Was Dr. Frankenstein Really The Monster?
Whale’s 1931 film Frankenstein, is usually seen as the birth of modern horror, but in today’s context it's not really a scary movie. On the surface, the film presents a reanimated corpse wreaking havoc on a German(?) town, but if you look deeper you can find much more than just cheap thrills- Frankenstein is a film layered with meaning and deep philosophical questions.
One such concept Frankenstein plays with is nature vs. nurture, with Whale ultimately advocating for the latter. Frankenstein’s creation is presented to the audience as one of inherent evil: it is a patchwork of different bodies, has the mind a criminal, and is born in the terror and anger of a thunderstorm. Yet despite these details, the creature’s actions defy the assumption of innate evil. The creature seems to act out of fear, self preservation, and ignorance. When the creature is first up and walking around the laboratory it follows Frankenstein’s commands without struggle. It has an innocent childlike curiosity, as can be seen by it reaching out for the sunlight streaming into the dark laboratory. The creature is a peaceful being, eroding the notion of the inherent evil nature presented earlier in the film. This docile nature is quickly reversed however when Fritz flails a torch at it. The creature responds to Fritz’ hostility by defending itself, but the characters on screen see its actions as sinister. The creature killing Fritz and Doctor Waldman can similarly be seen as justified self-preservation. Both treated it with hostility and try to keep it locked up. It’s only natural that the creature responds with similarly hostile behavior. The most striking example of the creature’s peaceful nature can be seen from the scene with the little girl by the lake. Unlike everyone else in this film, the young girl meets the creature with kindness and the creature responds in an equally friendly manner. The creature is shown by the little girl that the flowers will float on the water and it makes the creature happy. Out of its childlike logic, the creature thinks the little girl with float on the water just like the flowers, so it throws her into the lake. When things don’t go as expected, the creature panics and runs. Visible distress can be seen on the creature’s face as it fleas, indicating its actions were not made out of hostility or evil, but out of ignorance. Whale is clearly communicating in this scene that the creature doesn’t understand how the world works- it is in the mental space of a young child and yet the other characters see its actions as intentionally hostile because it physically resembles an adult man. The film takes a bit of turn from this point. Frankenstein now longer sees hope in salvaging his creation, it must be destroyed. The film concludes with the creature being chased into an old mill and eventually being burned alive. In its last moments, its monstrous grunts become noticeably more human. This final scene hammers home the child-like and human aspects of the creature, further accentuating the unnecessary violence of the world around it.
Ultimately what the film seems to be trying to do with all of this is to get the viewer to think critically about the way people understand “bad” people. Are they intrinsically bad, or were they turned into something bad? Can anything be fundamentally evil from the time of its creation? The film argues against this notion; the creature is homicidal because of the hostile environment within which it is created, not because of its intrinsic nature. The people are the monsters of this film, not the creature.
I think it is very important that you pointed out that the "Monster" was a child in an adult's body. If you would like to explore the idea further, I think it would be interesting to delve into the tragedy of the Monster's super-human strength. Had he had the strength of a child to match the mind of a child, the tragedy with Maria would never have occurred. This plays on the nature side of the nature vs. nurture theme, but still places the blame on Dr. Frankenstein for creating the creature with such a juxtaposition. In essence, the doctor not only fails in nurture, but also in nature.
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