Frankenstein

"You, who call Frankenstein your friend, seem to have a knowledge of my crimes and his misfortunes. But in the detail which he gave you of them he could not sum up the hours and months of misery which I endured wasting in impotent passions. For while I destroyed his hopes, I did not satisfy my own desires," (Shelley, Frankenstein, Chapter 24)

Frankenstein's monster remains one of the most misunderstood characters in English literature. Part of the problem can be traced to the commercialization of the book and its adaptation for cinema. As Mary Shelley's work has been appropriated by the horror genre, the monster has taken on a new form as an evil and fearsome creature rather than being the tragic and lonely figure that he actually is in the novel. Film versions of Frankenstein have stripped away from the monster some of the core components of his...
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