Franken In Modern Society

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A modern day monster, something or someone incomplete, modified, unnatural; deemed as a Franken- by today’s society. The term coined originally as a back-formation from the 1931 movie Frankenstein, with a monster depicted in the work that the public took as Frankenstein. Ever since the when the public fears something unknown and unnatural, it is simply related back to one of the first known cinematic displays of a monster figure. After exploring the graphic and unfamiliar literary and thematic works that followed the publishing of Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, in 1818 and the first performance in 1823; it is evident that the work left an impact in the public’s view of popular literature and left them simply questioning common morals and scientific advancements.

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It was in June of 1816 that the novel of Frankenstein was born. The idea for the work came to Mary Shelley whilst passing the time after she and her friends were trapped in a storm. The novel was first published on January 1, 1818 in three hardcover volumes.

It was just five years later when Richard Brinsley Peake adapted Shelley’s novel to the stage under the title Presumption; or, The Fate of Frankenstein. On the stage, James Wallack enacted Dr. Frankenstein while Thomas Potter Cooke portrayed the monster. Due to the huge success of both the novel and the on stage work, within the following three years, fourteen other dramatizations of Frankenstein were created. These were mounted on English and French stages, the most prominent being The Monster and the Magician by John Kerr, and The Man and the Monster by Henry M.

Milner both produced in London in 1826.

These were the torchbearers for over a hundred well known plays and cinematic forms of Frankenstein today. As the popularity of the work continued to grow, the film industry took it over. One film that took the critics by storm was Branagh’s version of the film. It was reflected as a box office failure and was voiced in reviewers’ two most frequent complaints. Nearly all of the 28 commercial reviews stated that: 1) the movie was not scary; and 2) Robert De Niro’s portrays of the monster failed to measure up to previous works. On one hand, his title MARY SHELLEY’S FRANKENSTEIN suggested that he intended to reposition this familiar story within its original context. But he failed to deliver a film as Mary Shelley wrote it. It is arguably enough to point out that with a confused agenda and no clear focus, it is not a surprise to hear the difficulty the audience had relating to the story. As one critic said, “the story was as badly stitched together as Victor Frankenstein’s monster.”

Even though the some of the portrayals of Mary Shelley’s work were a bust it was still found that many cinematic versions were able to influence others. In a model created by, there is an emphasis placed on the role played by artistic dialogue and echoes that certain works initiate or inspire in other authors and artists in the form of allusion, homage, parody, and adaptation. The data introduced by suggests that the popular cinematic versions of Frankenstein probably not only played a mediating role but also contributed to making Mary Shelley's novel part and parcel of the contemporary literary canon.

Not only did the work of Frankenstein influence the minds of the public in their everyday morals but it also connected to many of the scientific advancements of the surrounding time period. Frankenstein is frequently noted as the first science-fiction novel, but it owes a lot to scientific fact. In Frankenstein’s Footsteps, author Jon Turney examines how Mary Shelley’s FRANKENSTEIN influenced popular ideas about the biomedical sciences. He shows that the debates on in vitro fertilization, recombinant DNA, cloned, and even tissue culture evoked fantasies of Frankensteins’ creature. It is explored how science began to take “increasing control over the living world.” This beginning soon after the publication of FRANKENSTEIN and ending with Dolly the sheep, created by a cloning procedure that, similar to Dr. Frankenstein’s method, depended on a jolt of electricity to give life.

In Asilomar, California in 1975, 140 molecular biologists met and agreed to experiments with recombinant DNA, out of fear of creating harmful new organisms. This conference signaled “biology was attaining the powers akin to those envisaged by Mary Shelley.” The press furthered joined the debate, commenting “In biological laboratories, modern Dr. Frankensteins have found a way to create brand-new forms of life.” The public continued to debate, deciding whose job it was to contest morals with science. Then the mayor of Cambridge Massachusetts, Alfred Velluci, declared that it was his responsibility “to protect his constituents from Frankenstein monsters crawling out of the sewers.”Velluci’s claim was created in response to his influence and the final outcome for the Cambridge Experiment Review Board’s approval of recombinant-DNA research at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute for Technology.

After public outrage surrounding his decision the Washington Star asked, “Is Harvard the proper place for Frankenstein tinkering?” And the Boston Globe ran a cartoon showing a mad MIT scientist rushing to create “Frankenstienian” monsters after. Because it was written at a time of extraordinary scientific and social revolution, Shelley's novel captures the excitement and fear of new discoveries and the power of science. The public saw her characters as inventions, although they were heavily based on real people, the science her characters studied was very real, even the alchemists that fascinated the fictional Victor Frankenstein. The view of the world has changed over time, this means each novel that has been produced has been interpreted in more than one way depending on the era it comes from. For example, the medieval view of the world, explained by divine revelation, gave way to an increasingly secular way of understanding the universe in terms of universally applicable laws.

Experimentation and experience came to be seen as valid methods of producing knowledge, thus making it okay for Dr. Frankenstein to commit what modern day people see as a crime. It was this view of science and experimentation that gave way to the a new view of science for the public. The pace of scientific advancement in the century before Shelley's birth, and for some decades afterwards, was at once extraordinary, exciting and, to some, terrifying. Science held the promise of improved manufacturing, novel materials, and radical improvements for health and welfare. Such rapid advances and bold claims for science brought enthusiastic responses but also critics. It is precisely these hopes and fears that Mary Shelley used to such powerful effect in Frankenstein.

In some ways, Frankenstein can be seen as the summation of the previous century's scientific achievements. Due to the publication of FRANKENSTEIN the public was handed the opportunity to question the world around them in more than one way. The questions continued throughout the public, though new questions appeared, this time questioning the morals of the original literary work itself. This being said, the largest known question when reading the novel FRANKENSTEIN is in fact the issue of whether or not Dr. Frankenstein has the moral right to create such a monster; and then leave him without the affection of a companion. Does Dr. Frankenstein have the right to act as a God like figure? Traditionally, the power to give life is seen to be God’s authority.

The thought that God did not have to be the only one with such a power in his possession, was the hope that inspired the efforts of Dr. Frankenstein. This idea was commonly referred to in later experiments. For example just months after Shelley’s debut with FRANKENSTEIN, Andrew Ure, a professor at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland began conducting experiments. These experiments involved making the dead move using electrical devices, based off one completed fifteen years prior in London by Giovanni Aldini. Ure’s experiments and those like his, harbored modern science. After the public had the chance to perceive the literary and cinematic works, there was general backlash. There was major pushback throughout the public eye about God’s position within the work. All of this strongly suggests that the violation, the crime that Dr. Frankenstein committed, was that the assumed a power that only God should have.