On Frankenstein, A Monster of a Book
Behind the scenes of James Whale’s 1931 Frankenstein.
In 1818, it probably would have been more shocking to have a novel about a Victoria Frankenstein doing perfectly normal, boring science than one about Victor making a hodgepodge of body parts come to life. In more than one way, Victor Frankenstein embodies the double contradiction at the core of the mad scientist outlined in the previous installment of this essay. First paradox: though deprived of reason (mad), this character is also the ultimate embodiment of reason (a scientist). Second paradox: even though mad scientists are always outcasts who rebel against the establishment, they tend to represent that very establishment—they are, for the most part, well-to-do white men.
True enough, every now and then, Frankenstein looks beyond Europe—for example, in search of a habitat for its monstrous offspring and sedatives that may quiet the nightmare of reason. After his first nervous breakdown, following the creation of the monster, Victor, saturated with Western knowledge, “found not only instruction but consolation in the works of the orientalists.” Together with his friend, Clerval, he learns Persian, Arabic, and Hebrew and reads the texts in the original:
Their melancholy is soothing, and their joy elevating to a degree I never experienced in studying the authors of any other country. When you
