Don't Reanimate Corpses! Frankenstein Part 1: Crash Course Literature 205 - YouTube (2)

From darkness to promote me?"

It's essentially the same thing as when you say to your parents “I didn't ask

to be born!” but of course that doesn't make as good of an epigraph.

So in this interpretation Victor is playing God and the creature is the sinning Adam.

But it's hardly so simple I mean Victor refers to the creature as a devil and the

creature seems to support this at times.

Plus, In the middle of the book they have this intense argument about moral philosophy—you

know as you do with monsters, Godzilla was into Immanuel Kant, King Kong, of course,

huge fan of Thomas Hobbes - anyway, the monster says, “I am thy creature; I ought to be

thy Adam; but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed.

Everywhere I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably excluded.”

It's hard out there for a monster and it's important to remember that God did not expel Satan for no misdeed.

But part of what makes this so rich is that both “Frankenstein” and “Paradise Lost”

defy easy readings. I mean, “Frankenstein” allies the creature with Satan but that doesn't

mean the creature is all bad. There are readings of Milton's poem that perceive God as sort

of a stick in the mud and Satan as the really interesting character who struggles undaunted

despite his exile from heaven.

Anyway, that was the view the Romantics took and part of why the poet Robert Southey referred

to Byron and Percy Shelley and their circle as belonging to the Satanic school of Romanticism.

But anyway, all these allusion to Milton bring up some pretty tough questions: I mean Does

Victor see himself as God? And if so is he a good God? Does the monster deserve his exile?

Is he inherently sinful or is sin something that God allows to enter, as in Milton's

poem? Just as we wonder whether Victor and Walton should be praised or damned for their

pursuit of knowledge we have to wonder that about the monster as well.

Whether we're talking about mad scientists or the monsters they create or arctic explorers,

seeking knowledge is a way of becoming human. Both in the best and worst senses of the word.

And to me the great question of the novel is: Who's more human - Victor of the monster he has created?

Next week we'll continue our discussion of “Frankenstein” by examining those questions

through different lenses. Until then thanks for watching.

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