Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Frankenstein Reaction Paper

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Frankenstein Reaction Paper

Frankenstein is a story dealing with a scientist trespassing into realms that they shouldn’t, just because it is in the name of science. It serves as a warning to the reader that there should be ethics and measures in science and technology, otherwise there will be consequences.

One major difference between the book and the movie is that the creature has been made dumb and unable to speak intelligently. The reason for this can be seen when one looks again at the message of the story - that there are unspeakable consequences for dabbling with the forbidden, in the case life and death. 

By making the creature dumb, it makes it more inferior to us humans as we pride ourselves on our intelligence. This reduces the creature into a monster, something that has to be feared. In other words, this change in the movie is a play on the audience’s emotions and makes them despise and fear the creature. 

One can relate this to zombies, that because they are rabid dangerous creatures driven by hunger, one cannot see them as equals. By removing the rationality in the creature, people think that there is no way to resolve this except by destroying through violence and fire, and that they won’t be faulted as they aren’t on the level of humans.


I believe that this decision did make it work, as this has become the stereotype of the monster in future works as well as in popular culture. Frankenstein has become one of the staples of horror, and this decision of making the monster dumb is one of the factors that made it so.

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