I’ve been excitedly awaiting Guillermo del Toro’s version of Mary Shelley’s famous Frankenstein since it was announced. I’ve waited and waited, watching the trailers in eager anticipation, hopeful that del Toro’s take on the classic would be much more faithful than previous adaptations. As the release date grew closer and closer, I started to read a few articles reviewing the piece, and I became concerned.
Reading these articles, I thought I had perhaps looked up the wrong movie, or that the search engine returned results relating to some other Frankenstein movie. The words “father and son story” immediately hit me like a brick. Suddenly, Victor’s idyllic childhood became fraught with emotional and physical violence, and his creation crime a product of his traumatic experiences. Suddenly, Victor wasn’t immediately horrified at the creature’s appearance and his own terrible actions. Suddenly, crucial figures, including Henry Clerval, were eliminated entirely, and Victor’s father, brother, and fiancée (Elizabeth) became unrecognizable.
Perusing these descriptions, I was dumbfounded. However, I didn’t let my worries prevent me from watching the movie, and I’m glad they didn’t. Although Guillermo del Toro’s adaptation isn’t extremely faithful to the novel, it is fascinating, and it captures parts of the novel that aren’t often explored.
But a part of me does wish that the movie wasn’t titled Frankenstein and was instead a Frankenstein story, as it severely diverges from the book. Some of the most important differences include…
Victor’s childhood
Victor’s unparalleled childhood bliss
“No human being could have passed a happier childhood than myself. My parents were possessed by the very spirit of kindness and indulgence. We felt that they were not the tyrants to rule our lot according to their caprice, but the agents and creators of all the many delights which we enjoyed. When I mingled with other families I distinctly discerned how peculiarly fortunate my lot was, and gratitude assisted the development of filial love.”
In the movie, Victor’s father is cruel, cold, and selfish, whereas in the book, Victor passes childhood in a state of warmth and exuberance unlike that (purportedly) experienced by any other sentient being. Shelley emphasizes the perfect family image multiple times in the novel, which creates a sharp dissonance when you begin to wonder how Victor became such a prideful, borderline sociopathic, scientist. And this question is so crucial to the novel, and it is so fascinatingly rich in complexity. (And I’ve written a 15-page paper on this topic, so it hurt that this was changed so dramatically.) Thus, del Toro, by creating a more concrete, obvious reason for Victor’s criminality, upsets a really critical foundation piece upon which Frankenstein is built.
The kind and indulgent parents that fed their son’s hubris
“No human being could have passed a happier childhood than myself. My parents were possessed by the very spirit of kindness and indulgence. We felt that they were not the tyrants to rule our lot according to their caprice, but the agents and creators of all the many delights which we enjoyed. When I mingled with other families I distinctly discerned how peculiarly fortunate my lot was, and gratitude assisted the development of filial love.”
Now, Victor’s childhood has a disturbing vein flowing beneath its idyllic surface that provides a first glimpse of the hubristic monster to come. This is nowhere more evident than in his description of his parents as being “possessed by the very spirit of kindness and indulgence,” and his claim that they “were not the tyrants to rule out lot according to their caprice, but the agents and creators of all the many delights which we enjoyed.” While, of course, Victor greatly enjoyed the freedom his parents allowed him, a childhood devoid of discipline is clearly not conducive to creating a responsible individual, and the leniency and immediacy of gratification in Victor’s upbringing explain the almost childlike rapacity he indulges in as an adult.
The fact that del Toro revokes this explanation for Victor’s selfish, thoughtless actions and inability to accept responsibility raises a lot of problems, as his crime is no longer committed out of blind pride and a ruthless desire to self-apotheosize.
Victor and Clerval united in the “bonds of the closest friendship”
“I was indifferent, therefore, to my school-fellows in general; but I united myself in the bonds of the closest friendship to one among them.“
Well, Victor can’t be “united … in the bonds of the closest friendship” to Henry Clerval because he’s not in the movie! Imagine my consternation when I discovered that one of the most important characters, and one that serves as a beautiful contrast to Victor, had been eliminated! Clerval’s absence further adds to the bleakness of Victor’s childhood in del Toro’s adaptation, compounding the trauma that, in the movie, leads him to commit his creation crime.
Father’s occupation and noble lineage
“I am by birth a Genevese, and my family is one of the most distinguished of that republic. My ancestors had been for many years counsellors and syndics, and my father had filled several public situations with honour and reputation. He was respected by all who knew him for his integrity and indefatigable attention to public business. He passed his younger days perpetually occupied by the affairs of his country …”
In the movie, Alphonse Frankenstein is an illustrious surgeon who, through cruel methods, forces his son to learn his trade. In the novel, he is a dedicated and respected civil servant who carries on the public service tradition set by a noble, far-reaching lineage.
Father and mother’s marriage
“There was a considerable difference between the ages of my parents, but this circumstance seemed to unite them only closer in bonds of devoted affection. There was a sense of justice in my father’s upright mind which rendered it necessary that he should approve highly to love strongly. Perhaps during former years he had suffered from the late-discovered unworthiness of one beloved and so was disposed to set a greater value on tried worth. There was a show of gratitude and worship in his attachment to my mother, differing wholly from the doting fondness of age, for it was inspired by reverence for her virtues and a desire to be the means of, in some degree, recompensing her for the sorrows she had endured, but which gave inexpressible grace to his behaviour to her. Everything was made to yield to her wishes and her convenience.“
In Shelley’s work, Alphonse marries Caroline after her father, whom he had regularly assisted after falling into destitution, dies. He does not, as he does in the movie, marry her for wealth or title (she has neither in the book). Additionally, Alphonse loves and cares for Caroline; he does not bear resentment toward her or Victor.
Caroline Frankenstein’s death
“Elizabeth had caught the scarlet fever; her illness was severe, and she was in the greatest danger. During her illness many arguments had been urged to persuade my mother to refrain from attending upon her. She had at first yielded to our entreaties, but when she heard that the life of her favourite was menaced, she could no longer control her anxiety. She attended her sickbed; her watchful attentions triumphed over the malignity of the distemper—Elizabeth was saved, but the consequences of this imprudence were fatal to her preserver. On the third day my mother sickened; her fever was accompanied by the most alarming symptoms, and the looks of her medical attendants prognosticated the worst event.“
I’ll explore this point in more detail in the eliminated/altered characters section, but for clarity’s sake, Elizabeth actually grows up with Victor, essentially as his sister, and he (not William) becomes engaged to her later in life in the novel. When Elizabeth grows deathly ill with scarlet fever, Caroline Frankenstein devotedly tends to her, eventually curing her, but in the process, she catches scarlet fever and dies. Unlike the movie, she does not die giving birth to William, and there, of course, is no hint of Alphonse Frankenstein having any connection with the death. However, Elizabeth is strongly tied to her passing, having passed the fatal disease to her caretaker, and this connection is a rather intriguing and important one in the novel when analyzing Victor’s actions.
I will say, if Caroline Frankenstein had to die differently than she did in the novel, dying in childbirth would have to be the most “accurate” choice. Mary Shelley had a difficult relationship with childbirth: her mother, the famous Mary Wollstonecraft, died 11 days after giving birth to Mary Shelley of a fever resulting from complications during childbirth, and Mary Shelley herself gave birth to four children, but only one survived into adulthood.
Frankenstein greatly reflects Mary Shelley’s anxieties regarding childbirth and creation. This fear manifests itself both in her telling of Victor’s creation crime and in her ambivalent attitude towards the novel, which many believe stems from her insecurity as a female author. This latter uncertainty is perhaps nowhere more prominent than in the Introduction to the 1831 edition of Frankenstein, in which Shelley writes, “And now, once again, I bid my hideous progeny go forth and prosper. I have an affection for it, for it was the offspring of happy days, when death and grief were but words, which found no true echo in my heart.” Thus, Shelley’s work acts as her own repulsive, unnatural creation just as the creature acts as Victor’s.
Altered and Eliminated Characters
Altered characters
Elizabeth
“And when, on the morrow, she presented Elizabeth to me as her promised gift, I, with childish seriousness, interpreted her words literally and looked upon Elizabeth as mine—mine to protect, love, and cherish. All praises bestowed on her I received as made to a possession of my own. We called each other familiarly by the name of cousin. No word, no expression could body forth the kind of relation in which she stood to me—my more than sister, since till death she was to be mine only.“
Of course, one of the most jarring differences between the movie and the book is Elizabeth’s portrayal. In the movie, she is an outsider, rather than a figure who belongs to the Frankenstein clan; she is confident and voices her beliefs; and she is engaged to William instead of Victor.
Due to del Toro’s changes, Victor’s alarming desire to possess Elizabeth isn’t explored in the movie. Additionally, it is so important that the creature kills Victor’s fiancée, specifically.
William
“At this time a slight sleep relieved me from the pain of reflection, which was disturbed by the approach of a beautiful child, who came running into the recess I had chosen, with all the sportiveness of infancy. Suddenly, as I gazed on him, an idea seized me that this little creature was unprejudiced and had lived too short a time to have imbibed a horror of deformity. If, therefore, I could seize him and educate him as my companion and friend, I should not be so desolate in this peopled earth … As soon as he beheld my form, he placed his hands before his eyes and uttered a shrill scream …”
“I gazed on my victim, and my heart swelled with exultation and hellish triumph; clapping my hands, I exclaimed, ‘I too can create desolation; my enemy is not invulnerable; this death will carry despair to him, and a thousand other miseries shall torment and destroy him.’“
William doesn’t live to adulthood as he does in the movie; the creature murders him when he is a small child, becoming his first victim. This is such a crucial moment in the book. It immediately follows a series of extremely disheartening moments for the creature, which push him to the brink of raging ire: first, he is expelled from the De Lacey household, which fills him with “feelings of revenge and hatred” and pushes “injury and death” to the forefront of his mind; second, he suffers horrendous conditions on his journey from the De lacey house to Geneva, during which his nature turned to “gall and bitterness”; and lastly, after saving a young girl from drowning, the creature is shot and wounded by her guardian, inspiring “hellish rage” within the former. And despite “vow[ing] eternal hatred and vengeance to all mankind,” after getting shot, he still possesses enough hope (or painful desperation, at this point) that some member of the human race will look kindly upon him, that the angelic William, who crosses his path by chance, will become his friend. The moment William utters his “shrill scream” is when the creature realizes there is no place on earth for a being like himself; he finally loses all hope of acceptance, and he sees himself for the unnatural being that he is.
Alphonse Frankenstein
“My father and Ernest yet lived, but the former sunk under the tidings that I bore. I see him now, excellent and venerable old man! His eyes wandered in vacancy, for they had lost their charm and their delight—his Elizabeth, his more than daughter, whom he doted on with all that affection which a man feels, who in the decline of life, having few affections, clings more earnestly to those that remain. Cursed, cursed be the fiend that brought misery on his grey hairs and doomed him to waste in wretchedness! He could not live under the horrors that were accumulated around him; the springs of existence suddenly gave way; he was unable to rise from his bed, and in a few days he died in my arms.“
I’ve already discussed this, but Alphonse Frankenstein’s portrayal in the movie is entirely different than his portrayal in the book. In the novel, he is a kind, beneficent civil servant and father who loves his wife and children, whereas in the adaptation, he is greedy and vicious. As I’ve mentioned, Victor’s crime thus becomes (at least partially) a retaliation against his father and his relationship with the creature is tinged with the strained father-son relationship he possessed, rather than a product of the slew of infectious Enlightenment ideas.
Additionally, while in the movie Alphonse dies during Victor’s adolescence, he doesn’t die until much later in the book. He’s actually (besides Victor, himself) the creature’s final (although indirect) victim. (Victor’s younger brother, Ernest, is the only survivor of the Frankenstein clan.)
Eliminated characters
Henry Clerval
“Henry Clerval was the son of a merchant of Geneva. He was a boy of singular talent and fancy. He loved enterprise, hardship, and even danger for its own sake. He was deeply read in books of chivalry and romance. He composed heroic songs and began to write many a tale of enchantment and knightly adventure. He tried to make us act plays and to enter into masquerades, in which the characters were drawn from the heroes of Roncesvalles, of the Round Table of King Arthur, and the chivalrous train who shed their blood to redeem the holy sepulchre from the hands of the infidels.“
Victor and Clerval’s relationship provides such an intriguing point of juxtaposition and such a fascinating point of similarity. From an early age, Victor was occupied with learning “the secrets of heaven and earth,” while Clerval “occupied himself, so to speak, with the moral relations of things,” with “the virtues of heroes, and the actions of men.” Immediately, it appears as though Victor and Clerval’s interests entirely diverge, with the former obsessing over natural philosophy and the latter devoting himself to the tales of old; however, the two friends’ aims are not as antithetical as they may seem.
Compellingly, Victor states that Clerval’s “hope and … dream was to become one among those whose names are recorded in story as the gallant and adventurous benefactors of our species,” which eerily rings the same note as Victor’s ambition to create life. The latter’s desire to produce “A new species [that would] would bless [him] as its creator and source” and his impassioned speech to Walton’s men, during which he exhorts them to continue their perilous voyage instead of returning home, as they would “be hailed as the benefactors of [their] species, [their] names adored as belonging to brave men who encountered death for honour and the benefit of mankind,” sound hauntingly familiar to Clerval’s desires.
We also learn that Clerval, too, shares a dangerous dose of ambition. Victor states that “… he might not have been so perfectly humane, so thoughtful in his generosity, so full of kindness and tenderness amidst his passion for adventurous exploit, had she (Elizabeth) not unfolded to him the real loveliness of beneficence and made the doing good the end and aim of his soaring ambition.” This strain of ambition is, interestingly, recognized by Clerval’s father, who “saw idleness and ruin in the aspirations and ambition of his son,” barring him from attending university to restrain his potentially harmful aspiration.
Thus, with Clerval, we see what might have been had Victor’s ambition been attenuated and instead aimed at “doing good” rather than attaining glory. Clerval, Walton, and Victor each show how easily, regardless of your field, rapacious ambition can overtake you.
Justine Moritz
“It was to be decided whether the result of my curiosity and lawless devices would cause the death of two of my fellow beings: one a smiling babe full of innocence and joy, the other far more dreadfully murdered, with every aggravation of infamy that could make the murder memorable in horror. Justine also was a girl of merit and possessed qualities which promised to render her life happy; now all was to be obliterated in an ignominious grave, and I the cause! A thousand times rather would I have confessed myself guilty of the crime ascribed to Justine, but I was absent when it was committed, and such a declaration would have been considered as the ravings of a madman and would not have exculpated her who suffered through me.“
“Thus spoke my prophetic soul, as, torn by remorse, horror, and despair, I beheld those I loved spend vain sorrow upon the graves of William and Justine, the first hapless victims to my unhallowed arts.“
Justine Moritz, a girl taken in by the Frankensteins at the age of 12, is not a major character in the novel, but she is a crucial figure. She is actually blamed for murdering William, who, as I mentioned, is the creature’s first victim. Her death provides significant commentary on the justice system, which is critical to the novel’s importance. Additionally, her execution pushes Victor over the brink of despair, unleashing the guilt and despair that have been building up within him.
Victor and his progeny’s relationship
“I started from my sleep with horror; a cold dew covered my forehead, my teeth chattered, and every limb became convulsed; when, by the dim and yellow light of the moon, as it forced its way through the window shutters, I beheld the wretch—the miserable monster whom I had created. He held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they may be called, were fixed on me. His jaws opened, and he muttered some inarticulate sounds, while a grin wrinkled his cheeks. He might have spoken, but I did not hear; one hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped and rushed downstairs. I took refuge in the courtyard belonging to the house which I inhabited, where I remained during the rest of the night, walking up and down in the greatest agitation, listening attentively, catching and fearing each sound as if it were to announce the approach of the demoniacal corpse to which I had so miserably given life.”
In the novel, Victor has almost zero contact with the creature immediately after animating him. The creature simply stands silently over his bed, and Victor, confronted with the unholy apparition, the representation of his crimes, suddenly understands the horror of his actions and is consumed by a terrible illness that lasts several months. Upon returning to health, he and Clerval (who has finally made his way to the university) spend time together at Ingolstadt, and Victor casts off the recollection of his past actions and the product of them. Victor is soon brought back to the jarring reality he tried so hard to forget, however; receiving word from his father that his brother, William, has died, Victor returns to his home in Geneva, and on the journey, he sees the creature and immediately knows that his progeny murdered his brother.
“As I said these words, I perceived in the gloom a figure which stole from behind a clump of trees near me; I stood fixed, gazing intently: I could not be mistaken. A flash of lightning illuminated the object, and discovered its shape plainly to me; its gigantic stature, and the deformity of its aspect more hideous than belongs to humanity, instantly informed me that it was the wretch, the filthy dæmon, to whom I had given life. What did he there? Could he be (I shuddered at the conception) the murderer of my brother? No sooner did that idea cross my imagination, than I became convinced of its truth; my teeth chattered, and I was forced to lean against a tree for support. The figure passed me quickly, and I lost it in the gloom. Nothing in human shape could have destroyed the fair child. He was the murderer! I could not doubt it.”
Unlike the movie, there is a dramatic lack of action in the novel; instead, there is only silence fraught with disgust and fear. Victor never greets the creature, speaks with the creature, or hugs the creature in the excitement of his accomplishment. Nor does he “teach” the creature, physically abuse him, or attempt to kill him.
Similarly to how Del Toro gives Victor a traumatic childhood, which fuels his desire to conquer nature, the director provides the creature with a dramatic, violent grievance against his maker, feeding his vengeful ire. The main issue I have with this addition is that there are big, obvious transgressions that kindle hatred rather than gaping absences out of which resentments leap like tongues of fire.
Additional changes
Several other important differences include:
1. Victor shows his partially completed creation to professors/peers at the university
2. The creature’s victims are inaccurate
3. The creature is composed of both human and animal parts in the novel
4. Victor attends Ingolstadt, and it is there that he assembles the creature and imbues him with life (he doesn’t have a special lab)
5. Cornelius Agrippa, Albertus Magnus, and Paracelsus (aka, “the lords of [Victor’s] imagination”) are not mentioned
6. The movie is set during the latter half of the 19th century
Conclusion
Overall, I enjoyed Guillermo del Toro’s version of Frankenstein; he does an incredible job of weaving the story, tying in threads of complexity from the novel and threads of his own making, producing a breathtaking tapestry of old and new. However, it is very different from Mary Shelley’s novel, and I wish that the movie claimed a different name than that of Shelley’s masterpiece; although it is an incredibly interesting adaptation, it is not Frankenstein.