In this blog post, we will look at the human challenge, the responsibility of creation, and the meaning of the nameless monster through the movie “Frankenstein.”
Do you know who Frankenstein is? If you think of a green monster with a screw in its neck, you’re wrong. Contrary to popular belief, Frankenstein is not the name of the monster, but of the doctor who created it. Dr. Frankenstein, who is conducting an experiment to create new life from dead bodies, creates a monster using a corpse that has just been buried and the brain of a criminal. In other words, Dr. Frankenstein is the creator of the monster. Then what is the name of the monster that we mistakenly thought was “Frankenstein”? There is none. The monster is just an unnamed “monster.” Contrary to the doctor’s expectations, the “monster” becomes a threat to the village and eventually dies in flames.
James Whale’s 1931 film “Frankenstein,” based on the novel of the same name by Mary Shelley, consistently takes a negative view of Dr. Frankenstein. All the characters except his assistant are skeptical of the doctor’s experiments, which are driven by madness. The assistant is also depicted as just a person who is carrying out his duties, and it is not shown that he agreed to the experiment. The film begins with the following words from the narrator: “Listen to the story of the doctor who tried to create a human being in his image without the permission of God.” When Dr. Frankenstein’s experiment succeeded and he tasted the greatest sense of victory, the rejection of his experiment must have reached its peak.
“It’s alive, it’s alive! Now I know what it’s like to be a god…”
The movie implies that the doctor’s attitude of invoking the name of God is the cause of the disaster of the killer monster. The scene in which the doctor reveals his belief appears only once, but the remark is very impressive.
“Have you ever wanted to do something even at the risk of danger? If no one had challenged the danger, where would humanity be now? Have you ever wanted to see what’s beyond those clouds and stars? Have you ever wondered how a tree sprouts? Have you ever wondered how a pitch-black night turns into dawn? If I said something like this, people would say I was crazy. For example, if I found out the secret of eternity, I wouldn’t care if people called me crazy.
Yes, the history of mankind has been a history of challenges. There was Magellan, who risked his life to prove that the Earth is round, and Galileo, who supported Copernicus’ heliocentric theory at the risk of being branded as a heretic. Dangerous challenges continued, and what everyone once ridiculed as impossible, such as landing on the moon or cloning animals, became possible. Sometimes, that challenge even encroached on the realm of the gods. Humans tried to reach the heavens like gods by building the Tower of Babel, and Phaeton wanted to fly in the sky like the sun god. Considering that it was a heresy to argue for heliocentrism, perhaps Galileo also crossed the boundaries of the gods. In any case, those who tried to cross the boundary of the divine had to pay a harsh price. However, today we can build dizzyingly tall buildings and even fly in the sky. These are things that we could never have imagined if we had not crossed the boundary of the divine. The realm of God that humans have encroached upon has increased, and will continue to do so, and there is no stopping this nature of humanity. Just as Adam and Eve dared to disobey God and eat the apple, humanity has been and will continue to oppose God since the beginning of time. The birth of the monster was not a “curse received as a result of challenging God.”
So what went wrong and led to the tragedy? If you think about it for a moment, you can see that the direct cause of the monster’s creation was the use of the criminal’s brain. If the assistant had not mistakenly brought in the criminal’s brain, or if the doctor had used a normal human brain, the monster might not have been created. However, this does not mean that the Doctor is given a free pass. There is no guarantee that a monster will not be created even if a normal human brain is used. There was only one way to prove that a normal human being is created when a normal brain is used. More research and experiments. It may seem that asking the Doctor, who already has the technology to create life, to do more research is pointless. However, the potential for new technologies to cause tragedy when applied to humans prematurely can be seen in the case of the first frontal lobectomy performed in the United States in 1935. The frontal lobectomy, which involves the excision of the frontal lobe’s nerves, was used to treat brains with abnormalities, such as the brain of the criminal used by Dr. Frankenstein. When it was discovered that a chimpanzee with violent behavior and extreme mood swings was able to control its behavior after a frontal lobectomy, the procedure was applied to humans three months after the chimpanzee experiment. Since then, the procedure has been recognized as a breakthrough treatment and has spread rapidly around the world, but it has also caused serious side effects, including death and damage to frontal lobe function. After realizing the severity of frontal lobectomy, a new surgical method was introduced, and the number of cases performed has decreased, and it is now only applied to a very small number of patients. “First, we experimented on animals, and then on human hearts, and we kept the heart beating for three weeks,” the ambassador said, which is reminiscent of the three-month chimpanzee frontal lobectomy experiment. If Dr. Frankenstein’s experiment was carried out like the early lobotomy, many monsters would have been born. Just as lobotomy has undergone extensive research and is now being performed very limitedly, Dr. Frankenstein’s experiment also required more research on what kind of corpse and how it should be performed.
What he overlooked was not just a lack of research. As mentioned earlier, monsters have no names. This fact is very important because it means that the conventional wisdom that monsters have names does not apply. When a new life is born, the first thing we do is give it a name. The first human was named “Adam,” and some people even give names to unborn babies. The same is true when a pet is born. A name, or language, is a medium for the act of giving meaning. A monster without a name means that no meaning has been given to it. The monster was born without knowing the meaning of its existence, and thus the monster, which has lost its meaning, has simply fallen into the role of a murderer. Despite creating the life he had so long desired, at the slightest disturbance, the doctor ties the monster with a rope and sends it to the basement. This is because he had not thought about what meaning to give to his creation, or rather, what meaning to give to his creation in order to give it meaning. To a creator who is not ready for his creation, and therefore not ready to be a creator, his creation is nothing but a frightening existence. If Dr. Frankenstein wants to become a god, we can applaud him. However, he just doesn’t know what it feels like to become a god yet.
There is no disagreement that Dr. Frankenstein’s efforts to recreate life and his recklessness are factors that advance humanity. As Dr. Frankenstein said, it takes courage to take risks and challenge others even if they think you are crazy. But apart from that, new technologies need to be applied to humans through numerous experiments and must be meaningful enough to give the monster a name. If the doctor had known about the monster before it was born, it might have been a blessed life instead of a monster.
