Frankenstein (1931) Comparative Paper

I was initially hoping to write about the very first film adaptation because I was excited
to see the most raw translation from the book, but unfortunately it’s a twelve minute silent film
so I settled on the 1931 adaptation that more fully explores the Shelley’s novel.
While watching, there were some immediately obvious diversions in plot. Victor (whose
name was changed to Henry) received much less of a backstory, he has an assistant named Fritz,
and his creature appeared more like an angry drunkard than a faithful recreation of the novel.
The movie also depicted Frankenstein’s creature drowning a little girl which was completely
fabricated, as well as changing the circumstances and presence (or lack thereof) of Victor and
the creature’s death. While it was hard to ignore these differences, especially the removal of
Victor’s death, I think the more narratively impactful changes were related to the presented
themes.
Of the themes we talked about, I think the focus on the dangers of knowledge and
society’s influence on development were the two most important to the story. The former is
perhaps the only theme the movie might be able to claim it engaged with. The movie had a
clear focus on the dangers of science, hubris, and an unfettered desire for knowledge. There
was a rather expository scene between Frankenstein and Dr. Waldman where he said,
“Dangerous?... Have you never wanted to do anything that was dangerous? Where
should we be if nobody tried to find out what lies beyond? Have you never wanted to
look beyond the clouds and the stars, or to know what causes the trees to bud, and what
changes a darkness into light? But if you talk like that, people call you crazy. Well, if I
could discover just one of these things, what eternity is, for example, I wouldn’t care if
they did think I was crazy!”
It certainly does an excellent job of portraying a dangerous extreme in the approach to science,
however the last part represents an issue with the movie’s depiction. Victor’s insatiable hunger
was presented as nigh insanity. This removed a lot of the nuance we see in the novel as Victor
develops his thoughts. That being said, the movie did still clearly convey (Henry) Frankenstein’s
hubris, driven mad by his attempt to become god.
The second critical theme, however, is not only lost but completely reversed. A key part
of Shelley’s narrative was the exploration of evil and the development of “evil” within the
creature. It claimed that it was nature, not nurture, that caused the evil behavior we see. The
closest we get to this sentiment in the movie is the seemingly compliant nature of the creature
before Fritz, the assistant, threatens him with a torch and is ultimately killed. We also see a hint
of this in the creature’s playful interactions with an unnamed little girl he encounters during his
journey. This is a far cry from the thorough emotional and existential journey embarked by
creature in the novel.
In the novel, Frankenstein’s creature only resorts to deliberate murder after
demonstrating extensive intellectualism and being repeatedly rejected by society because of his
appearance. The deliberate nature of the murder is also of import. The creature specifically
killed people because they were close to Victor, nowhere near the primal nature presented in
the movie.
 There was also an inexcusable change to the source of evil being the “criminal brain”
accidently given to the creature. In his conversation with Frankenstein, Dr. Waldman reveals
that the creature’s brain was actually a criminal brain. He explicitly uses this to refute
Frankenstein’s claim that his “brain must be given time to develop.” Frankenstein, having been
established as a mad scientist at this point, then dismisses his visible concern with such a
revelation. This scene is used as suspenseful foreshadowing of the creature’s inevitable evil and
indicates to the audience that there is a justified concern about the criminal brain’s inherent
criminality—the dismissal of which is occurring only because of Frankenstein’s insanity. This
spits in the face of the “nurture not nature” narrative written by Shelley.
The plot device of a “criminal brain” is also dreaded in the context of modern social
justice whereas the actual message being presented in the novel is quite the opposite. The very
idea of criminality being an immutable trait is a profoundly harmful one when we socially value
redemption and restorative approaches to justice. Mary Shelley’s focus, in contrast, was
surprisingly modern in its approach to the social impacts on ones’ psyche, development, and
actions.
It's kind of sad to see how unrepresentative the movie was of Shelley’s ideas. Her work is
quite historically important for its innovative use of emotion and focus on psyche. The movie, in
a way, devolved into the plot-focused narrative approach from which Frankenstein notably
deviated.