Download Differences between the 1931 Frankenstein film and the Shelley novel

Differences between the 1931 Frankenstein film and the Shelley novel
There are more differences between the movie and book than there are similarities. This is
because the movie is largely based on the 1920s play accredited to Peggy Webling rather than
the original Shelley text.
The most specific difference between the book and the movie is the acceptance of the creature
as a man rather than a monster, which has led to the naming of the creature as "Frankenstein".
In the Peggy Webling play which the film is based on, the direct idea of the creator largely
accepting his creation as an actual man and accepting success of his original experiment,
rather than the explicit rejection by Frankenstein of his creature of the novel, is explored more
directly and exactly.
This tolerance of the creature as a man would largely be changed by the film studio Universal in
their later films in which the creature was to be marketed as a specific villain and not to be
empathized with by the audience. In all Universal films starting with Frankenstein Meets the
Wolf Man, every time the creature is referred to directly, he is specifically named as "The
Frankenstein Monster" or simply "the Monster" and never again as just "Frankenstein" in order
to emphasize the fact that he is a manufactured being and an inherently evil one.
Another notable difference between the book and film is the articulation of the monster's
speech. In Shelley's book, the creature taught himself to read with books of classic literature
such as Milton's Paradise Lost. The creature learns to speak clearly in what appears in the
novel as Early Modern English, because of the texts he has found to learn from while in hiding.
In the 1931 film, the creature is completely mute except for grunts and growls. In the 1935 Bride
of Frankenstein, the original creature learns some basic speech but is very limited in his
dialogue, speaking with rough grammar and still preferring at times to express himself gutturally.
By the third film, Son of Frankenstein, the creature is again inarticulate.
In Mary Shelley's original novel, the creature's savage behaviour is his conscious decision
against his maltreatment and neglect because of his inhuman appearance, whereas in the 1931
film adaptation states that his condition is largely due to the effect made by Frankenstein's
assistant Fritz, who has provided a defective brain to be used for the creature. This suggestion
that the monster's brutal behaviour was inevitable dilutes the novel's social criticism and
depiction of developing consciousness. Though there are times despite such a defect, the
creature responds to kindness as done to him in the scene with Maria, the little girl at the
lakeside.
The deformed (hunchbacked) assistants of the first two films are not characters derived from the
novel. In the original text, Frankenstein creates his monster in solitude without servants.
In the novel, how Frankenstein builds the creature is only obscurely described, references being
made to a long slow process born from a combination of new scientific principles and ancient
alchemical lore. Whereas the movies precisely depict the methodology by which their version of
the monster is created, showing Frankenstein robbing graves of the recently dead and using the
organs and body parts to reconstruct a new human body. This process culminates with the
harnessing of a lightning bolt to awaken the creature, a scene famously depicted with great
spectacle in the 1931 film. Despite their at best limited presence in the original novel, the idea of
the patchwork body of dead flesh and massive discharges of electricity being key to the genesis
of the monster have become commonly associated with the Frankenstein story.
In the novel, Frankenstein's name is Victor, not Henry (Henry Clerval was the name of Victor's
best friend) and he is not a doctor, but rather a college student. Elizabeth is murdered by the
Monster on her wedding night. The Monster also murders Henry Clerval and Victor's young
brother William. Victor's father dies heartbroken after Elizabeth's murder and Victor begins his
pursuit of the monster, which eventually leads to his death from an illness aboard a boat en
route to the North Pole. The Monster, finding Victor dead, vows to travel to the Pole and commit
suicide, although it is not revealed if he does so.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstei...