Frankentstein Essay, Research Paper

The novel Frankenstein written by Mary Shelley has been used as a

model for many movies, and throughout many movies, there are references to

her outstanding novel, but nothing quite encompasses all of it’s qualities like the

movie Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Although some Hollywood drama is thrown

into the movie, many of the minor details of the novel are included as well as the

overall plot of the novel.

The movie starts off with woman’s voice, Mary Shelley, giving some

background to why she wrote the novel. The movie avoided all of the letters

written by Walton to Margaret, and move onto the storm that brings them

stranded, surrounded by only ice for miles. The movie basically summarizes

what happened to Walton in the letters to a five minute segment. While Walton

argues with one of the crew members, an unexpected moan from further away

catches the crew’s attention. A figure then appears, which turns out to be, from

previous knowledge, Victor. The director decided not to include the dogs from

the sled though. Another moan. The dogs upon the ship break lose and run to

where the noises were coming from and are seen killed very quickly. the

monster is then seen coming toward the ship.

The story of Victor begins in the next frame. He is seen as a child

dancing with Caroline who is pregnant. Justine is playing the piano, and his

father comes in with an orphan. This is where we meet Elizabeth.

The next scene is where Victor is in his mid twenties and he is working on

science. His mother comes in and reveals that Victor will be a better doctor than

his father. They then move to where Caroline is giving birth to her child, and

Victor’s father has to cut her to let the child live. Unfortunately, Caroline dies

after birth. This is completely different from the novel, because Caroline dies

from scarlet fever after contracting it from Elizabeth. Anyway, as the child is

being born, Victor sees the tree being struck by lightning, which occurs earlier in

the plot of the novel.

The next scene in the movie takes place three years later. He is seen

with Justine, Elizabeth, and William in the hills. A thundercloud then

approaches and Victor conducts an experiment with them and electricity. The

next scene is a going away party for Victor. There is dancing, then Victor’s

father does a speech about how his mother left him a journal for his research.

Victor then travels to Ingolstadt, where he is to go to school and research. He

there meets Henry Clerval, another student at the University. But in the book,

Henry had been Victor’s closest friend all his life. He then makes a name for

himself at school by arguing points of view with Mr. Krempe, his professor. It is

when Waldman, another professor, yells at Victor for his outbursts of opinion

where we get to see what Victor will be doing for the rest of his life. Waldman’s

research and experiments fascinated Victor. When Waldman was stabbed to

death by a common person (played by Robert DeNiro), Victor took over and

completed what Waldman had been doing for years. The common man was

hanged for murder. Victor then had to gather raw materials, so he cuts down the

man, and uses his body parts for most of the body. He gets Waldman’s brain to

make his creation smart. He pays midwives to save amniotic fluid from

childbirth and give it to him for his experiments. The movie goes into more detail

of his experiments than the novel.

Elizabeth comes to Ingolstadt and argues with Victor to go home, and

Victor refuses. After the monster is born, Victor abandons the experiment and

writes is his journal that it is over. He then puts the journal in his cloak and goes

to sleep. When he awakes, the monster is over him, and Victor runs away. The

monster then puts on the cloak, and proceeds into the village. In the next scene,

the monster is seen sleeping in an alleyway where he learns to eat. He smells a

roll, was caught and chased away by the village people. He jumps on a cart and

falls off when it reaches the forest.

It is then where we see Henry nursing Victor in his apartment in

Ingolstadt, and Elizabeth, as a surprise to Victor, is playing the piano. It is then

seen that the monster finds a cottage where the DeLacey family lived. He hides

in the pig pen, where he learns to speak and read, meanwhile helping the family

with the harvest. The monster then finds the blind man in the woods, and tries to

approach him. the story then switches to Victor, who was packing up to go back

to Geneva to get married to Elizabeth. When they arrive, William, Victor’s little

brother takes the locket that Victor gave Elizabeth to show one of his friends,

Peter. The locket had picture of Victor in it, not one of Caroline as written in the

novel. William runs into the monster, and runs away. When the monster sees

the picture of Victor, he goes after William. The family is upset that William

hasn’t come home and, frantically, everyone in the house searches for him in the

woods. Finally, Elizabeth finds him, strangled. Justine then turned into a

suspect of his murder and is hanged, but without a trial.

The monster then approaches Victor and tells him to meet him at “the sea

of ice” in the mountains. Victor then travels there and they confront on the

monster’s ground. The monster demands a companion, and Victor complies

more quickly than in the novel. The monster then picks out his body he wants to

be his wife, Justine. Victor refuses to make him a wife using Justine. The

monster tells him that he will be there on Victor’s wedding night.

Victor and Elizabeth are then seen getting married. While everyone is

outside, the monster kills Victor’s father, who was bedridden. After the

ceremonies, Victor and Elizabeth planned on taking some sort of ferry, but there

weren’t anymore for the night. So they retired to a chateau, and with plenty of

guards, went into their room. Victor was “interrupted” when he hears the whistle

of a flute that the monster had told him he could play. Victor runs out of the

room to see what is going on, and then hears screams from his room where

Elizabeth was. As Victor entered, the monster tears out the heart of Elizabeth.

The monster then escapes as people shot at him.

Victor takes Elizabeth to his lab and creates a new woman using Justine’s

body and Elizabeth’s head. After born, she learns to dance with Victor and

Victor is happy that Elizabeth was slightly still herself. The monster then enters

and calls the new girl over to her. She goes back and forth, and eventually she

is confused and they are fighting over her. She breaks everyone apart, and in

her madness and confusion, she destroys herself and the house by breaking an

oil lamp over her head.

The movie then goes to present time in the ship with Walton. Victor is

sick, and dies within two minutes of seeing him. The monster goes into his

bedroom and sobs. The crew now believe Victor’s story. The crew then have a

funeral for Victor, when they are about to burn him, the ice breaks up, and the

crew is separated. The monster falls into the water, takes the torch and swims

to Victor where he sets both him and Victor on fire. Walton then decides it was

time to go home.

The quality of acting in this movie was phenomenal. Robert DeNiro, who

played the monster, did an excellent job in developing his character, and did not

fall into the traits of the previously depicted monster, also known as

Frankenstein. Helena Bonham Carter, who played Elizabeth, did a fantastic job

when she was brought back to life. Kenneth Branagh did an excellent job acting

as Victor. All other actors portrayed the characters as depicted in the novel.

The fact that the director changed some major details of the novel

disappointed me. In the novel, a female creation doesn’t even come close to

being alive, and in the movie, she is brought to life, and develops a short life.

None of the letters are included in the movie, and additional, made up scenes

are inserted into the movie. But overall, they were both, although different, two

works of art.