Creating Frankenstein Jeremy Kessler - The New Atlantis

Creating FRANKENSTEINbig and then small. Environmentalinfluence exerts a strong grip onthe story and on the natures of itscharacters. If the steamy lake-housewhere the novel was conceived produceda fraught, ambiguous work,the bustle of a metropolis calledforth different qualities. In the summerof 1823, the play Presumption,or the Fate of Frankenstein opened inLondon, the first dramatic adaptationof Shelley’s tale. As its title indicates,the play traded on a didacticism aliento the early versions of the novel.Tellingly, Presumption began a traditionthat extends to the present dayin rendering Frankenstein’s creationmute. The emphasis thus shifts tothe sin committed—the presumptuousfall—rather than on the ongoingstruggle of creation, as witnessed bya dialogue between creator and created.The Gnosticism of the Romanticsis repossessed by a more familiarapologetic.Similarly, in James Whale’s famous1931 film adaptation starring BorisKarloff, a mute creature’s evil istraced to the substrate of his consciousness:he has mistakenly beengiven the brain of a criminal. Thisliteralization of contemporary psychologicalexplanations for the sourceof sin was and remains a comfort toaudiences. Surely, our brains are not“mismatched.” How could they be?And yet time and again, when webetray ourselves, or when we feel notright for our bodies, this experienceof impure creation returns.Frankenstein’s monster himselfargued that his violence was a productof external forces, though of asocial and not a biological kind:I am malicious because I am miserable.Am I not shunned andhated by all mankind? You, mycreator, would tear me to piecesand triumph. Remember that—and tell me why I should pityman more than he pities me. Youwould not call it murder if youprecipitated me into one of thoseice rifts and destroyed my frame,the work of your own hand. ShallI respect man when he contemnsme? Let him live with me inthe interchange of kindness, and,instead of injury, I would bestowevery benefit upon him with tearsof gratitude at his acceptance. Butthat cannot be; the human sensesare insurmountable barriers toour union.Made of parts of many men, themonster is the unhappy productof inexorable nature and nurture,his very heart a collection of theemotions that have been directedat him throughout his strange life.Our modern debate between natureand nurture—as if they are the onlyalternatives—reveals an essentialpessimism: both are forms of determinism,both denying the freedom oftrue self-composition.In the end, the problem of the creatorand the created are united.The human creator himself creates inSummer 2009 ~ 87Copyright 2009. All rights reserved. See www.TheNewAtlantis.com for more information.