I watched Frankenstein (2025).

I’ve never read the original Mary Shelley novel in its entirety, only in bits and pieces and through half-hearted attempts at dry audiobooks. I am not a fan of epistolary novels or books that narrate past events through someone’s present perspective, which is why I’ve struggled with building enough momentum to get through this book.

Because of this, despite seeing Frankenstein and his monster in several Hollywood iterations throughout the years, I was essentially able to approach this movie with few expectations—a clean slate. Which is why I loved it. It’s an excellent movie. Beyond its visuals and its actors (hello, Oscar Isaac, I’m free on Thursday night…), it’s an inventive take on the original story that explores the abuse cycle, the ways it can be perpetuated without one consciously knowing, and how it can also be broken. My lack of attachment to and full knowledge of the original story means I don’t have the same complaints as many other viewers.

But all the enraged discourse has made me curious—curious enough to finally read the novel like I’ve been meaning to do all these years. Shout out to the copy of Frankenstein that’s been sitting on my bookshelf since before 2020.

I’ve decided to start with the 1818 version, which I’ll discuss here, because the 1831 copy I have talks about how much more “radical” this original one is compared to the version Shelley revised after experiencing many of life’s greatest traumas. I’m no stranger to the concept of having your writing style transformed after dealing with a series of traumas, so I was curious about the young woman who wrote this ambitious story as a teenager—during those years when everything still feels so new, precious, and simply yours to own and explore.

So, let’s begin and see where things go.

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The first half of this post was written while I was still reading the book. I’ve since finished it, so I’ll approach it from the perspective of already knowing how things end.

Victor’s Family

The 2025 movie makes a big departure from the book concerning Victor’s upbringing; in the movie, he’s burdened with an unloving father and the death of his mother. In the book, the mother’s death remains consistent, but it’s much less fraught. Victor laments the sadness of it but, at this point in the story, is of sound enough mind to understand that grief can’t be allowed to eclipse one’s entire life and continues his journey to Ingolstadt; whereas the death of movie!Victor’s mother is the spurring incident that rings through his entire life. He carries her with him everywhere, even wearing her red gloves to bed and while constructing the body of the Creature, and desires to prove that death can be defeated primarily because of her demise. Victor claims his father brought death and destruction; in contrast, he wants to beget life in a way no one has ever done before.

In the text, the family (which also includes Victor’s other brother Ernest, family friend Justine, friend Henry Clerval, and cousin Elizabeth) respects and loves each other dearly. Victor’s father is a constant in his life and one of the last left standing after the Creature kills most of them. His father’s love is one of the few things that grounds him amongst the madness and his own mental sufferings, which makes it all the more tragic that it can’t do anything to stop the inevitable.

“I urged my entreaty with earnestness, and my father was easily induced to comply; for a more indulgent and less dictatorial parent did not exist upon earth.” — Victor, Volume III

I find the movie’s version of events more compelling because Dad Haters Unite™, but it’s worth noting how book!Victor has the objectively better life and a supportive family, yet everything still turns to shit due to his own ambition and ignorance. Even “ideal” circumstances aren’t a guaranteed insulator against disaster befalling you, especially when you’re motivated by youthful invincibility.

I’ve seen some lament Elizabeth’s characterization in the movie because they claim she is less interesting and has less to do compared to the book. I feel it’s the exact opposite. Book!Elizabeth is primarily Victor’s cheerleader. She comforts him when he’s distressed, and the very thought of her is a balm for him; she takes care of his relatives when he’s absent and is destined to be his wife by an arrangement his parents made. But she doesn’t have much more agency or purpose outside of this. Victor spends his time travelling and seeing the world, yet Elizabeth stays in their hometown tending to his family.

“It was in the latter end of August that I departed, to pass two years of exile. Elizabeth approved of the reasons of my departure, and only regretted that she had not the same opportunities of enlarging her experience, and cultivating her understanding.” — Victor, Volume III

Possibly the most captivating aspect of her book characterization is her friendship with Justine, which is also one of the few moments involving Elizabeth that has little to do with Victor. What we learn of Elizabeth is through Victor’s tellings, which is true for every other character since this is a story told in retrospect, but I feel like I know less about her as an individual than I do about someone like Henry Clerval.

I’m also not moved by Victor and Elizabeth’s love for each other, whether we view it as romantic or familial or both. Sorry. Maybe it’s because their marriage is arranged from the beginning, but everything about their relationship feels like “things that are happening because they’re supposed to” rather than anything truly organic or meaningful.

Victor and Elizabeth in the movie would never have worked, even if she wasn’t engaged to William, because of Victor’s arrogance, need for domination, and cruelty in direct contrast to her empathetic nature and desire for something meaningful out of life. But their dynamic is much more compelling to me. Maybe it’s the way she isn’t hesitant to tell him exactly what she thinks about him, or her earnest engagement with the sciences and with his work.

As an aside, this line about Elizabeth makes me wonder if it influenced her interest in insects in the movie (I haven’t watched too many of the cast/director interviews, so if it did, yay):

“She was docile and good tempered, yet gay and playful as a summer insect.” — Victor, Volume I

Love, or the Lack of It

Both versions of the Creature start out loving and willing to give love to others. They strongly desire that emotional exchange, but life meets them brutally through judgment and prejudice.

“My heart was fashioned to be susceptible of love and sympathy; and, when wrenched by misery to vice and hatred, it did not endure the violence of the change without torture such as you cannot even imagine.” — The Creature, Volume III

“When I first sought [sympathy], it was the love of virtue, the feelings of happiness and affection with which my whole being overflowed, that I wished to be participated. But now, that virtue has become to me a shadow, and that happiness and affection are turned into bitter and loathing despair, in what should I seek for sympathy?” — The Creature, Volume III

I appreciate both versions of the Creature and don’t have a particular preference for one or the other. Though the book version commits acts that are more evil in nature and is arguably more of a monster, I find it fascinating that he does try to give second chances, so to speak. He yearns for humanity to do the right thing because he loves the very concept of life and “seeks to defend it.” But I wonder, how can you defend it by taking it away? Does he understand or subconsciously acknowledge the hypocrisy of this statement when he’s already killed William and framed Justine, resulting in her execution, at this point of the story?

He tries to ingratiate himself to the French family, fails, and decides that he should try again with a more palatable approach toward the old man De Lacey even despite their harsh rejection of him. He shows heroism in rescuing the little girl from the river. Despite Victor’s abandonment of him, the Creature even gives Victor the opportunity to earn his good graces by creating a companion, promising to never seek him or the rest of society out again if Victor completes the request. Whether he would’ve actually honored this remains a mystery; not to mention, what if his companion didn’t share this sentiment?

To me, the Creature doesn’t come off as a character who’s completely unsympathetic or morally corrupt, but he is very flawed. He commits terrible crimes, but at the end of the book he shows remorse over his actions; yet it’s as if he still doesn’t take full responsibility, as he claims he was driven to do them by a force he couldn’t escape or control. He says his suffering is greater than Victor’s because he is the one who murdered the loved ones, and he is the only one still left alive to feel any anguish over their deaths. Like Victor, and perhaps to a greater extent, the Creature in the novel displays a self-involved mindset.

In the movie, the Creature only kills when provoked first. There’s no mention of an evil impulse like the one that drives the Creature from the book. He isn’t immediately abandoned by his creator; he knows tenderness, directed at him and not experienced from afar through gaps in a wooden home, for a very brief time. Victor and the Creature are together for weeks, but we don’t see any of this. However, we are given enough to understand that Victor abuses the Creature, and it stirs sympathy.

Their movie dynamic reminds me of how abuse frequently works in interpersonal relationships. There are moments when Victor presses his hand to the Creature’s cheek or tells him “That’s you” when he looks in the mirror, much like a parent would do when interacting with their baby. Yet these small moments of affection and relief sit within a bigger, more fraught picture—that Victor is disillusioned by the act of creation, which informs his hatred and mistreatment of the Creature.

This abuse, along with the other pains that humanity delivers (such as the men from the cabin), makes the Creature turn angry and cold once he is able to understand the world around him. I’m always thinking of when he lights the dynamite and tells Victor to run, because it’s such a stark contrast to how he is in those first moments of his life, or when he’s living with De Lacey. Humanity has extracted too much from him. He’s enraged, he takes pleasure in Victor’s pain, knowing it’s also the only way to get the other man’s attention, and most of all, he’s anguished. He wants to die to be free of this agony but is denied even that form of peace.

(I know that “now…run” moment has turned into a source of thirst for the girlies on Tumblr and TikTok, lmao, but it really just comes off as sad if I think about it for more than 5 seconds.)

Still, he gets the opportunity to forgive Victor and move on in the end, which book!Creature never does. Book!Creature stands over his creator’s deathbed in anger and grief because, despite his creator hating him, he was still the one who brought him into the world, and there can be no resolution at all now. The Creature offers remorse for his actions, desires Victor’s forgiveness, and yearns for some sort of apology for Victor’s own actions, which there’s no possibility of receiving anymore.

““Oh, Frankenstein! generous and self-devoted being! what does it avail that I now ask thee to pardon me? I, who irretrievably destroyed thee by destroying all thou lovedst. Alas! he is cold; he may not answer me.”” — The Creature, Volume III

The movie’s ending is unpopular with many reviewers, but it makes perfect sense. I try not to project myself here, because I certainly wouldn’t have done the same, but this isn’t my story even if I relate to parts of it. The Creature’s anger toward Victor is what has kept the pursuit going; now that Victor is dying, there is no reason to keep stoking the fires and burning himself alive in hatred when the subject of his ire will soon be gone and unaware of it all.

Plus, living with De Lacey for a time is what helps the Creature learn how to carve out peace with his circumstances. He learns that “[forgiveness is] the true measure of wisdom” and that there are people who will be kind to him no matter who he is, and he’s able to rediscover this belief in forgiveness even after the world rejects and attacks him repeatedly.

Inside Victor’s Mind

Unlike the Creature, I find book!Victor a lot less interesting than movie!Victor, even though I’ve seen the latter criticized for being too overtly villainous, black-and-white, dramatized, etc. Which also seems like a misunderstanding of movie!Victor. His actions are more plainly contemptible, but you can see how the circumstances of his upbringing mold him to be what he is as an adult; he didn’t wake up one day deciding to be an asshole for fun. He has a father who doesn’t care for him yet pressures him to be the best at any cost, and a mother who, in contrast to his near-worship of her as a loving individual, owns plantations full of slaves. Surely these aren’t the best examples of how to view other living beings as worthy of respect, kindness, and love.

Book!Victor’s choices are more nuanced and are not done entirely (or even mostly) out of evil, but they still lead to most of his family and friends being wiped out. After William’s death and especially after Justine’s execution, it didn’t make sense to me why he was so loathe to admit that he’d created the Creature. If he did, maybe they would’ve had a chance to stop any more deaths before they occurred. Doing so may not have prevented their deaths at all, but Victor may have had a cleaner conscience knowing he at least did all he could.

At some points, Victor also displays an odd behavior of assuming that all of the Creature’s ire will be directed toward himself and no one else. It seems obvious that Elizabeth will also be in danger on their honeymoon, but Victor is dead set on believing he’s the Creature’s only target until the very moment of the attack.

Through all this, I don’t view book!Victor as a villain at all. He’s an ambitious young adult with grandiose ideas about reanimating the dead but who immediately regrets his decision, being plagued by it for the rest of his life with only small respites. His actions are often very ignorant, which causes destruction to others around him, but they rarely feel outright malicious.

He is harsh with the Creature when they first reunite, but at this point the Creature has already killed William, so his feelings are understandable. I thought it was somewhat presumptuous of Victor to assume his own creation killed William when he initially heard the news, but this turned out to be true—meaning Victor must also believe he himself is capable of creating or giving rise to great evil, even if indirectly.

Both the Creature and Victor in the novel are selfish in different ways; the Creature thinks only of his pain and of remedying it, which he tries to do by visiting retribution upon Victor by killing his family. Victor’s selfishness, even if unintentional, manifests in him hiding details from his family that might have saved them—and in him creating the Creature in the first place. He believes himself to be put on Earth for a mighty purpose that only he can do, which he recollects as one of his past beliefs near the end of the book. He makes the Creature and fulfills this purpose, yet abandons him instantly once he realizes that the Creature is ugly and not as he imagined he would be in this vision of creation he has elevated to such heights. Instead, he only thinks of the Creature as a demon and a wretch.

““When younger,” said he, “I felt as if I were destined for some great enterprise. My feelings are profound; but I possessed a coolness of judgment that fitted me for illustrious achievements. This sentiment of the worth of my nature supported me, when others would have been oppressed; for I deemed it criminal to throw away in useless grief those talents that might be useful to my fellow-creatures.”” — Victor, Volume III

As previously noted, Victor in the movie does feel like quite a different character from the book version, with several overarching concepts rather than specific character traits being their connecting points—like the desire to prove oneself through scientific innovation, self-importance, and a sense of being called to complete a specific destiny only they can do.

Movie!Victor’s methods for carrying out his experiment involve using the bodies of criminals on the execution block and dead soldiers, the latter of which Elizabeth indirectly condemns at the dinner table, while book!Victor uses vaults and charnel houses (Chapter III, Volume I). At the end of the day, it’s all unethical, but movie!Victor’s methods are particularly grotesque. To Elizabeth, Victor is one of the “fools” whose lofty ideas only lead to more suffering or do nothing to alleviate current suffering. Despite wanting to be a bearer of life in this unique way, Victor has little concern or care for life. People are transactions, a means to an end. He gets what he wants and believes this should always be the case, as shown in his dialogue with Elizabeth at the staircase. He believes he’s owed her affection from the pure fact of having feelings for her (though I enjoy watching their dynamic in the first part of the film, I wouldn’t call his sentiments being “in love”) and is disgusted and offended at her preference for the Creature. Likewise, although Harlander’s brain wouldn’t be fit to put into the body, Victor shows little concern or sympathy for the man’s affliction but certainly has no issue accepting his money and resources.

Only certain types of life have value to Victor. The Creature is not one of those. Neither are the soldiers who gave up their lives or the criminals at the execution block who have no rights or dignity left. Their only purpose to him is to be “optimal specimens,” and many of them can’t even fulfill this.

Victor endures this mindset himself as a child, trying to live up to the demands of his father and understanding that he is valuable only if he can embody intelligence and skill. In creating the Creature, he believes he will surpass his father in these aspects but feels that he’s failed when the Creature doesn’t respond as he expects. He doesn’t understand that living beings must be nurtured in order to prosper in the world and that violence won’t beget effective results, which is a consequence of his upbringing.

Victor’s father marries his mother for her dowry; there is no love here, just convenience, and his father merely tolerates them both. But tolerate he does, because Victor is meant to be the one who will bear his name and become a preeminent doctor, and Claire must play the role of the obedient and silent conduit for this greatness. There’s this idea that something is only worthy of being cared for if it’s useful—as we see in the scene when Victor’s father says his hands are of “craft and will” but his face is vanity.

Victor and the Creature

The scene when the Creature first awakens is one of the most sincere moments Victor displays. For that tiny period, there are no requirements or reprimands from Victor; the Creature is alive and standing in front of him, and he sees this feat as his greatest accomplishment. He believes he’s made a truly extraordinary being. Until Victor realizes this being has not shown up in the world as he thought he would.

From the beginning, Victor’s “care” for the Creature is very meager, consisting of keeping him in the reservoir in chains with nothing but a blanket, but it only worsens once the Creature fails to fulfill the purpose of his existence—making Victor into a well-respected genius in the eyes of society. You’d think the simplest answer would be for Victor to teach the Creature, as any new being must be taught; we see that he learns quickly once on his own and then with De Lacey. But as I said before, Victor doesn’t grasp the importance of a gentler “parenting” style due to his own neglected upbringing, and feels he has no obligation to even provide a comfortable, safe place for the Creature to live. He justifies keeping the Creature chained up near the waste chute as the Creature “not knowing any better,” so why would treating him with dignity matter?

Interestingly, toward the end, Victor tells the Creature “I made you well” when they meet again. He even appears to have tears in his eyes. Their subsequent interaction reinforces Victor’s disgust and hatred, but I have to wonder what other emotions lingered there in that first moment, seeing his failed experiment alive and thriving enough to have learned to speak and dress and understand how to find Victor.

Some say Victor’s regret at the end isn’t authentic because of its quickness; he’s one moment depicting the Creature badly in his recounting of events, as proven by the Captain’s reaction toward the Creature, and then in the next proclaiming that he’s seen and understood the error of his ways. Victor reminds me of the type of person on their deathbed who doesn’t want to leave the Earth with so many loose ends and so much conflict still on their heart and mind. Perhaps they see it as a personal unburdening. Similar to the Creature who lets go of his rage in the face of futility, maybe he too realizes that it would be futile to maintain the mutual hatred until his last breath and would only cause them more unneeded misery.

Whether the apology is a truly genuine move from Victor after he has committed so much purposeful evil is debatable, but I like to believe he did mean it. Not motivated by some fear of punishment in the afterlife—what does a man who defied God have to fear about the afterlife?—but because for the first time he has no choice but to sit and acquiesce to the perspective of someone other than himself. There’s no grand plan to attend to, no one to prove himself to anymore, no thoughts working a mile a minute on whatever the next task is, and no one left in his life who loves him—there is only time.

And maybe that belief is mostly for my own comfort, but I’ll own that.