Frankenstein

Frankenstein as an horror story Horror story as a narrative genre had been highly popular since it was invented in the 18th century. Year after year, movies, series and books of horror story are consumed by people of all ages. The classic “Frankenstein” from Mary Shelley is not an exception. Her book influenced popular culture and inspired numerous films, television programs, video games and derive works. It is impossible to ignore the fascination that this genre and Frankenstein in particular cause in their fans. The horror story genre was invented by Horace Walpole. His book “Castle of Otranto” (1765) founded the horror story as a legitimate literary form. The supernatural happenings and mysterious ambiance of this Gothic novel was widely emulated in the genre. In a horror story the focus is on creating a feeling of fear. It can include supernatural elements such as ghost, witches or vampires or it can address more realistic psychological fears. A good horror story has to include five elements. The first one and most important is fear, making sure that you can scare people. The second is surprise: something that people are not expecting to. Then an scenario consisting of someone waiting for something to happen and when it does it is completely unexpected, that is the suspense. Fourthly, the mystery with something unexplained; finally an spoiler, an anticipation of what is going to happen. The famous novel “Frankenstein” (1818) introduced pseudoscience into the horror genre. Victor Frankenstein created an eight feet tall creature out of old body parts and strange chemicals, animated by a mysterious spark. The way in which Frankenstein was designed comes from the Fordism where workers put together each part to ensemble the whole. Victor became fascinated with the secret of life, discovered it and with his knowledge about modern science he brought a monster to life. Victor practised pseudoscience or a creation incorrectly presented as scientific but it did not adhere to a valid scientific method, could not be reliably tested or otherwise lacked scientific status. Shelley used elements from nature to make the story scary, like a storm or dark forest that made the readers unsure and uneasy about what was going to happen. What is important to highlight is the fact that the scary natural world that Mary Shelley used in the book clearly contrasts with the mechanized world of the industrial revolution which took place at the time of the novel. She used foreshadowing to give suspense, for instance when we have evidence of murders that later was proved to be the monster. Comparing modern horror story with “Frankenstein”, the story is not really what we think of as scary today because it lacks of bloody scenes as the modern ones or gore elements like a beheaded person. However, “Frankenstein ” has scary ideas considering that creating life secretly with irresponsible science is creepy and, what is more, the creature is created with parts of dead bodies what is highly spooky together with the fact that he was not a real person since he was fabricated from the use of machines. On the other hand, in modern horror story, killing an innocent is an important feature to be considered really horrific and in this novel various good people are killed by the monster, event that disappointed Victor and he wanted to destroy his creation. Similarly with some inventors of machines used to begin the industrial revolution intended to be beneficial but instead it made life more difficult resulting in unemployment. Another common characteristic of horror stories is that they have plot twist and “Frankenstein” does has a plot twist, for example when the monster wanted to take revenge against Victor, the reader focused on murder of Victor in his wedding night; nevertheless, the creature killed his wife instead. Doubtly there is something really powerful in horror story that brings people to watch such a level of gore, blood and violence. The fear people feel while watching someone being chased by an axe-wielding is not different from the fear they feel if they were actually being chased by an axe-wielding murdered from the point of view of the brain. That is, when people watch horrific images, their heartbeat increases as much as 15 beats per minute, their palms sweat, their skin temperature drops several degrees, their muscles tense and their blood pressure spikes. Glenn Sparks, a professor of communication at Purdue University, studies the effects of horror films on viewers`physiology. “We can tell ourselves the images on the screen are not real but emotionally our brain reacts as if they are”. The more fear they felt, the more they claimed to enjoy the movie. Sparks believes scary movies may be one of the last vestiges of the tribal rite of passage. Sparks says: “There’s a motivation males have in our culture to master threatening situations. It goes back to the initiation rites of our tribal ancestors, where the entrance to manhood was associated with hardship. We’ve lost that in modern society and we may have found ways to replace it in our entertainment preferences”. Other examples of modern tribal rites include roller coasters and event frat-house hazing. Besides, there are other theories to explain the fascination of scary movies. One suggests that people may seek out violent entertainment as a way of coping with actual fears or violence. A popular explanation is expressed by the horror novelist Stephen King, who believed that scary movies act as a sort of safety value for our cruel or aggressive impulse. The implications of these ideas, called “symbolic catharsis”, is that watching violence forestalls the need to act it out. To sum up, we cannot negate how much “Frankenstein” influenced the literature, specially the horror genre. Regarding that the novel as a scary story nowadays, it is not so scary for our modern standard but it was over that time it was written. About Victor Frankenstein , his sacrifice in order to create his monster seems like an act of inhumanity more than an act of love. His reasoning is overwhelmed by his fear, causing him to choose science over the safety of his friends and family. Finally, in the novel Mary Shelley aimed to demonstrate how man’s search for hidden knowledge could eventually lead to downfall and chaos. She wrote “Frankenstein” as a warning against the expansion of modern man with his machines in the industrial revolution.