Frankenstein, an application of "Fear Itself"

     I feel much of McElvaine's writing in “Fear Itself” lends itself to the film Frankenstein. Having been released in 1931, Frankenstein in many ways foreshadows the American mindsets McElvaine lays out. As an early depression film, I believe Frankenstein touches on unemployment. We have a main character who, so immersed and believing in his work, refuses to accept that he should be doing anything but. Even given the direct dissent of his mentor, Frankenstein refuses to let go. On page 173 of “Fear Itself,” McElvaine writes,  

                    Modern industrial society does not provide a place or position for a person;

                    rather, it requires him to make his own place – and to strive to better it.

                    This is taken to be the measure of one's individual worth. Americans had been

                    brought up on the belief that meaningful work is the basis of life. Without such

                    work, people felt they had no reason for being. “Drives a man crazy,” said a

                    seventy-five-year-old former knifemaker, “or drives him to drink, hangin'

                    around.”

     This short paragraph describes much of the first half of the film. Frankenstein feels compelled to prove his peers wrong and make his own name in the world. In some ways, McElvaine's third sentence applies to Frankenstein almost literally. Meaningful work for Frankenstein is to create life. After the monster kills Fritz, Frankenstein is compelled to leave the watchtower and let Dr. Waldman end the monster. Yet again, we see an almost literal application in the knifemaker's words; Frankenstein lounges about his father's estate, drinking and lamenting on having nothing to do.

     In my opinion, Frankenstein's monster represents unemployment in the Depression era. It ran rampant through the country side leading only to ill. It was created by both man – a rich one at that – and nature. In this sense that the monster touches on both the ideas of nature and nurture, so did The Great Depression. Issues with interest rates and other problems stemming from bankers mixed with the natural threat of drought and overcropped fields leading to both a natural and nurtured collapse.

    Perhaps more compellingly than unemployment, McElvaine's discussion of familial gender roles is reflected in the film. Elizabeth, from the very start, takes on the traditional role of women in the family. She expresses throughout the film that she both believes in and trusts Frankenstein and his work, but she wonders what it is doing to him. When he is lounging at his father's estate, she is by his side comforting him. The only thing she is interested in is making her role a permanent one as Frankenstein's wife.

     Frankenstein is overtly protective and possessive of Elizabeth. Multiple times he locks her inside a room or building under the guise of her own safety. And, as far as he sees it, she is safe because of it; safe in his possession, that is. As McElvaine writes at the bottom of page 181, “People did their best to maintain traditional roles... The principal effect of the Depression on internal family relationships, in fact, was to exaggerate the qualities and tendencies already present. The additional strain was often too much for weak families to withstand...” Frankenstein, like many men of the Depression, grasped at the position he held in the family. He wishes to maintain the position that, technically, he doesn't even hold.

     Finally, a point McElvaine makes is that of the Depression's effect on children. He details how many families wished to do better by their children. Frankenstein yet again touches on this fear for children. Plainly, the scenes where the monster drowns the little girl, and later when her father carries her through town reflect society’s fears. Taking the personification of unemployment I laid out in the monster, the little girl is killed, albeit naively, by unemployment itself. In this case, it is perhaps better to say that the monster killed her naively, but unemployment killed indirectly. Either way, neither source sought to kill children, they just did so as a consequence of their upbringings and actions. Further exacerbated in the festival scene is society's obvious distaste for the suffering of children. Everyone in the town, upon noticing the father's burden, forgets the festivities and follows him. We are left with an entire town, perhaps finally, awakened to the menace due to the death of an innocent. In much the same way, The Great Depression awakened the seemingly age-old-cry, “Think of the children!”