In James Whale’s interpretation of Frankenstein, one of the most
emotionally arresting elements in the film is the sympathy the viewer feels for
the plight of the creature—more, indeed, than they feel for its creator. In
having this kind of pathos running through the film, Whale creates an
unsettling emotional conundrum within the viewer: what makes a monster? Are
they born as such, or does cruelty and mistreatment make them into criminals?
How do we even define monstrosity? Rick
Worlant addresses some of these questions in chapter 5 of The Horror Film: An Introduction, and David Skal also delves into some
of them in chapter 5 of The Monster Show:
A Cultural History of Horror. Although the answers to these questions are
far from straight-forward, the viewer can draw some conclusions based on the
interactions between the creature and its maker, as well as the very bodily
construction of the creature itself.
In
the scene where the audience first beholds the living creature, Worlant notes
that “one of the film’s most poetic moments” (Worlant 169) is the one wherein the
creature looks up to the light in the ceiling with a “subtly beautiful expression
of innocence and longing crossing the grotesque visage,” “seeking to clasp it
in his hands” (169). This establishes the creature as a subject deserving of the viewer’s (perhaps
cautious) affection, as this innocence and longing is reminiscent of that of a
young child. Moreover, immediately prior to this, Frankenstein refers to the
creature as “him,” a pronoun that serves to humanize it. However, having
ordered the creature to sit down, Frankenstein ignores its apparent emotional
pain, and only half-heartedly attempts to dissuade Fritz from his avid attempts
to torment the creature with a torch. It may be significant that after the
creature appears on-screen, Frankenstein refers to his creation as “it” rather
than “he.” This represents his willful dehumanization of the creature. Terrified,
it stumbles away from Fritz’s torch, its inhuman moans of fright compounding the
viewer’s sympathy with it. When it finally turns on its tormentor, the viewer
experiences a kind of satisfaction: the killing was justified. At the same
time, however, they recognize the creature beginning to descend into
monstrosity, likely the result of its neglect and mistreatment.
A
crucial element to note in the film is its deviation from Shelley’s novel, in
that the creature’s brain is that of a criminal. One could argue that this eliminates
some of the possibility for a nature versus nurture debate, such as the one in
this essay, but one could also argue that it makes such a debate even more
nuanced. As noted above, the creature does not display violent tendencies until
too antagonized to further bear it. Thus, one might say that while the creature
may have been predisposed to
monstrousness, it did not become one until its environment brought out this propensity.
Therefore, as can be inferred from the language of this essay, Frankenstein did
not initially create a monster, but a
creature. The monster was made later.
Another
aspect of this argument might be the idea of the creature being a mosaic of
body parts and mechanism—a kind of cyborg. David Skal notes that the creature’s
body is an “amalgam of conventional bodies torn apart and reassembled according
to new, logical-angular, electromechanical principles,” perhaps best
represented by the “steel bolt through the neck, a detail that…would come to
symbolize the total Frankenstein mythos” (Skal, 132). This blurring of the
boundary between human and inhuman, mechanism and flesh, nature and nurture,
raise further questions. What is it to be human, after all? It is a bodily
experience, certainly, but what else factors into this? Is it a particular way
of thinking, of knowing, of being? Is such an embodiment limited to the flesh,
or to wholeness? Why do some become monsters and others do not? Or, in certain
instances, do we experience the unsettling feeling of recognizing our own
heretofore unknown monstrosity when it appears before us—perhaps with a squared
off skull and a bolted neck?
Helen,
ReplyDeleteThe referring to the monster as "him" only once in the film is an interesting aspect to toss some focus, as it's a very telling piece of the cinematic themes in the movie. Henry must have noticed himself changing his reference term, but if not, what between "him" and "it" caused him to change his view of his creation? Was it the moaning? Was it the instinctual response to fire? Was it a social response to something a peer said? Whatever the cause, it adds an interesting angle to the man vs. monster theme of the film. Nice post!
"[O]ne might say that while the creature may have been predisposed to monstrousness, it did not become one until its environment brought out this propensity. Therefore, as can be inferred from the language of this essay, Frankenstein did not initially create a monster, but a creature. The monster was made later": this is wonderfully said, Helen, and I think it's quite convincing. Given your final questions in this post, we might extend your reading to say that, for Whale's understanding of the Frankenstein narrative, we're all born "creatures" first, and then our environments variously construct us in ways that are indexed as "monstrous" or "human." This falls heavily on the "nurture" side of the classical debate--but I think Whale does intimate that "humanity" and its numerous sub-categories (male, female, hetero, homo, normal, abnormal, compulsive, phlegmatic, etc., etc.) are made things (and so can be remade). Your last questions--"What is it to be human, after all? It is a bodily experience, certainly, but what else factors into this?"--are entirely relevant to more contemporary developments of horror (and the sci-fi genre it flirts with heavily in the 70s and 80s). These questions are at the very core of movies such as Alien and The Thing (reiterated again and again, as in the more recent Splice and Ex Machina), for instance. And David Cronenberg built a career around the notion that embodied existence may not be limited to human flesh, but may rather extend to the body's multiple mechanical prostheses: cars, phones, guns, TVs, and so on and on. "Long live the new flesh," recites the protagonist whose body becomes a video-cassette player in Videodrome. Excellent thoughts here! -MH
ReplyDeleteI was also very struck by the prevalence of the nature vs. nurture argument in this film. I agree that the the monster having a criminal brain adds a lot of depth to the examination of nature vs. nurture in this film. The monster seems to have a childlike understanding of the world, and only acts violently because it's reacting to the violence happening around it. Yet this innocence is made dangerous because of the creature's great strength and size. It seems Whale is playing both sides of the argument here, suggesting that people are the way they are because of both their nature and their nurture.
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