Frankenstein by Mary Shelly
Mary Shelly is responsible for creating one of the most recognizable horror stories of all time and for that, I highly respect her as an author. However, I'm not the biggest fan of her original writing of Frankenstein.
My opinions on Frankenstein are completely the result of me growing up in a time where this story has been re-told and parodied countless times. I enjoy the tale of Frankenstein in its extremes; whether incredibly dark or a lighthearted parody, doesn’t matter. Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, though the original tale, simply felt boring to me. I read it before in high school and hardly remembered a thing about it. I figured I would have come around since then but nothing’s changed. I just thought it was rather boring, plain and simple.
There were two moments in particular in the writing that frustrated me. The first was a potential plot hole; when Frankenstein’s Monster is giving exposition to Frankenstein he describes his life that occurred the past year and how he killed Frankenstein’s little brother after the fact. Within the beginning of the same book, Frankenstein says his little brother was killed within two months, not a year. Whether this was a deliberate inconsistency to hint that either Frankenstein or his monster is lying is never alluded to so I’m going to chalk it up as a plot hole.
The second thing that frustrated me was Frankenstein’s unwillingness to make a woman for the Monster. It’s difficult to realistically believe that he had the means to protect his family by giving the Monster what he wanted but didn’t because he was “disgusted”. It just felt like a cheap writing move to keep the monster as an antagonist to Frankenstein.
Again, I like the tale of Frankenstein—specifically the classic film and Gene Wilder’s parody—but Mary Shelly’s original vision isn’t for me.
I noticed that discrepancy as well (the timelines of Frankenstein and the Monster's retelling of events), and I agree that it does seem like a plot hole. I do think that the Monster's version of the story makes more sense, because how would he have learned to speak so eloquently within in just a few months? A year and a half makes more logical sense, and I see this as the allude to Frankenstein story being false. Whether he was lying for a reason or if he was just bedridden for too long, I don't know.
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