"Victor's imperious, cold, demanding physician father drums medical science into his son's head, beats him when he makes a mistake, and mistreats the boy's beloved mother, who dies young. Victor blames his father for failing to save his mother's life, and his determination to discover how to conquer death is less a response to grief than a vow to best the older man."
"Instead of preserving the "quiet, even nervous, disposition" of his mother and his boyhood self, the grown-up Victor of the film becomes another version of his father. While he preaches rebellion to a group of stuffy, skeptical, bewigged authorities-announcing that truth only comes "when coaxed by disobedience, free of fear and cowardly dogma"-he bulldozes everyone around him, treating them as means to his own ends."
Victor Frankenstein is depicted as the true monster, shaped by abusive paternal influence and ruthless ambition. His father, an imperious physician, enforces medical doctrine, beats him for mistakes, and mistreats the boy's mother, who dies young. Victor channels blame into a vow to conquer death and best his father rather than mourn. Recurring visions of a red, fiery "dark angel" link blood, fire, and maternal memory. Ambition warps tenderness into vengeance. The adult Victor replicates his father's cruelty, preaching rebellious truth while bulldozing others, treating people as means, and subjecting his younger brother to the same withholding discipline.
Read at Slate Magazine
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