Halloween Experts

In the summer of 1816, at the age of 19, Mary Godwin, the daughter of a radical feminist and a philosopher, ran off to continental Europe with Percy Bysshe Shelley, the well-known poet. The couple was accompanied by a friend of Shelley’s, Dr. John Polidori. They took a house near Geneva, for what was intended as a romantic summer get away. Unfortunately, the weather turned ugly, and days of thunderstorms wore on the nerves of the party. To pass the time, they gathered around the fireplace in the evening and told each other ghost stories and local legends. They hit upon the idea of a competition. Each of them would write a horror story, and when they were finished, they would choose a winner. Mary began her story at once, however, the weather eventually turned sunny, and the gentlemen were off exploring the countryside. At the end of the allotted time, only Mary’s story was finished. She published it in 1818, under a pseudonym, with the title “Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus” Mary went on to marry Percy, write other books and to publish her husband’s poetry posthumously, after he drowned, tragically, at the age of 30.

Mary Shelley’s great work, Frankenstein has become the most famous monster tale of all time. It tells of the scientist, Victor Frankenstein, whose quest for glory prompts him to construct a creature from dead body parts, and then attempt to reanimate the tissue with a jolt of electricity, in the form of lightning. One of the reasons that her story seemed so plausible, and therefore, more frightening, was that such experiments were actually being carried out at that time, on a much smaller scale. Another acquaintance of Percy’s, Dr. Lind, was intrigued by making frog’s legs twitch and jerk by applying electricity. Their friend, Dr. Polidori, was conducting similar experiments on tissue reanimation. Was Mary’s story more than a tale of horror? Was it a warning, like the tale of Prometheus, against the arrogance of man, who was seeking god-like powers over life and death?

The story was first committed to film in 1910, by Edison Studios. To date, the tale of Dr. Frankenstein and his creature, has been told on film hundreds of times. Some have portrayed the creature as a mindless, raging beast, while others envisioned him as a gentle and misunderstood giant. In the 1930′s, the monster was most famously portrayed by Boris Karloff. It is his version of Frankenstein’s monster that has inspired many thousands of Halloween costumes for nearly 80 years.

Don’t assume that you know the whole story of Frankenstein. Although we have come to know the monster by his creator’s name, he was never actually given a name of his own. Victor, who was enraged that his experiment would not obey him, and lunged at him instead, called him “the creature”, “the fiend” or “that devil”. But, you can read Mary Shelley’s original story for yourself! You can find the complete text of “Frankenstein, or A Modern Prometheus” online at www.literature.org/authors/shelley-mary/frankenstein/ , and at www.gutenberg.org .