Film Adaptations Of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
Frankenstein: Creature Turned Monster
Lauren Williams
Hammond High Magnet School
2nd Block PDP English II
Mrs. Duncan
Word Count: 1195
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“Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, written 198 years ago still effects and shapes popular culture today. In 2007, Thomas Leitch said that Frankenstein’s creature had, at that time, been played by 102 actors in film adaptations (Leitch, 207). Since 2007, this number has increased due to publication of films such as The Frankenstein Theory (2013) and I, Frankenstein (2014). Such adaptations of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein date back as far as 1823 with the first theater production, Presumption (Florescu 151) and the first film version in 1910 by J. Searle Dawley. Showing that Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein …show more content…
These adaptations are what change societies ideas of the themes and characters in the novel. During the first hundred years after the novel was released, there were various changes made to the creature on stage, as well as eventually on film. Though, in 1931, James Whale’s Universal Pictures’ Frankenstein film, with actors such as Boris Karloff, created a new paradigm. Since then, through the 1930s and 1940s, and somewhat through the 1970s, Frankenstein’s creature has been depicted as a stumbling hideous colossal devoid of intelligence, a bolt in its neck, a scar on its forehead and a psychopathic tendency to murder. In Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, the description of the monster is drastically different. Not only does she describe him physically Shelley also gives us further descriptions of the creature as moving with “superhuman speed” (Shelley, 67) and as having “long locks of ragged hair” (Shelley, 158). Even when Victor Frankenstein confronts the creature after the creature escaped from his lab, the creature has learned to talk intelligently. Even the creature attested to his intelligence, by saying “while I improved in speech, I also learned the science of letters, as it was taught to the stranger; and this opened before me a field for wonder and delight” (Shelley, 82). Whale’s monster completely changes this articulate and sympathetic character into a different kind of monster and one that has successfully replaced the
Lauren Williams
Hammond High Magnet School
2nd Block PDP English II
Mrs. Duncan
Word Count: 1195
“”
“Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, written 198 years ago still effects and shapes popular culture today. In 2007, Thomas Leitch said that Frankenstein’s creature had, at that time, been played by 102 actors in film adaptations (Leitch, 207). Since 2007, this number has increased due to publication of films such as The Frankenstein Theory (2013) and I, Frankenstein (2014). Such adaptations of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein date back as far as 1823 with the first theater production, Presumption (Florescu 151) and the first film version in 1910 by J. Searle Dawley. Showing that Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein …show more content…
These adaptations are what change societies ideas of the themes and characters in the novel. During the first hundred years after the novel was released, there were various changes made to the creature on stage, as well as eventually on film. Though, in 1931, James Whale’s Universal Pictures’ Frankenstein film, with actors such as Boris Karloff, created a new paradigm. Since then, through the 1930s and 1940s, and somewhat through the 1970s, Frankenstein’s creature has been depicted as a stumbling hideous colossal devoid of intelligence, a bolt in its neck, a scar on its forehead and a psychopathic tendency to murder. In Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, the description of the monster is drastically different. Not only does she describe him physically Shelley also gives us further descriptions of the creature as moving with “superhuman speed” (Shelley, 67) and as having “long locks of ragged hair” (Shelley, 158). Even when Victor Frankenstein confronts the creature after the creature escaped from his lab, the creature has learned to talk intelligently. Even the creature attested to his intelligence, by saying “while I improved in speech, I also learned the science of letters, as it was taught to the stranger; and this opened before me a field for wonder and delight” (Shelley, 82). Whale’s monster completely changes this articulate and sympathetic character into a different kind of monster and one that has successfully replaced the