The Man is Father of the Monster

Last updated on: November 24, 2012 at 2:46 pm by Leah Libresco

The Man is Father of the Monster 2012-11-24T14:46:00-05:00 Leah Libresco

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Careful the tale you tell, that is the spell…

When I saw the National Theatre’s production of Frankenstein, I thought there were two somewhat cliché ideas that were lent additional depth in this staging. Previously, I wrote about Frankenstein learning humanity from his possibly inhuman monster, but there was also an interesting use of a trope as the creature learned to be a man.

When the creature confronts Frankenstein’s wife near the end of the show, she marvels at his humanity and his sophistication, but when he lists what Frankenstein has taught him, he quickly moves past language and motor control to list cruelty, shame, and lies. If man is a fallen imagio dei, the creature is a degraded imagio homo. He takes our faults and our sins as the most uniquely human thing about us, and this is the model he chooses to pattern himself on.

I’ve seen this kind of pessimism before. The new creation is a noble savage and contact with poor fallen us inevitably ruins everything. I don’t think the production lends itself to this kind of hackneyed despair. The problem isn’t that the creature met humans, but how. In the early parts of the play, he has only two kinds of human contact: he is beaten and despised by every person he meets save one, a blind man who teaches him to read and to speak.

So, he spends sustained time with one person in the flesh, and thousands in stories. When the family of the blind man rejects him, he isn’t sure what to do, but he reflects on the Roman histories he has read, and decides the appropriate response is revenge, and he burns the house with them inside. His education has a sampling problem; we don’t write about people living quiet lives (of desperation or otherwise). From stories and histories, you learn about titanic acts. The creature may have been made a monster by the romance of extremes.

My college debate group once stole a topic from Plato’s Republic and debated “Resolved: Throw the Poets out of the City” and I’ve been thinking a lot about which stories we choose to tell since I reviewed Philip Pullman’s Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm for Fare Forward (coming out in the next issue). The task of curating literature for a creature like Frankenstein or a child-like AI might be a fun short story idea (I’ll stick in the same category as the timetraveling to save epistemology inspired by Bishop Berkeley one). What are the most important omissions from recorded human experience?

Epistemology/Philosophy

Reviews/Recommendations

Previous Post

November 23, 2012

7 Quick Takes (11/23/12)

Next Post

November 25, 2012 "Because I am fearfully and wonderfully made"

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category 7 Quick Takes Apologetics Atheism Book Conversion Debate Tactics Debates Epistemology/Philosophy Housekeeping Ideological Turing Test Marriage Morality in Practice Parsing Catholicism Possibly Heretical Radio Reviews/Recommendations Sequence Index Spiritual Practice Uncategorized

Select a Month April 2017 March 2017 January 2017 December 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who prophesied the fall of Babylon?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Ezekiel Isaiah Jeremiah Daniel