Centennial Honors College
Western Illinois University
Undergraduate Research Day 2014
Poster Presentation
The Monstrosity of the Modern Frankenstein
Stephanie Hoover
Faculty Mentor: Mark Mossman
English
The story of Frankenstein reaches all "corners" of the globe. People grew up wearing
Halloween costumes that consisted of tattered clothes, big, clunky, black shoes, and a
green mask with a flat black top resembling hair. They then thought they were to groan
and “rawr” as they acted mindless and terrorized those around them. However, once
they picked up Mary Shelley’s novel, whom the character is based upon, they would
then come to find that this was not the Frankenstein they’d grown to know; in fact, it was
not Frankenstein at all, but his monster. They then would come to find that the monster
isn’t some brainless oaf, but a brilliant creature who was shunned by his creator as soon
as he was brought to life. How this came to be was quite perplexing, but not unfounded.
The following came from the study of adaptions of literature into film. Essentially, Mary
Shelley had published her novel, Frankenstein, then it was commissioned to be written
as a play, which Peggy Webling had written, based on Richard Peake’s play, and was
then bought by Universal Productions at the request of Carl Jr., to be scripted by John
Balderston, which was then directed by James Whale. Whale not only directed the first
film, but a second film which reiterated his previous film as the reference for the validity
of the Frankenstein story; not Mary Shelley’s text. Thus the brilliance of her story was
simplified and lost