But a Jape

“And it’s fine if you call me Frankenstein; my father may have disowned me but that does not make me any less his child.”

– Adam Frankenstein

Genuine question: is there anyone who read Frankenstein past high school who came out of it thinking Victor Frankenstein did nothing wrong? Because the sheer number of times I hear “Actually, the doctor is the real monster” suggests people are still finding it a revelation that Dr. Frankenstein wasn’t a great guy. More than that, I think it really undermines the fact that the creature is still pretty bad in his own right, on account of, you know, murdering a child, framing an innocent woman to be executed for that crime, and then threatening to kill the rest of Victor’s loved ones. And there’s no “he didn’t know any better” justification here, dude was quoting Milton at this point.

Am I really that out there by suggesting that maybe the murderer is worse than the murderer’s negligent parent? At the very least, they’re both bad.

– James