Who's Afraid of Mary Shelley?
BarcelonaWe live in a time when the quality of a book is often judged by its adaptability to audiovisual formats, or we learn about stories through the films or series that have been made about them. That's what happened to me with Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus I knew Mary Shelley's novel from its first film adaptation in 1931, with Boris Karloff playing the creature, or from the hilarious version by Gene Wilder and Mel Brooks in 1974. Since Guillermo del Toro released a new, captivating film this year, I finally decided to read Mary Shelley's original story and decide for myself whether I prefer the book or the movie (I need to find out if Mr. Noriguis's Morgan Freeman has already trademarked this line; I'm sure he has).
Some of the reviews I've read of Guillermo del Toro's version point out that the creature isn't ugly or terrifying, since it's played by the Australian actor of Basque origin, Jacob Elordi, whose makeup seems designed to make him look like a real man. But beyond that, what surprised me is how Del Toro's version strays from the moral core of the novel. To begin with, he transforms the creature into a purely good being who doesn't harm anyone, erasing what Shelley intended to show us: that the monster is both victim and perpetrator, wounded and violent, and that this ambivalence is key to the story.
Del Toro also invents a kind of love triangle between Victor Frankenstein, Elizabeth, and the creature, when in the novel Elizabeth never even learns of its existence. This shifts the focus to jealousy and romantic love, turning it into a Sunday afternoon melodrama, and once again defuses the central conflict of the book, which is what it means to create life and then abandon it.
Finally, the director introduces an abusive father to explain Victor's behavior, further stripping the story of its complexity. Shelley doesn't need any traumatic childhood to justify Frankenstein's actions, who in the original story is a brilliant and narcissistic man who plays God (or a woman) only to then abandon his responsibilities. Turning him into a poor, abused orphan not only absolves him of guilt but also reinforces the patriarchal narrative where women are expected to understand and forgive men because they have suffered greatly, even when they exhibit cruelty.
Mary Shelley's story, more than a horror or science fiction novel, is a reflection on the responsibility and weight of parenthood, and on the rupture caused by abandonment. It is revealing that many adaptations directed by men become obsessed with the aspect that didn't interest Shelley: the technique for creating life. Perhaps because they don't want to see that, for women, this isn't a Promethean fantasy, but a bodily and everyday experience.
PS1: Perhaps that's why they need to invent sporting competitions where they can test their strength and always come out on top. PS2: And another day we'll talk about Freud's misogyny and how penis envy doesn't exist: perhaps it's more like envy of the power to create life.
