ShmoopTube

00:01

We speak student!

00:04

When this dead hand moves,

00:07

the monster created by a man they called mad

00:10

is turned loose to strike terror into the hearts of men.

00:16

Frankenstein a la Shmoop

00:17

Does the Monster Have a Name?

00:23

The monster does not have a name in the book.

00:26

Let's start with the question of

00:28

why we think the monster is named "Frankenstein."

00:31

Part of it is because of Hollywood.

00:33

We see the movie. The movie is called Frankenstein.

00:37

And the image that sticks in our head

00:39

is Boris Karloff

00:40

with the things coming out of his ears and whatever,

00:43

so we think "Frankenstein" and we think "that guy."

00:45

And, until someone tells us otherwise

00:47

or we read the book, that's just what we think.

00:49

But, once you actually do read the book, you think,

00:53

"Huh, it's possible that Mary Shelley actually

00:55

wanted us to equate the two and confuse the two."

01:01

Couple reasons for this.

01:02

One is that kind of transition from Enlightenment thinking

01:05

to Romanticism, right?

01:06

Where the Enlightenment was all about reason and all that.

01:09

And then, you know, Mary Shelley writes this book

01:11

and is like, "Oh, hey, guess what?

01:12

Humans aren't all that different from beasts.

01:14

You know, let's push reason aside and remember that

01:18

we're kind of all just this --

01:19

It's all about the emotion and the imagination."

01:21

At the same time, the language

01:23

that Shelley uses

01:25

makes us kind of conflate or confuse these two, as well.

01:30

She refers to Frankenstein's monster as "monster" and as "creature."

01:36

The etymology of the word "monster"

01:38

comes from the idea of a warning or an omen.

01:41

And "creature" is, you know, something that has been created.

01:44

Shelley refers to the monster as "monster" and "creature."

01:47

She also refers to humans as "creature."

01:51

So she will be talking about "creature" meaning "humans,"

01:54

and then will be talking about "creature" meaning "Frankenstein's monster."

01:57

So we kind of get this sense of conflating

01:59

human and the monster, and the whole,

02:01

"They're actually not all that different after all."

02:03

And so some people would say that

02:05

if you really read closely and say,

02:07

"Okay, here's all the times" -- This is called close reading.

02:10

"Here are all the times the word 'monster' is used

02:13

to describe the monster.

02:14

Here are all the times 'creature' is used to describe the monster."

02:16

You'll see that she tends to use "monster"

02:19

when she's trying to show how different Frankenstein's monster

02:22

is from Victor.

02:23

And then she'll use "creature"

02:25

when she's trying to use how similar he is.

02:27

Got it. So the fact that the creature doesn't have a name -

02:33

You know, we name our dogs

02:34

and make them human in many ways -

02:38

is a powerful omission.

02:40

And I think about the novel Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man.

02:44

Invisible Man has no name.

02:45

- Yeah. - And that's a huge part of the book

02:48

and it screams things.

02:50

Well, England a couple hundred years ago,

02:52

I mean they were closer with their dogs

02:53

than they were with their children.

02:54

And they still are in England,

02:55

because they're lunatic dog country.

02:57

So you gotta think that

02:59

omitting a name was an active artistic choice

03:04

- Absolutely. - That screamed a number of things, I guess.

03:07

Yes. If you ever are reading a story

03:09

and, you know, the narrator doesn't have a name

03:13

or the main character doesn't have a name --

03:14

And this happens a lot.

03:15

You don't really notice it as much

03:18

because, you know, authors do it because it works

03:22

and there's a reason.

03:23

But if a character doesn't have a name,

03:26

or if the narrator doesn't have a name,

03:27

there's a specific reason for it.

03:29

And in Invisible Man, it's kind of thrown in our faces;

03:31

the title of the book is Invisible Man.

03:33

But, in a case like this,

03:35

we're supposed to wonder, you know,

03:36

"Are we supposed to see Frankenstein's monster as

03:38

not only inhuman but, like, not even a beast, not even a dog?"

03:41

- Right? - Right, right.

03:42

He's even lower than that.

03:44

And then, you know, is that his own fault?

03:46

Are we supposed to feel bad about that?

03:48

Or is he just -- Can we just toss him aside?

03:52

Why doesn't the monster have a name?

03:55

Why is it important to understand the difference between "creature" and "monster"?

04:00

Why do we think the monster's name is "Frankenstein"?

04:06

Why do we hate me?

04:07

What have I done to you that you should ever hate me so?

Full Transcript