# Frankenstein's Monster **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 29, 2003, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankensteins-monster/165042 "2003-03-29T16:49:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankensteins-monster/165042/21 "2003-03-31T04:41:00Z")
YES, YES, SAY IT! HE VAS MY _BOYFRIEND!_ ---
**Author:** ![Simbelmyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Simbelmyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simbelmyne)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankensteins-monster/165042/22 "2003-03-31T04:44:53Z")
No escaping death for me! Destiny! Destiny! ---
**Author:** ![Ellen\_Cherry](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellen_cherry/32/3600_2.png) [@Ellen\_Cherry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellen_Cherry)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankensteins-monster/165042/23 "2003-03-31T04:55:30Z")
No tongue! ---
**Author:** ![Rico](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rico/32/3582_2.png) [@Rico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rico)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankensteins-monster/165042/24 "2003-03-31T07:35:14Z")
Oh jeeze, I’ve created a monster… Forgive me for hijacking your serious thread so thoroughly… damn, that was fun… ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankensteins-monster/165042/25 "2003-03-31T15:09:56Z")
_Young Frankenstein_ (that’s Frankenshteen!) and _Monty Python and the Holy Grail_ appear to be guaranteed thread hijack triggers around here. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankensteins-monster/165042/26 "2003-03-31T16:58:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Baldwin \* > \*\*I always thought it was funny that Dr. Frankenstein apparently had learned how to perform the microsurgery necessary to connect the nervous systems of different body parts together so that they actually worked, and yet when it came to closing the outside of the body, he used some big ugly stitches. \*\* IIRC, Stephen King makes a similar point in his book _Danse Macabre_. In Frankenstein (the book), the creature convinces the doctor to make a female mate for him, but when the doc thinks of the possibility of the two of them reproducing, he destroys her. King points out that it would child’s play for the doc to have made the mate sterile; in fact it probably would have been very difficult to make her fertile. And it occurs to me now that even if they did somehow manage to conceive, wouldn’t the child just be a normal child anyway? Genetically it would be the child of whoever “donated” the male creature’s testicles and woman who originally owned the eggs. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankensteins-monster/165042/27 "2003-03-31T17:01:24Z")
“Taffeta, darling.” “Taffeta to you, too, dear.” ---
**Author:** ![Rocketeer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocketeer/32/4437_2.png) [@Rocketeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rocketeer)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankensteins-monster/165042/28 "2003-03-31T18:39:58Z")
David Skal, in _The Monster Show_, traces the Monster’s look to a cubist/modernist aesthetic that was “cutting-edge” in the Thirties. The flat head is intended to provide a tension between organic and mechanical. As are the neck rivets. Earlier concepts were ape-man-like or even pure robot; from that they seem to have arrived at the organic/mechanical fusion of the final design. The play (prior to the movie) depicted the monster as a lurching, gauche, oddly colored doppelganger of its creator. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankensteins-monster/165042/29 "2003-03-31T18:49:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Rocketeer \* > \*\*David Skal, in _The Monster Show_, traces the Monster’s look to a cubist/modernist aesthetic that was “cutting-edge” in the Thirties. The flat head is intended to provide a tension between organic and mechanical. > > As are the neck rivets. > > Earlier concepts were ape-man-like or even pure robot; from that they seem to have arrived at the organic/mechanical fusion of the final design. > \*\*_underlining by Me_ Then, the Borg are the children of Frankenstein. After I typed that, it seems so obvious… ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankensteins-monster/165042/30 "2003-03-31T18:50:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Revtim \* > \*\* > And it occurs to me now that even if they did somehow manage to conceive, wouldn’t the child just be a normal child anyway? \*\* I don’t know how much Mary Shelley knew about biology. The Russians under Lenin were still using the theory of inheriting acquired characteristics; if you cut of a frog’s legs, his offspring would have no legs. Was Mary Shelley exhumed by Percy Byshe Shelley or so I have my Shellys confused? ---
**Author:** ![FordPrefect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e99b99/32.png) [@FordPrefect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FordPrefect)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankensteins-monster/165042/31 "2003-03-31T19:00:44Z")
The book was written in the 1800s. What I remember is that Dr. F. was working on an elixar that would either allow transplants to occur without any hitches, or restore life to dead people. The best way to test it was to make a person from human remains from the university’s medical department. IIRC the book was a treatise on the potential horrors of vivisection. ---
**Author:** ![Fish42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/4da419/32.png) [@Fish42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish42)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankensteins-monster/165042/32 "2003-03-31T19:10:41Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by carnivorousplant \* > \*\* > Was Mary Shelley exhumed by Percy Byshe Shelley or so I have my Shellys confused? \*\* Well, since Mary Shelley outlived Percy B., I doubt he could’ve exhumed her. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankensteins-monster/165042/33 "2003-03-31T19:15:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by carnivorousplant \* > \*\*I don’t know how much Mary Shelley knew about biology. The Russians under Lenin were still using the theory of inheriting acquired characteristics; if you cut of a frog’s legs, his offspring would have no legs. > > Was Mary Shelley exhumed by Percy Byshe Shelley or so I have my Shellys confused? \*\* Exhumed? I’m not sure of the significance of that term in the context of this discussion. In any event, I’ve always been under the impression that they were husband and wife. ---
**Author:** ![CaptMurdock](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/captmurdock/32/11736_2.png) [@CaptMurdock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaptMurdock)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankensteins-monster/165042/34 "2003-03-31T19:45:36Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Baldwin_ > I always thought it was funny that Dr. Frankenstein apparently had learned how to perform the microsurgery necessary to connect the nervous systems of different body parts together so that they actually worked, and yet when it came to closing the outside of the body, he used some big ugly stitches. “My grandfather’s work was doo-doo!” ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankensteins-monster/165042/35 "2003-03-31T19:48:23Z")
It was Rossetti. So much for remembering English Lit. The Beggar Maid who still stirs us today is dead Elizabeth Siddal, whose body Rossetti once exhumed in order to retrieve the poems he had impetuously buried with her. [http://216.156.253.178/triggs/Artpoetry.html](http://216.156.253.178/triggs/Artpoetry.html) ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankensteins-monster/165042/36 "2003-03-31T21:07:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by carnivorousplant \* > **I don’t know how much Mary Shelley knew about biology. The Russians under Lenin were still using the theory of inheriting acquired characteristics; if you cut of a frog’s legs, his offspring would have no legs.** Yes, one must certainly allow for the state of medical knowledge for the time. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankensteins-monster/165042/37 "2003-03-31T21:14:42Z")
**"LIFE!!! GIVE MY CREATION… LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIFE!!!"** [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankensteins-monster/165042.md?page=1)