Hollywood has changed the story of Frankenstein so profoundly that reading the book still comes as a welcome reading of wild alternatives. Take for example the ending. In the motion picture the monster perishes in a burning windmill with a crowd of howling villages waving torches, farm implements, and guns. The death of the creature as envisioned by Mary Shelley was far quieter and very introspective. The creature of literature was well-spoken, cunning, and very aware of his unique position in humankind. (Not at all the pissed-off brute that Hollywood usually prefers.)
Let's see a sample as the creature addresses his recently deceased creator. The location is a boat bobbing in a heavy sea in the Arctic Ocean some distance from Archangel in Russia...
"But it is true that I am a wretch. I have murdered the lovely and the helpless. I have seized the innocent as they slept and grasped his throat to death who never injured me. I devoted my creator to misery and have followed him even to his destruction. You hate me, but you abhorrence cannot equal mine for myself. I look on my hands that executed the deed, I think of the heart that formed the plans, and I loathe myself. Fear not that I shall do more mischief, my work is nearly complete. It needs not yours or any man's death to consummate it, but requires my own. And do not think that I shall be slow to perform that sacrifice. I shall quit your vessel; and on the ice-raft that brought me, I shall seek the most northern extremity of land that the globe affords. I shall collect my funeral pile and consume myself to ashes, that my remains may afford no light light to any curious and unhallowed wretch who would create such another. I shall die. I shall no longer feel the anguish of what now consumes me, or be the prey of feelings unsatisfied and yet unquenched. He is dead who created me; and when I die, the remembrance of me will be lost for ever. I shall no longer see the sun or stars or feel the winds play on my cheeks. Light, feeling, and sense will die. And in this I must find my happiness. Some years ago, when the images of this world affords first opened on me, when I felt the cheering warmth of summer and heard the rustling of leaves and the chirping of birds- these were all to me- I should have wept to die; and now it is only my only consolation. Stained by crimes and bitterest remorse, where can I find rest but in death?
Farewell; I leave you, and with you, the last of men that these eyes will ever behold. Farewell, Frankenstein! If a desire for revenge remains to you in death, it would be better satisfied in my life than in my destruction. But it was not so. You wished for my extinction that I might not cause greater wretchedness to others, and now you will not desire my life for my own misery. Blasted as you were, my agony is superior to yours, for remorse is the bitter sting that rankles my wounds and tortures me to madness.
But soon," he cried, clasping his hands, "I shall die, and what I now feel will no longer be felt; soon these thoughts- these burning miseries- will be extinct. I shall ascend my pile triumphantly, and the flame that consumes my body will give enjoyment of tranquility to my mind."
He sprung from the cabin window, as he said this upon an ice raft that lay close to the vessel; and pushing himself off, he was carried away by the waves, and I soon lost sight of him in the darkness and distance."
Let's see a sample as the creature addresses his recently deceased creator. The location is a boat bobbing in a heavy sea in the Arctic Ocean some distance from Archangel in Russia...
"But it is true that I am a wretch. I have murdered the lovely and the helpless. I have seized the innocent as they slept and grasped his throat to death who never injured me. I devoted my creator to misery and have followed him even to his destruction. You hate me, but you abhorrence cannot equal mine for myself. I look on my hands that executed the deed, I think of the heart that formed the plans, and I loathe myself. Fear not that I shall do more mischief, my work is nearly complete. It needs not yours or any man's death to consummate it, but requires my own. And do not think that I shall be slow to perform that sacrifice. I shall quit your vessel; and on the ice-raft that brought me, I shall seek the most northern extremity of land that the globe affords. I shall collect my funeral pile and consume myself to ashes, that my remains may afford no light light to any curious and unhallowed wretch who would create such another. I shall die. I shall no longer feel the anguish of what now consumes me, or be the prey of feelings unsatisfied and yet unquenched. He is dead who created me; and when I die, the remembrance of me will be lost for ever. I shall no longer see the sun or stars or feel the winds play on my cheeks. Light, feeling, and sense will die. And in this I must find my happiness. Some years ago, when the images of this world affords first opened on me, when I felt the cheering warmth of summer and heard the rustling of leaves and the chirping of birds- these were all to me- I should have wept to die; and now it is only my only consolation. Stained by crimes and bitterest remorse, where can I find rest but in death?
Farewell; I leave you, and with you, the last of men that these eyes will ever behold. Farewell, Frankenstein! If a desire for revenge remains to you in death, it would be better satisfied in my life than in my destruction. But it was not so. You wished for my extinction that I might not cause greater wretchedness to others, and now you will not desire my life for my own misery. Blasted as you were, my agony is superior to yours, for remorse is the bitter sting that rankles my wounds and tortures me to madness.
But soon," he cried, clasping his hands, "I shall die, and what I now feel will no longer be felt; soon these thoughts- these burning miseries- will be extinct. I shall ascend my pile triumphantly, and the flame that consumes my body will give enjoyment of tranquility to my mind."
He sprung from the cabin window, as he said this upon an ice raft that lay close to the vessel; and pushing himself off, he was carried away by the waves, and I soon lost sight of him in the darkness and distance."
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