The Romantic versus the Modern in Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein”

Excerpts from the Paper

The Romantic versus the Modern in Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein"
This study will compare and contrast the monster in the film and novel versions of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Mary Shelley’s romanticized/supernatural version of the monster provides some very explicit descriptions of the creature’s yellowed skin and the translucent appearance of muscle and arteries. While Kenneth Branagh’s monster does have yellow skin, it is depicts modern surgical stitches for a much more scientifically hideous affect in Robert Deniro’s costume. In this manner, Shelley and Branagh’s creatures exhibit similar traits in skin color and horrific appearance, but Shelley’s creature is more romantic/supernatural appearing than the physically mutilated modern...

.....yzed in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. By analyzing Mary Shelley’s romantic and supernatural description of the monster via the yellow skin and the exposed muscle and arteries, Branagh also brings a horrific image of a “modern” monster in the 1994 film version. By also using yellow skin in Shelley’s description, Branagh chose to update Deniro’s costume with short buzz cut hair and tightly bound stitches as a 20th century version of the monster. These are the ways that the monster is similar and different in the novel and film versions analyzed in this study of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
Works Cited:
Frankenstein. Dir. Kenneth Branagh. Perfs. Robert Deniro. USA: Sony, 1994.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.