, another pioneer of science fiction. After her death in 1851, Mary’s son visited her home to take note of her belongings, when he came across a peculiar item within her writing desk. A piece of parchment paper cocooning itself around a small, enclosed item. Upon unravelling the paper, he found the heart of his father, Percy Shelley, wrapped inside the final poem he wrote his untimely death at sea thirty years prior. Though there are many stories and understandings as to how Mary came in possession of this item, and whether it indeed was his heart, the underlying truth remains. Mary Shelley kept a piece of her husband with her always, in order to keep them tied together in death, the way they had been in life.
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The story of Mary Shelley’s first published novel follows Victor Frankenstein, a young man surrounded by death and disease, living with the burden of unobtainable ambition and expectation that was placed on him by his father. Death angers Victor, unnerves him in ways that all human beings experience during their lives. He believes he can find a way to play God, to create a being from scratch that cannot be touched by death. But once Victor succeeds, he has to come to terms with the fact that life demands emotion and presence, two things he cannot offer. From there, we explore themes of parenthood, desire and our naturalistic instincts. If humanity wants to play with creation, it must be willing to accept the responsibilities and consequences.
parenthood
Mary Shelley herself had grappled with birth and parenthood for many years before she had the nightmare that would change everything. Days after giving birth to her, Mary’s mother would succumb to illness and die unexpectedly. Though her father later remarried, Mary would not find comfort in her step-mother, and would live with the hole left by her mother for the rest of her life. At seventeen, she gave birth to her first child whilst in Europe with Percy Shelley. The pair had run away after familial and societal pressures, and decided to live in Europe. Things weren’t going to plan though, and the couple suffered financially and emotionally. Only days after giving birth to their first child, Mary would awake in the night to feed their infant, only to find that she had died in her crib due to being born prematurely. The grief consumed Mary, who was still only a teenager at the time. When looking at the story of Frankenstein, we can see how themes of birth, resurrection and parenthood can be explored through the lenses of the creature and Victor Frankenstein. If Victor’s actions in adulthood are to be understood, we first have to acknowledge his own childhood. As a child, Victor was emotionally estranged from his father, through no fault of his own. His father’s knowledge of the human body was passed down to Victor at a young age. He believed that by accepting these teachings, his father would accept him as his son. Here, we see the first signs of Victor’s scientific mind calculating human interactions. If he completed two standard variables, then they would ultimately equate to the goal of love. If he learns from his father, meets his scientific ambitions, his father will love him. No room for error. Yet this, of course, is not what occurred, as human beings are not controlled variables in an experiment. They have desires and selfish needs that they can choose to fulfil or mitigate. Victor learns from a young age that his father has no desire to care for Victor’s needs, or act in a selfless manner. Traits that Victor will unfortunately allow to bleed into his adulthood.
For decades, Victor holds his father in a prison of blame and spends his adult life conspiring in science and medicine. He has a sole goal in his research, one that he is constantly ridiculed for. His ambition of cheating death, due to his mother’s murder, transforms into a desire to create life. The emotional crucifixion of his own father has led Victor to believe that he has been wronged and can therefore act how he pleases. He can be loud, obnoxious and unempathetic. The worst of his traits first come to life once he is introduced to his brother’s fiancé, Elizabeth Lavenza, who he immediately becomes enamoured with.
Whilst working on his project to create life, Elizabeth often visits him to discuss the strangeness of life and how she believes she does not belong in the world around them. Victor uses these meetings to become closer to Elizabeth, believing that she must feel the same as he does. After Frankenstein’s creature has been born, Victor is overcome with scientific animation. He is floored and completely humbled by his creation, but only for a few moments, the way that all ambitious adrenaline chasers are. After the initial excitement has worn off, Victor begins to quietly resent the creature. Though he holds the ability of verbal communication, it is limited to only Victor’s name. The creature’s curiosity for the world around him is quickly ridiculed, and any thought he takes action on that does not align with Victor’s will is rejected. When he does not copy Victor’s exact instructions, or makes too many mistakes, he is met with fury and resentment. Victor creates life, then punishes the creature for his desire to experience the world. Pulling this apart, we can see this is because Victor does not see the creature as an individual, but rather an extension of himself, the same way his father viewed him. When the creature has conscious thoughts and acts on his own will, Victor becomes infuriated, angry, to the point of abuse. He tries beating the creature into submission, using negative reinforcement to control how he behaves, which ends in the creature harbouring hatred for him. History has repeated itself, though Victor is incapable of seeing it. Victor begins to silently view the creature as unintelligent and incapable of learning, simply because it cannot match Victor’s pace, a man who has been alive for over three decades. Victor takes the creature to the dungeons, where he leaves him chained to the floor in the dark and cold, not caring to give him the company he so desperately requires. In this, we see Victor’s father leaking through. Victor removes all emotional attachment from the creature, keeping it chained in the cold, dark cellar of the castle. He controls what the creature is exposed to and when. He places him in a room with no natural light, no comfort and no pathways of education, such as music, art or literature. Thought the creature could break free from the shackles at any given time, it stays in the dungeon as he believes that is where he should be. He doesn’t know any better. To him, this is the world. He believes that Victor has placed him here for a reason, that he deserves to be there. Once he understands that Victor’s intentions are impure and tainted with anger, he frees himself and escapes before any further damage can happen. As a result, Victor comes to the horrifying realisation that he has no control over the actions of this being.
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He has controlled death but he cannot control life.
projections
Parents have projections of what their children should be, this is evitable. There is so much excitement around conception and birth that it would be impossible to not imagine what the future of your child will look like. Victor is so consumed by the idea of creation, and achieving the impossible in the eyes of his scientific peers, that he has given no thought into the psychology of the creature. In his mind, there is no other option other than the creature being obedient to him. When this is not the case, he becomes riddled with anger. This anger is only projected further once Elisabeth comes to visit. She sees the creature in a different light, immediately referring to him as a man. Victor instantly becomes jealous, which can be interpreted in a number of ways. Firstly, Elisabeth rejected his romantic advancements, which in his eyes was denying him of something that he deserved. Victor believes he should be with Elizabeth, and that it’s her fault that he cannot have this. When Elisabeth shows care and empathy to the creature, Victor instantly addresses it as attraction. And after the creature has already defiled him, in his eyes, this is the worst possible scenario for him. To have created something that would be with the woman he loves, instead of him, especially when he views it as a lower intelligence level as himself. The two things that he wanted most have, in his eyes, denied him and are now conspiring together. To him, they are conspiring against him, because he is no longer able to see the beauty of life. He is consumed in death. However, we could also view this jealousy from a different angle. When explaining her justifications for why she believes the creature is acting the way it is, Elisabeth offers a new point of view. That the creature is entirely free from sin and born anew. It only repeats Victor’s name over and over again, due to it being the only thing that matters to him, the only thing he knows. Victor as we know is ambition and selfish, perhaps he cannot comprehend another intellectual commenting on his work, and believes he is being undermined by something he cannot understand. Love. Even with Elisabeth, it is not confirmed that he loves her. Later on in the film, he describes how we was gripped by a fever, which has now passed and he can see her how he should, as his sister- in-law, which could be representative of lust. Victor has a habit of making things all-consuming to himself. We could infer that even after being with Elisabeth, Victor would grow bored of her the way he did with the creature.
Masculinity Against Nature
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Victor believes death is a mistake. That it is something that needs to be rectified or conquered, the enemy of mankind. During the 1800s, masculinity and reputation were not only ideas, but social laws that should be lived by. Male ambition, particularly in the medical world, was rife. In an age of discovery and exhibition, Victor knows that he must create something that others view as impossible, in order to be seen.
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The natural world rules over all human beings. Acceptance of this can be difficult at the best of times, and impossible at the worst. Towards the beginning of the film, Victor leads a seminar to medical students and scientific experts. He discusses the ideas of God and compares it to his own power, explaining that men should no longer fear death, nor be lulled into submission by it. Contextually speaking, London was consumed by death during this period of history. The beginning of the 1800s saw disease steal away thousands of lives, from Consumption to early variants of Cholera. These diseases were cruel and unwavering, the way nature usually is, and took no prisoners. To Londoners, death was the enemy. It was a demon, coming to snatch them away from their loved ones. The people were petrified and vulnerable, two things that were certainly not socially acceptable traits for men to have at this time. Victor, a man fuelled by merciless ambition, will not settle for fear. He believes the only way to combat this monster, is to fight it. To prove to nature that man will not be submissive. He explains that men should follow nature back into her hiding spots and demand more. This dialogue highlights an illusion of control, with Victor comparing his skills to that of something as innately powerful as nature. This is only heightened by the young men in the audience chanting and applauding, fuelling the delusion.
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He goes on to state, “Defiance over obedience.”, playing on the masculinity of his audience and implying that he is equal to the natural world. He implies that submission is weakness and compliance is feminine. This later comes back into view when Elizabeth shows the creature kindness, which Victor sees as a threat. After being given his castle to create the creature, the words ‘Aqua est Vita’ can be seen on the entrance. This can be interpreted in several ways, though for me it links back to these themes of the natural world. The phrase itself translates to Water is Life, a nod at how creation comes from water and how it unlocks the chemical world, to allow life to be born. It could also be a more literal reference to the storm that takes place during the night of the creature’s birth and the lightning that is used to bring him to life.
Punishment & Forgiveness
The relationship between the creature and Elizabeth can tell us more about their views on the world and immortality. To Victor, immortality is literal, meaning that something can beat death and live forever. For Elizabeth, she describes on her death bed how being seen and found by someone you love is the only way to be made eternal. Life demands companionship, otherwise there is no depth to it. Victor has became so consumed by the biological mechanics of the creature, that he neglects how to handle him psychologically. Almost instantly after the creature is born, Victor feels a sense of unease. He has reached his academic peak. There is nothing left to work towards. As he has no personal or emotional life, despite his affections towards Elizabeth, there is no goal left to pursue. His impatience becomes increasingly evident when he learns of the creature and Elizabeth’s bond. Once he realises they have feelings for one another, Victor decides to punish them both by burning the creature alive and destroying him. He makes the conscious decision that if he cannot have what he wants, no one will. Though we’ve explored the many waysin which Victor punished the people around him, it’s important to note that the film ends in forgiveness.
After years of being hunted by the creature, Victor is eventually forced to confront him. To a sailor witness, the two beings recite their version of events that led them to where they were today, living creatures driven by hatred. Through these earnest accounts, Victor slowly comes to accept how his actions caused a great deal of pain to the people in his life, as well as himself. He accepts that by creating the creature, he had a duty of care that he did not fulfil. Not only that, but his humanity was almost entirely non-existent throughout the story. He chose his own desires against what was right at every crossroad. It was finally time to answer for his mistakes. When faced with mortality himself, Victor comes to understand the importance of connecting with others. With his final words, he asks that the creature say his name one last time, to give it back to him the way that Victor’s own father never could. The creature, a being of kindness before all else, concedes. In spending his final moments with his creation, his impossible son, Victor Frankenstein comes to accept that dying is the most human thing a person can do.
Notes:
This film review was written by Evie Wild and discusses Frankenstein (2025), directed by Guillermo del Toro, based on Mary Shelley's original work. All rights to the film belong to their respective owners. Any clips or images are used solely for review purposes.