Frankenstein repeatedly refers to his creation as “the fiend,” which in the early 1800s probably carried a more sinister, malevolent connotation than it does now.
He calls it by several descriptions – I think he uses “the wretch” more than “the fiend”, and he uses others besides. It’s blatantly clear that he refuses to name his creation, or to say that it is his.
I remember one critic complaining about Branagh’s version and scornfully taking him to task for having the opening scene in the Arctic.:rolleyes:
Semi-related note: Sunday night’s Frankenhole had the Creature celebrating his [del]birthday[/del] created-by-a-man-day.
In general, I do not care for this sort of technique in storytelling.
I’d like to once again recommend The Frankenstein Diaries. Non Spoilers- The final creation has a normal brain. By the end of the book he is murderous, but that could be entirely because by that point his creator has gone round the bend and is trying to kill him.
I have read the original several times. I continue to hate it.
I think the answer lies in the development of the Universal movie. Before James Whale got the project, French director Robert Florey had been assigned to direct (he later made Murders In The Rue Morgue, with Bela Lugosi, for the studio). It was probably his idea to give the monster an abnormal brain and make him mute. I imagine in order to make the movie a more straightforward horror shocker and less of a philosophical treatise on loneliness and responsibility. Incidentally an early stage version of the story (Presumption: Or The Fate Of Frankenstein) featured aspects later to become familiar tropes of the movie series; among others a cowardly superstitious assistant (a model for the hunchback Fritz. usually recalled incorrectly as Igor) and the unspeaking, marauding monster himself. Mary Shelley herself saw this play and described it approvingly in her diaries.