In Mary Shelley's book, Frankenstein, though similar to the film, the portrayal of the monster is not the same. In the book, he is not an awkward, inarticulate, and rather mismatched hulk groping about and killing. He does do a bit of killing and there is some groping, but he is also a feeling and needing person who wants to be more than a monster. In one scene, he confronts his maker and demands recognition. He asks to be accepted by the hand that formed him. He feels he has that right. The ugliness he has is not his own doing, and the dread he causes is not due to himself.
To a degree, we have a similar right. We can demand the acknowledgment of God. But God is not our only creator. We are also creators of each other. In our relationships - by what we say or do and how we share ourselves with others - we are, for better or worse, continuing the creative process.
Unlike the monster, we have been both recognized and accepted. We are loved by the one who brought us to be. We carry God's name and share his life. It is why we are not monsters, but children. Our own role in creation, how we bring it about or respond to it, may sometimes be a different story.
My father was a writer. He wrote all of his life, inflicting upon many of us his novels, plays, articles, essays, and self-help books. Some were marvelous; some merely well-intentioned. But of all the things he wrote, his journal is his legacy: by turns wise and bewildering, it neared 1,100 type-written pages when he died in 2010. Although perused many times, this is the first time it will be read - cover to cover, page after page.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Rethinking Frankenstein, God, and Ourselves
Labels:
creation,
Frankenstein,
God,
love,
ourselves,
relationships
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