How can we think of Frankenstein and ignore the film classic of 1931-who can forget the remarkable appearance of Boris Karloff as the unnamed monster? Yet the celebrated film does not follow the novel by Mary Shelley. Although the scene of a futuristic laboratory entrances movie audiences with the mad Dr. Frankenstein and his faithful assistant Igor, the scene is derived from twentieth century imaginations and interests, not the novel itself. In the novel, however, Dr. Frankenstein's goal is to create a new kind of person: a sovereign self, in control of its environment, and its own biology and mind, that will be eternally grateful to him.

Mary Shelley's monster continues to repel and to appeal to a wide audience. Rapt audiences still regard dramatic interpretations of the novel, Frankenstein as some of the most innovative film pieces of their time. Yet film interpretations distort the novel. For good reason, the novelist chose not to begin her story with the chilling event of the dreary night in November. Instead of a major event, the book opens with a series of letters from Robert Walton. It is not his zeal for the voyage of discovery, but his obsession with fame, a metap

The film creates an image of the creature as a silent, malevolent being because a thoughtless young scientist creates a powerful object, yet provides no measures for guidance and control. Victor seems unfairly persecuted by the dreadful fiend he created. His initial dreams of benefiting mankind and creating a race which would be grateful to him are emphasized, rather than focus on his own disdain for that which he brought to life. In the novel the reader's sympathy shifts for the monster when he confronts Victor with a demand for reasons for his abandonment and hatred. Even more startling is the being's extraordinary range of ideas, precise vocabulary, and concept of justice and obligations. The

horical way to live on, that drives him to the unknown in hopes of being credited with expanding mankind's knowledge and control of the universe. Similarly, Victor Frankenstein is drawn to the mysteries of experiments with the unknown. Early in his education he read about alchemists and early natural philosophers and becomes so impressed with the power of electricity that he makes it his mission to harness it to procure man's place among the gods. But unlike the familiar films, no faithful Igor helped him rob graves or assisted him in an extravagant, futuristic laboratory. In the novel Frankenstein tells no one of his experiments and worked alone on his "filthy creation" in the "cell at the top of the house." Specifics concerning the actual experiment are omitted, no account of the actual process of locating, obtaining, and transporting body parts appears in the novel. Sorry--there is no dramatic graveyard scene with him waiting to snatch a newly buried corpse.

The power of the myth of an unattended scientific creation, left to destroy innocent lives, assumes importance in the final decade of the twentieth century. The book questions the morality of Frankenstein's attempt to cheat death, one that our soci

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