16/11/2025
For the majority of my English teaching career, I’ve taught Frankenstein written by a teenager and daughter of a proto-feminist, Mary Shelley.
It’s one of my favourite books as it stitches together highly complex ideas in a gothic science fiction novel warning against the arrogance of men replacing women in the act of creation, whereby an innocent yet abandoned Creature is constantly rejected, shunned and isolated by society and his Creator only for us to witness who is truly the monster: Society perpetuated through poor parenting.
Shelley’s novel critiques misogyny, male dominated science, inter-generational trauma and abuse, social inequality, prejudice, and the subjugation of Nature represented in the suppression of the feminine only to produce a type of toxic masculinity in Victor Frankenstein unable to nurture his own Creation who becomes violent and murderous. The Creature laments to his father, Frankenstein, that he is a “filthy type of yours, more horrid even from the very resemblance.”
In Del Toro’s recent Netflix adaptation, the cycle of abuse and intergenerational trauma is clearly presented, passed from Victor’s father to Victor’s creation, yet it concludes with a hopeful quotation from Byron: “The heart will break and yet brokenly live on.” This encapsulates post-traumatic growth for the Creature who embraces the beauty of life, despite acknowledging his own suffering. The film carries a message of parental accountability, reconciliation, and peace in its final frames. Overall, it is a fantastic work of art in its own right. My review: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
How did you respond to the recent adaptation of Frankenstein? Was it true to the novel? ⬇️