«Frankenstein»: a myth beyond science fiction movies

Abstract

Since the publication of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus in 1818, the idea of life creation and the guests of the novel have arise a lot of interest, both in the literary and cinema fields. The present paper reviews the historical background in which the novel was written, as well as the medical context of the time in order to better understand its main features. Among the more than hundred of films that were inspired by the Shelley’s work, we have chosen Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931) and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (Kenneth Branagh, 1994), as the most pertinent examples to discuss the ideas of the novel and because they are clearly different in showing the Frankenstein myth. The Whale’s movie clearly depicted horror elements and the crazy scientist role. By contrast, Branagh preferred to follow Shelley’s original ideas and introduce the ethical controversies associated to Frankenstein’s experiments. Finally, we discuss the contemporary importance of the Frankenstein myth still has, as well as the interest of the films to show it, with special focus in the discussion around genetic engineering.

Keywords

• frankenstein
• ingeniería genética
• clonación humana
• determinismo biológico
• investigación
• principios bioéticos