Frankenstein or The Birth of the Ultimate Outsider 💡

🧠 Why Frankenstein Still Slaps

Before Frankenstein was a Halloween costume, a green dude, or the misunderstood monster of memes, it was the blueprint — like, the original sci-fi-horror hybrid.
We’re talkin’ toxic genius, abandoned creations, existential dread, and hella moral chaos.

Mary Shelley didn’t just write a spooky tale — she invented an entire genre, dropped the mic, and left the boys in her writing circle shaking.

👑 Mary Shelley: The Creator of the Creator

When it was conceived: Summer 1816
When it was published: 1818
When it's set: Late 18th century, roughly 1790s–early 1800s

The vibes were unmatched:
It’s the Year Without a Summer — a volcanic eruption in Indonesia made the skies gloomy across Europe. Mary Shelley, just 18, is chillin’ (literally) at Lake Geneva with her poet boyfriend Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, and a few other literary baddies. Byron throws out a casual challenge: “Let’s all write ghost stories.” Mary understood the assignment 🔥

Her nightmare-turned-novel was inspired by real-life scientific experiments with electricity and reanimation. It was first published anonymously in 1818 (because, patriarchy 🙄), but Frankenstein became a legend — and so did she.

📮 The Epistolary Plot (a.k.a. Letter Drama with Ice, Corpses & Tears)

This whole story is told through letters. Drama via snail mail? We stan.

Part 1: The Arctic Icebreaker

• We meet Robert Walton, an explorer who’s sailing through the Arctic because… men will literally risk hypothermia instead of going to therapy.

• He writes to his sister back in England and says, “Hey, I found a near-dead dude on the ice.”

Part 2: Victor’s Tragic TED Talk

Enter Victor Frankenstein, the OG sad boi and science major gone rogue. He trauma-dumps his whole life to Walton. Here’s the tea:

• Born in Geneva, Victor is smart, sensitive, and a lil' full of himself.

• He studies “natural philosophy” (science, but ✨old-timey✨) in Ingolstadt, Germany.

• Gets super into anatomy and electricity. Starts thinking, “What if I… made life?”

• Spoiler: He does. He stitches together body parts and zaps them to life 💥

• The result? A giant 8-foot-tall creature with unmatched rejection issues.

• Victor looks at his creation, freaks out, and ✨runs away✨. No name. No parenting. Just ✌️

• The creature learns to speak, read, and feel... but gets ghosted, hated, and chased away by everyone.

• He pleads with Victor: “Make me a girlfriend or I’ll start wrecking lives.”
  Victor says no. People die. It’s a mess.

Part 3: Revenge and Regret

• The creature goes full revenge arc: Victor’s brother, best friend, and wife? Dead 💀💀💀

• Victor chases him all the way to the Arctic, like a frostbitten madman.

• He dies on Walton’s ship (duh), and the creature shows up to cry dramatically over his body (because he still wanted love).

• He tells Walton he’ll end his own life… and disappears into the night.

🧍‍♂️ Characters Who Need Therapy

• Victor Frankenstein – Genius with a God complex. Would rather chase his mistakes to the North Pole than own up to them.

• The Creature – Eight feet of poetic sadness. Just wanted a hug and some acceptance 🥲

• Robert Walton – Explorer. Literally writes, “Wow, this guy is insane, but I relate.”

• Elizabeth Lavenza – Cousin-fiancée. Deserved a better story arc.

• Henry Clerval – Victor’s sweet bestie. Also didn’t deserve what happened.

• Alphonse Frankenstein – Victor’s dad, the only halfway decent adult.

🧿 Symbols & Stuff That Goes Deep

• ⚡ Electricity – Science gone wild. Progress with a price.

• 🧊 Ice/The Arctic – Isolation, consequences, cold as Victor’s parenting.

• 🪞 The Creature – A mirror to Victor’s failure, society’s rejection, and your repressed emotional baggage.

• 📚 Books – Both power and pain. How the creature learns — and gets existential crises.

🧬 Themes That Are Still Too Real

• 🧪 The Dangers of Playing God – Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

• 💔 Isolation & Loneliness – Everyone’s dying for connection. No one’s getting it.

• 🧠 Nature vs. Nurture – The creature wasn’t born evil. People made him that way.

• 🎭 Responsibility & Guilt – Victor creates life then says “not my problem.” Major L.

• 🥀 Beauty, Identity & Rejection – Judging by appearances ruins everything.

🎬 Adaptations That Gave Us Iconic Chaos

• 🧟‍♂️ Frankenstein (1931) – Classic black-and-white film. This is where the creature got his iconic flat-top, bolts, and green skin. Not in the book — but became the Frankenstein look.

• 🎩 Bride of Frankenstein (1935) – Gave us the beehive hair and dramatic screams. Also, low-key feminist vibes?

• 💃 Frankenhooker (1990) – Yep. It’s real. A campy cult film where a guy reanimates his girlfriend with “working girl” parts. Wild.

• 🧛‍♂️ Young Frankenstein (1974) – Mel Brooks. Black-and-white. Musical numbers. Hilarious and surprisingly sweet.

• 🧠 Victor Frankenstein (2015) – Daniel Radcliffe as Igor with emo hair? Yes please.

• 🧬 Modern takes – Think Ex Machina, Black Mirror, even WandaVision. Tech, AI, and the danger of playing God? All Frankenstein-coded.

⚠️ PSA: The creature is not Frankenstein. Frankenstein is the scientist. The creature never gets a name — which says everything about how he’s treated. Let’s stop doing him dirty 🧍

❤️ The Real Monster?

It's not the creature. It's:

• Abandonment 🚫👶

• Hubris 💅

• Lack of accountability 🧍‍♂️💨

All the creature wanted was connection. Instead, he got judged, feared, and left to spiral. Frankenstein ghosted his own son. The monster was made, not born.

Mary Shelley Invented Sci-Fi. And Emotional Damage.

Mary Shelley created more than just a monster. She created a mirror. Frankenstein asks:
What happens when you bring something into the world and refuse to love it?
What do we owe to what we create?
And who’s really the villain — the one who made the monster, or the one forced to become one?

👁️ (Spoiler: It’s Society)