Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a scientist who creates a sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment. The creature is described as a patchwork of sewn together body parts that gives it a zombie-like appearance. While some of the common tropes associated with the story are inaccurate, such as the use of lightning to animate the creature, the novel was ahead of its time in exploring themes of scientific hubris, the dangers of unlimited scientific progress, and the relationship between creator and created.

1. Frankenstein
Ahead of its Time…

2. Frankenstein…the Legend
●Originally, Frankenstein started as a short story.
However, it was such an interesting idea, that
Mary Shelley’s husband and friends encouraged
her to turn it into a whole novel.
●The horror, or scare factor of the novel, comes
from the idea that the monster is created by
man, not God.
●The whole story is meant as an allegory for the
relationship between God and man, which
mirrors the relationship between Victor and his
creation.

3. Mary
Shelley
This home is where Shelley
wrote the short story that
became Frankenstein

4. Common Mistakes
●Frankenstein (Victor), is the doctor, not the
monster.
○In the book, the monster gets a name. It is only “the
creature” or “the abomination” or “the daemon” (demon).
●While Victor uses electricity to animate his creation,
the whole lightning bolt on a kite string idea is false.
●Victor didn’t have an assistant named Igor, nor did
he perform his experiments in a castle.
○He is a college student in Ingolstadt, Germany.
●“Its Alive!” – makes for a great movie moment, but

5. Frankenstein Igor
the Creature

6. The Look of the Monster
●The common image of a green skinned, neck-bolted monster
is a huge misconception.
○ “I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open…His limbs were in
proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful…His yellow
skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his
hair was a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of pearly whiteness;
but these luxeriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his
watery eyes, that seemed almost the same colour as they dun-white
sockets in which they were set, his shriveled complexion and strait
black lips.” (pg. 48)
●The creature is described as a patchwork of sewn together
bits of a number of dead people. The overall effect is that of
a walking, talking, super-strong corpse.
○ Think of a talking, thinking zombie.
●The brain is that of a former professor of Victor’s, which is

7. How’m I Lookin’?
Robert DeNiro
plays the monster
in the film version
we will be watching
This is probably the most common idea of what Frankenstein’s
monster looks like. This creature, played by Boris Karloff gave
kids nightmares for decades, but is way off.
I think this version is closest to
what Shelley, herself pictured.
Literally, the walking dead.
Creepy.

8. Shelley, the Visionary…
●Many people overlook the importance of
Shelley’s vision.
●Here is a woman, in a period of time when
women weren’t exactly appreciated, writing one
most prolific stories ever told.
○The story has been remade into every available
media, from radio, to stage to TV and most
successfully into a series of films in a number of
different languages
●Also, take some time to consider the medical
implications of the story she is presenting in
1818…

9. Make Way for Hollywood!!

10. Inspiration…
●In March 1815, Mary Shelley dreamed of her
dead infant daughter held before a fire, rubbed
vigorously, and restored to life. At the time,
scientists would not have wholly dismissed such
a possibility.
○Could the dead be brought back to life?
○Could life arise spontaneously from inorganic matter?
●Physicians of the day treated such questions
seriously--as the treatises they wrote, the
methods they employed, and the contrivances
they built all testify.

11. Electricity…
●During the 1790s, Italian
physician Luigi Galvani
demonstrated what we now
understand to be the electrical
basis of nerve impulses when
he made frog muscles twitch by
jolting them with a spark from
an electrostatic machine.
●When Frankenstein was
published, however, the word
galvanism implied the release,
through electricity, of

12. Defibrillators
●In 1947, doctors performed the
first successful human
defibrillation using specially
designed internal cardiac
paddles. They were used to
resuscitate a 14-year-old boy
who had become pulseless
during elective chest surgery.
●In 1956, another group of
doctors performed the first
successful human external
defibrillation.
●In 1961, a third group of
doctors first described the use

13. Transfusions…
●James Blundell, a
London physician
troubled by the many
women who died after
childbirth from
massive bleeding,
introduced blood
transfusion between
humans, using the
simple apparatus
shown here.

14. Transplants…
●1954 - First successful human kidney transplant
takes place in the USA between identical twin
brothers. The transplanted kidney works for 8 years.
●1962 - The first successful kidney transplant using a
dead donor is carried out in the USA - the kidney

15. Cloning…Modern Frankenstein?
● On July 25, 1978, Louise Joy Brown, the world's first successful
"test-tube" baby was born in Great Britain
● 1997: Dolly the sheep and the big breakthrough - the first successful
mammal clone from an ordinary adult cell.
● Keep in mind, the big fear factor behind Frankenstein is supposed to
be the fear of science gone too far, essentially killing God. The
question Victor repeatedly asks himself is one of responsibility for