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I’ve read Frankenstein twice by now; in both instances it was for an English class, and I feel about as familiar with the tale as the back of my hand. Everyone knows the classic flat-top, screw-head Frankenstein monster of pop culture, but not everyone is familiar with the original story. Victor Frankenstein, a young student of natural science, studies the manner of life to the extent that he learns how to create it out of inanimacy. Thus, the creature is born (or perhaps made). Throughout the story, the creature learns how to be a human, capable of both compassionate empathy and cold-blooded violence all while Victor is forced to bear the consequences.
One of the main reasons Victor pursues the creation of life is his desire to reverse the death of his mother, who died when he was a teenager. He remembers his mother in an idealized fashion: he remembers that “Mama Liked the Roses” (like the song by Elvis Presley) but not when the “growing [was] way too hard.” In that way, Victor’s mother is more a figure of his romanticized childhood than a character on her own. He only recalls that “most of all she cared” instead of any of her thoughts. Her loss led him to experiment with bringing life to the lifeless in the thought that he may be able to return his mother to him.
However, the effect of his toils horrifies him: he is not able to look at the creature for more than a minute before running away in fear. Thus, his creature, capable of human emotion and thought, is “[thrown] into [the] world” with no guidance from his creator. Like in the song, “Riders on the Storm” by The Doors, the creature is left to navigate the world on his own, “like a dog without a bone” or an infant without a parent. Because of this rejection (and the rejection of every human he meets along the way), the creature becomes a “killer on the road” and vows to take vengeance on Frankenstein, no matter the cost.
Thus, Victor is haunted by a ghost of his own making: his creature “can’t wait to hear [him] scream” in anguish as reparations. “Scream” by Misfits is the third song for Frankenstein because of the endless “freezing touch of fear,” anger, and stress the creature instills in Victor. Going after Victor’s own family when the man refuses to create him another companion, the creature becomes obsessed with revenge. “Although [Victor] [tries] to fight,” they are dragged to a standstill and victory-less battle of wills by the end of the novel.
The second enemy fighting against Victor is his own guilt and shame at having unleashed the creature upon the world—despite it being his abandonment that led the creature down a violent path. “The burden” of that guilt “tortures [him] deep in [his] soul” throughout the entire novel; it only gets worse when the people around him start falling victim to a much more dangerous torture. As in the Trivium song, “Strife,” “guilt buries [him] alive” no matter what he does. He solely feels guilty for his creation of the monster, not for his rejection of it, making his “strife” extremely one-sided.
In the end, it is up to interpretation as to who the real monster is: an infant left with no resources to learn how to be a human (or a parent to love them) or the creator burdened by the hideousness of his creation’s actions. By the third volume, both characters become blurred into one by their determination to end one another; Frankenstein and his monster, now culturally combined, are difficult to distinguish. As a known Victor hater, however, I am on the creature’s side. It’s up to you to decide, however, which team deserves our sympathy in the end.
Runner-Ups: “Last Words Of a Shooting Star” by Mitski, “Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man)” by Styx, “Hunting Humans” by Misfits, “Stone Cold Crazy” by Queen.
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