[Show Intro] Jala Hey, thanks for coming! I'm glad you're here. Come on in! Everyone's out on the patio right now. Looks like a couple of people are in the garden. I can't wait to introduce you! Can I get you anything? [turned away] Hey folks, our new guest is here! [Intro music] 00:00:01.37 Jala Hello world and welcome to Jala-chan's Place. I'm your host, Jala Prendes (she/her) and today I am rejoined by a good friend of mine, Dave Jackson (he/him) from Tales from the Backlog. Woo! Hey Dave. 00:00:15.83 Dave Jackson Yeah, Jala, good to be back. Thank you for ah letting me come back to talk about this book that I just happened to be reading when you were talking about recording about it. So glad to be back. 00:00:27.06 Jala I know it was definitely Providence! Providence! To refer to the Nosferatu episode from last month and the creepy weird guy in there, Knock, who is very good, very, very well acted, that particular guy. 00:00:43.58 Jala Anyway, so we are continuing the wildly gothic winter season, I suppose, with another installment of another gothic tale, this time ah one of my favorite books, Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley. 00:01:01.15 Jala So I've talked about Phantom of the Opera before, that one has been um one of my absolute favorite books since the beginning of time. Phantom of the Opera was one of my favorite IPs, favorite characters, and favorite stories um from before I became a fan of Frankenstein. 00:01:17.74 Jala But Frankenstein followed pretty quick afterwards. So um this kind of era is just ah an era that I like to hang out in. And because of working on my game project, I am now studying the Belle Epoque. 00:01:33.68 Jala And so now I have several books on the Bell of Book and like, I'm just reading about everything in the same time period. I'm just going to be here for a while. 00:01:43.05 Dave Jackson Hell yeah. 00:01:43.16 Jala So yay. 00:01:43.53 Dave Jackson love Love to just live through a historical era through all this this old media. Love it. 00:01:49.30 Jala Right, right. and And that's just not even adding all the other stuff I've been reading lately, all associated, like, you know, public domain stuff people are reprinting, you know, just to make a bug, but hey, that's cool. 00:02:02.02 Jala Tales of the Weird from the British Library. Anyway, how are you doing, Dave? How's it been? It's been like a I don't know, a year and a half, two years. I don't know. How long has it been since the last time you were on? It's been a minute. 00:02:13.24 Dave Jackson It has been a minute. I've been good. I would, I mean, just off the top of my head, not much has changed. I'm still playing games, doing podcasts. ah But I am here. i would like to i would like to just point out, part of the reason I'm so excited to be here is to prove to all my haters that I do read books. And I've been reading a lot more in 2025. I've read ah more books this year than the last couple years combined. And um I just happened to pull Frankenstein off the shelf like 00:02:45.18 Dave Jackson a week before you and I started talking about it, however it started happening. So, uh, I have been reading. That is what I've been doing and playing ah too many video games. Of course. 00:02:55.75 Jala I'm talking about too many video games and editing too many shows about video. 00:02:58.01 Dave Jackson Yes, of course. 00:02:59.35 Jala Yeah. ah The content. 00:03:00.54 Dave Jackson That is how it goes. 00:03:01.76 Jala Yeah. The content mill never stops churning. So yeah, it's, ah yeah I usually for these types of things, try to ah pull people who are already currently in the middle of doing the thing that I'm doing rather than trying to ask someone to do something because God knows that's hard to get anybody to actually do a thing, ah even if they're interested in it, just because time and commitments and, you know, adulting and and the world on fire. 00:03:14.41 Dave Jackson Mm-hmm. 00:03:23.03 Dave Jackson right 00:03:27.25 Jala I mean, I don't know, whatever. 00:03:28.57 Dave Jackson yeah i mean like Frankenstein's not the longest book but it is still an entire book to ask someone to read but i was like i said i was already reading it so perfect 00:03:39.93 Jala I know. And so like when I sidled up and I'm like, Hey, Dave, Hey, Dave Frankenstein. 00:03:45.30 Dave Jackson ah 00:03:46.62 Jala And you're like, yeah, I'm reading it. I'm really enjoying it. I'm like, really? 00:03:49.95 Dave Jackson Mm-hmm. 00:03:51.00 Jala Guess what? I'm recording a podcast about that book. 00:03:53.46 Dave Jackson ah That's, I mean, that's how it goes. So little of our, uh, so little of our like entertainment time, our, our video games we play or books that we read movies, we watch so little of those just stay with us. 00:03:58.39 Jala Right. 00:04:07.62 Dave Jackson We make, we just like talking about them now. Like I think part of the fun is even if it, even if it starts out as something that's like, I'm just going to read this book and that's going to be for me. 00:04:10.17 Jala Right, right. 00:04:17.10 Dave Jackson If I have fun with something that I'm like, I would like to talk about this in depth with somebody. 00:04:22.26 Dave Jackson It's a lot of fun. So thanks for having me back here for it. 00:04:23.83 Jala Right. Yeah. Yeah. And like, um, that's, it's a thing where like, I refused to watch movies or shows or literally anything that was more than like 15 minutes on my own, because I like the experience of sharing that with people. 00:04:39.02 Jala And so like, you know, uh, one way that people can do that is, uh, play the the single player game or, or enjoy the book by yourself or whatever, but then talk to somebody about it. 00:04:50.00 Jala That's, that's part of the fun of podcasting. So before we go into a little bit more of this stuff, I want you to tell people at the top about your show. We already said video games. Most everybody already knows you, but just in case we have some new folks, tell us about Tales from the Backlog. 00:05:06.20 Dave Jackson Yes, so Tales from the Backlog is a weekly video game deep dive and analysis show. Every episode is me with a different guest, and we talk about one game per week, and it is no spoiler for a while. We talk about all the stuff we can before we get into story spoilers, and then we warn you when spoilers are coming, so every episode of my show is safe if you have not played that particular game and don't want to be spoiled. so By the time people hear this, I will be nearing 200 games covered on the show. 00:05:39.21 Dave Jackson So there's a wide variety of stuff that ah people can go check out. 00:05:40.35 Jala Woo. 00:05:43.27 Dave Jackson And Jolly, you've been on the show a couple of times. Dave has been on the show a couple of times. We always have good conversations there. And there's ah a huge variety of guests. 00:05:53.43 Dave Jackson I'm the only permanent person on the show. So there's a lot of different ah tones, lot of different vibes, a lot of different games. So I like the variety in there. 00:06:03.92 Dave Jackson so That is Tales from the Backlog. 00:06:06.36 Jala Yeah, yeah. So definitely check that out. Of course, there will be a link in the show notes. So if folks do not already follow and watch and subscribe and listen, because now you have video content too and whatever, like, you know, to go do the thing people. 00:06:22.92 Jala So as for us, uh, we are on Ko-Fi ko-fi.com/fireheartmedia. I'm not going to belabor that y'all know what to do. Tell people if you like it, let's talk about Frankenstein now. 00:06:33.82 Dave Jackson Yeah, let's do it. 00:06:35.58 Jala Yes, so a Frankenstein or the modern Prometheus is an 1818 gothic novel considered to be an early example of science fiction and is also perhaps one of the first or is at least the best known example of the mad scientist trope. 00:06:52.12 Jala It is a product of the romantic movement directly. so We will talk more about what these words mean as we go along. ah But ah more or less. So gothic, you've got your moody, ah dark horror, you know, dramatic. You know, people usually think gothic. They also think like Victorian era, things like that. 00:07:14.65 Jala Romanticism is a movement that we'll dig in a little bit more later, but it is largely very much about like the connection, direct connection, man and nature being one and the beauty and the power of nature and how that directly influences in this tied to everything and when we go through the book in more detail which will be later I've adopted the whole spoiler free at the beginning section you know kind of thing that you've got for your format um once we get into spoilers and we talk about it more detail we will talk about how each of the different places that this book is set in, all the different scenarios and everything are directly mirroring, like the environment directly mirrors what the characters are feeling or thinking or whatever at that time. 00:07:14.70 Dave Jackson Mm-hmm. 00:08:07.28 Jala or it's what that character needs as a balm, as an aid, as a divine and intervention, if you will, while we're going through. So that's a very important point. 00:08:19.15 Jala That's part of romanticism. Basically ah the Shelley family had, um well, not the Shelley family, but, Wollstonecraft family, her father, and ah he had a lot of people in, a lot of poets and other such folks who would come and just literally read. 00:08:38.89 Dave Jackson Mm-hmm. 00:08:42.56 Jala Like the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and that's one of the big influences for this story. novel, Coleridge, the guy who wrote it, he literally was in their parlor reading the basic format, like the original script, the rough draft of the thing before he had published it. And so Mary Shelley, you know, or Mary Wollstonecraft at that time anyway, she listened to that whole thing and was rapt at attention. And that was just like in her bones and in the bones of this book, you know, as a result of that. So very cool. Very cool. 00:09:18.42 Jala So Dave, tell us a little bit about how it was originally published. 00:09:24.50 Dave Jackson The book was originally published anonymously, which I didn't know. That's just wild to just anonymously publish a book. I don't know the circumstances around that. 00:09:35.42 Dave Jackson Probably, i don't know, i assume it's because she was a woman 1818 and 00:09:40.15 Jala And 19 at the time when she wrote it, so yeah. 00:09:40.50 Dave Jackson didn't Yeah, so, right. ah Published anonymously, second edition in 1821, bore Mary Shelley's name. 00:09:50.87 Dave Jackson As the book was morally ambiguous, it offended the religious sensibilities of the time and came under critique. Again, hard to believe sarcasm. 00:10:01.63 Dave Jackson In 1831, Mary revised and re-released the work, almost certainly as a response to that criticism and because she needed the money. 00:10:11.93 Dave Jackson And i will just say right now, the 1831 version is the version that i read. 00:10:17.65 Dave Jackson um i have not read previous versions of it or later versions of it. 00:10:17.91 Jala oh 00:10:21.05 Jala Right. Well, that's something that we will talk about because when we go to the spoiler-y section, we will talk about the 1818 original and then we will discuss what things were changed in the 1831. 00:10:35.40 Jala I have a whole bunch of notes just on that. So we can go through and dig through all of that. 00:10:38.90 Dave Jackson Mm-hmm. 00:10:41.88 Jala Different people prefer one or the other version for one or another reason. And there's not ah a right answer um The book was originally written when Mary Shelley was 19 before she had a lot of very hard life experiences and the way that she felt about the book and the way that she felt about the characters and the narrative and everything changed over time and you can see those changes in the different ways that this book presents itself. 00:11:09.31 Jala So um part of your kind of compassion for Victor, at least from what I know from our talks in the green room, Dave, um kind of comes from the fact that in 1831, herself identified more with Victor, whereas in identified more with the creature and so like the iterate and then also like the Guillermo del Toro movie that just came out that one's based on the 1818 version of the book so uh just a few things that are interesting to note again we'll go into it in more detail but first we are going to go spoiler free talk about influences talk about Mary Shelley's life and so on So, the spoiler-free plot, for anybody who doesn't know the plot of Frankenstein, I don't know if you exist, but if you want a spoiler-free plot, a daring young scientist, Victor Frankenstein, discovers the secret of generation and crafts a new being composed of corpses. As soon as he animates it, he is horrified by what he's done and everyone suffers irrevocable consequences. 00:12:13.45 Dave Jackson Mm-hmm. 00:12:13.53 Jala So she was, the author Mary Shelley was extremely well read. This woman kept logs of all the books. She had Goodreads before Goodreads existed, like so far before Goodreads. 00:12:27.78 Jala And she also had a big to-read list it was literally just like a wish list and everything. Like she had it all written out. And she drew on so many different references for this book. 00:12:39.28 Jala Like if you want to actually dig into all of all of what influenced this book, you're going to be digging for a while. You've got the Bible, Paradise Lost by John Milton because of themes of free will and the moral consequences of disobeying God. 00:12:46.38 Dave Jackson Mm-hmm. 00:12:53.74 Jala The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, which I mentioned previously, one of the last lines of this poem. So The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. 00:13:04.94 Jala follows this whole track of these people who are out at sea. And what happens is more or less like they're lost at sea and then they see this albatross flying. And at first they're like, that's a good omen. It's going to lead us to land. And then for some unknown reason, the ancient mariner gets it in his head that it's, it needs to be killed. They're just going to eat it or whatever. like it that They're just going to kill the thing. You know, ah he he decides he wants to kill He kills it. And then they, 00:13:32.28 Jala immediately just like suffer lots of bad things and are starving out on the ocean. And so the other sailors with him ah tie it around his neck and make him walk around with this albatross around his neck, which is a ah phrase you might hear from time to time. 00:13:46.58 Dave Jackson yeah 00:13:47.00 Jala It comes from this. And um so anyway, like all of the people one by one died except for him. And so like the story is set as this old man who's talking to a guy who's on his way to like a wedding and gets stopped by this old, old scraggly dude. 00:14:04.09 Jala And this old scraggly dude is just going off and telling him this whole thing. And then at the end, you know, like he just like, you know, the guy is just like, okay, I really got to go though. And like he leaves after that. 00:14:15.41 Jala But like one of the lines from there, "he prayeth best who loveth best, all things both great and small for the dear God who loveth us, he made and loveth all." 00:14:26.12 Jala And that is kind of like um the, the creatures, the thrust of the creatures part of the narrative. is some this kind of concept, this this need that we have to, we we should be loving all, and if we don't, we are failing, and we too will have this albatross around our neck. 00:14:34.24 Dave Jackson Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 00:14:46.02 Jala We too will become the Victor Frankenstein's of the world, that kind of thing. Other thing, oh yeah, yeah. 00:14:53.25 Dave Jackson I was going to say, good to know. Obviously, I know of the metaphor of the albatross, but I didn't know more about the bigger story of Rime of the Ancient Mariner. 00:15:04.15 Dave Jackson Also, a pretty decent Iron Maiden song, which is probably the most I know about that phrase. 00:15:06.94 Jala yeah Right. 00:15:09.41 Dave Jackson So, yeah, good stuff. 00:15:11.26 Jala Well, it's not too long of a poem. It is like ah a, you know, a long form poem. It is a pages long, but like, it's a pretty good poem. 00:15:16.47 Dave Jackson Mm-hmm. 00:15:19.28 Jala um I definitely would recommend folks look at that because it is pretty influential here. ah So other things that were influent influential were the journals of Captain Cook, So that just kind of describes sea voyages in the Arctic, which is exactly lifted for Mary Shelley, so because she's never been to the Arctic. 00:15:39.54 Jala What does she know about that? you know But she needs to put in her book. 00:15:41.21 Dave Jackson Yeah. 00:15:42.42 Jala I know that feeling. I've done a lot of research on random topics for writing projects. so Other things. The legend of Dr. Faust. This is a Faustian tale. I don't think I really need to but The deal with the devil. 00:15:57.05 Jala ah That's all I'm going to say about that. You you should, y'all probably already know the Faustian bargain. Anyway, Tintern Abbey by William Wordsworth, which is a romantic view of the self as one with the world around them and the importance of the environmental setting. 00:16:13.71 Jala We've talked about that before. other stuff. Some of Percy Shelley's work, so this is Mary's husband, Mont Blanc, The Sea of Ice and Mutability. 00:16:25.02 Jala There's an emphasis on the Swiss landscapes, beauty and power, descriptions of areas to be found in Frankenstein. She literally lifts quotes from this and puts it in her book. Because like they were all hanging out and we'll talk about it in more detail. 00:16:35.12 Dave Jackson Yeah. 00:16:39.22 Jala They were all hanging out one summer when it was real cold for some, you know, like for environmental reasons. There was like ah a volcanic eruption in Indonesia that made the ash fall, like just made the entire world colder. 00:16:52.92 Jala for that summer. So it was the summer without, um like a summer without end, I forget the exact name of it. um But anyway they were just hanging out indoors because they couldn't go outside and enjoy the summer so they decided to do ghost stories and Frankenstein was Mary Shelley's story. 00:17:08.14 Dave Jackson Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 00:17:12.22 Jala So anyway, um so mutability is directly quoted in Frankenstein. Its themes of choice in the past being irrevocable are things that are present in Mary's story. 00:17:22.65 Jala Other things, Lord Byron, who was also one of the people there hanging out together, Prometheus, Darkness, and Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto 3. Prometheus is a poem covering the gift of fire to man by the Titan Prometheus, who is then eternally punished by the gods. 00:17:39.19 Jala Darkness is a poem about a nightmare of the end of days. And Childe Harold's pi Pilgrimage is an epic poem about a young man disillusioned with a life of pleasure looking for distraction in foreign lands and is an expression of the melancholy and disillusionment felt by a generation weary of the wars of the post-revolutionary and Napoleonic eras. So like ah the Gothic slash end of the Romantic era, like these people have been through lots of wars, like there's been a lot of wars going on. There's also a lot of industrialization going on, a lot of revolutions going on. So everything's in a massive upheaval and that plays a part in anything that you read from this era. 00:18:23.08 Dave Jackson Mm-hmm. 00:18:23.90 Jala There's also like a million other things. The Old Familiar Faces by Charles Lamb, which is a poem about childhood loved ones lost and grieving and death. That's a big prominent thing in here. 00:18:35.86 Jala um There's Giovanni Aldani's public attempts at human reanimation via bioelectric galvanism in London. That's a thing she'd read about at that point. Johann Conrad Dippel's supposed chemical means of extending the lifespan of humans, theories of Erasmus Darwin, experiments of Luigi Galvani, the work of James Lind, 00:18:59.04 Jala And it was also a critical response to the scientific revolution, which began in the 1600s. So very much rooted in history, very much rooted in everything she was reading and seeing in the news, basically, whatever form of news she absorbed from wherever she was at. 00:19:15.86 Dave Jackson Yeah. 00:19:17.24 Jala Everything. 00:19:17.30 Dave Jackson Yeah. if you're If you're familiar with, like if you have read the book, you could go down this list of influences and societal historical things, contemporary history, and you're just like, these are all of the puzzle pieces for the story of Frankenstein. 00:19:30.20 Jala Right. And that's, you know, like in in the real beauty of authorship is not in, oh, I'm making something quote unquote original. 00:19:41.74 Jala It is in how you weave everything together that is influencing you at that time, that's driving your narrative forward. 00:19:48.95 Dave Jackson Yeah. 00:19:50.97 Jala And What is so amazing about this book in general is she was 19 when she wrote it and it has so much depth to it and so much of a cultural impact but also it draws on everything, everything going on at the time as well. 00:19:59.48 Dave Jackson yeah 00:20:08.66 Jala It's so artfully done, it's a fucking amazing book. 00:20:12.52 Dave Jackson Yeah. Yeah. um Yeah. Way to make me think back of myself at age 19 and just like, what what was my creative output at the age of 19? 00:20:22.01 Jala Right. 00:20:22.51 Dave Jackson was not this. it was not this I'll say that. 00:20:26.23 Jala Right, right. So tell us a little bit about the cultural impact of this. 00:20:31.70 Dave Jackson Yeah, well, ah for those who are unaware, this is one of the best known tales in all of English literature. 00:20:38.94 Jala hmm. 00:20:39.06 Dave Jackson It's inspired a lot of works in its own era all the way to the modern day, including it it has to be one of the most adapted stories ah ever, even if it's not... 00:20:50.36 Dave Jackson even if it's not movies titled Frankenstein, of which there are lots, or, you know, other ah adaptations, like pure adaptations, it has to be one of the most inspirational things. 00:20:54.47 Jala Right. Right. 00:21:03.00 Dave Jackson um I mean, there are countless analogs to, like you said, the mad scientist trope, um you know, any kind of monster or things like that. ah Frankenstein's influence is unassailable, we'll say. So a lot of new stories share elements from this and the themes, which ah you know we'll talk about later. I'm not sure if we want to talk about ah you know top level or want to save it for spoilers, but we'll talk about those. Those themes are universal and it's one of the reasons those themes continue to like stick with us 200 plus years later. 00:21:41.33 Jala Right. And just this this just this year alone, in 2025, I have been obsessively watching Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein movie, but also there's another movie coming out that was advertised during that movie that's called The Bride, and it's got, what's his head? um What's his head? The guy who played in American Psycho. 00:22:03.37 Jala What's his head? The lead guy. 00:22:04.82 Dave Jackson Christian Bale? 00:22:05.91 Jala Yeah, there you go. He's in there. 00:22:06.97 Dave Jackson Okay. 00:22:07.47 Jala He's Frankenstein. And it's called The Bride. 00:22:09.18 Dave Jackson Okay. Yeah. 00:22:10.02 Jala Anyway, it looks terrible. It looks terrible. Go watch the trailer if you want to see it. I mean, it might be good, but the trailer makes it look terrible. And I am not, I'm not interested in that at all. It's bad. 00:22:20.71 Jala But yeah, like there's lots of adaptations of this, adaptations of the story, borrowing of the story, borrowing of the themes, pretty obviously. 00:22:21.11 Dave Jackson Yeah. 00:22:28.94 Jala I mean, you know, it's ubiquitous at this point. And that's part of why it's, you know, a challenge to talk about it. 00:22:32.44 Dave Jackson Yeah. 00:22:36.30 Jala um We can talk about the themes a little bit. ill I'll toss to you if you want to talk about some of the themes that interest you the most about this book. 00:22:46.20 Dave Jackson Sure. Yeah. I think like ah one of the, one of the themes that interests me the most is just this like unchecked passion and unchecked, um, 00:22:59.80 Dave Jackson desire for progress, we'll say, is something that like I'm, yeah I'll just say, like fairly angry about with some current events um and like technological advances and stuff. There seems to be an unchecked desire for progress, technological and scientific progress, without considering the human effect. 00:23:22.46 Jala The human cost. 00:23:22.62 Dave Jackson of it. And yes, the human cost and then, you know, the ongoing effects and things like that. 00:23:23.86 Jala Yeah, really. Right. 00:23:28.96 Dave Jackson And boy, that is just one of the main themes of Frankenstein is this unchecked, you know, desire for progress and desire for like, you know, forbidden knowledge or however you want to label it and the effect of it. 00:23:33.17 Jala Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 00:23:42.26 Dave Jackson And then, you know, as a result of that, the, you know complete avoidance of responsibility from the people who made those decisions that impact lives and things like that. 00:23:55.13 Dave Jackson So that's something that, you know, that's a universal thing. That's not just a 2025 thing, but um it is something that is on the front of my mind a lot these days. 00:24:06.18 Dave Jackson And reading Frankenstein, those themes really resonated with me in particular. 00:24:11.86 Jala Right. And the thing is, is that that's, that's the magic of this book because you can read it and it will always apply. It's something about it is always going to apply because it's working with these big ideas and, you know, making statements about those ideas. 00:24:20.42 Dave Jackson Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. 00:24:28.54 Jala So, um, for me, one of the things that has been the most enduring of the different, various different themes in here, um, There's a few. 00:24:38.67 Jala So the biggest one I would say, because I wrote a term paper in college on it, is the whole compare contrast of Frankenstein with Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. 00:24:51.03 Jala And that book is, is so this book is, they both address nature versus nurture. Okay. 00:25:00.45 Jala Frankenstein has the creature have inherent good to him. And it is society who then corrupts him in terms of like um their reaction to him, their response to them, how they treat him and so on and so forth. And that's, you know, the magic that makes the monster really. And um in Heart of Darkness, 00:25:25.30 Jala when Kurtz is taken out of society and goes into the Congo, he turns into a wild man and just, you know, like he was kept in check and kept good by society. 00:25:37.38 Jala And as soon as he's removed from repercussions, turns into a villain. And so um just kind of juxtaposing these two ideas and which one of these is reality. 00:25:42.00 Dave Jackson Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 00:25:46.66 Jala I mean the real, the truth is neither one of them is fully true. That's you know kind of the point. But like comparing and contrasting those two concepts, these two works that are both very pertinent and interesting and in going over these points is something that has always been interesting. Also for me is the entire idea of how Victor Frankenstein is just ah eradicating woman's role from creation. 00:26:14.62 Jala And, you know, he is now able to make people without women. 00:26:20.54 Dave Jackson ah Yes. 00:26:22.12 Jala And, um you know, like, granted, that's also something that can be done now. As long as you have an egg cell, you can do that in a test tube, you know, or whatever, and whatever, whatever kind of thing. 00:26:31.89 Dave Jackson Mm-hmm. 00:26:33.05 Jala You can grow life without that process. But, um, It's interesting because Mary Shelley had a miscarriage and we'll, we'll talk more about her in a minute, but like she had a miscarriage and had lost a baby. Um, I think right before she had written this book and everything. 00:26:50.78 Jala And so like when we get into more of her life, you'll see a little bit about why that might've, um, you know, influenced her. And it's interesting that a woman was writing this, you know, this point of view, 00:27:00.44 Dave Jackson Mm-hmm. 00:27:02.74 Jala rather than it be like, it wouldn't be interesting if it was a guy who had written this, you know? The fact that it's a woman who did though, um yeah her mother was very much a feminist and she kind of like carried that torch forward with you know with herself as she moved through her life. And so in her work she definitely has that fire of feminism. um But it's interesting because there's no big you know female characters in here except Elizabeth who's not really a big player. 00:27:33.12 Jala She's like kept in the dark and over to the side. 00:27:34.03 Dave Jackson Yeah. Sure. 00:27:36.04 Jala So we'll dig more into that later. but um Let's talk about just in general on this book, your overall thoughts and your opinion and who you'd recommend it to. 00:27:48.66 Jala Then we will talk about Mary Shelley herself and then we'll get to the spoilers. So I've been talking a minute, Dave. 00:27:57.14 Dave Jackson Yeah. So I think like, so first of all, if it's not clear already, I really, really liked the book. And i think the thing that took me most by surprise, ah because like I, I figured when I started reading it, I figured there would, I would appreciate it. 00:28:14.58 Dave Jackson As I can appreciate most of the classics, um even if I don't like love, love all of them, I appreciate a lot of them. So I figured that would be the case. What surprised me was how easy this was to read for a book that's over 200 years old. 00:28:27.95 Jala Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 00:28:30.74 Dave Jackson Not always the case with books that are this old. um This is a, especially once you get... probably about a third of the way into the book, like basically after the monsters created, it's a page turner. 00:28:44.38 Dave Jackson And if I wasn't reading this every night before bed, I probably would have blown through this in three or four sittings, basically. 00:28:44.54 Jala ha 00:28:52.15 Jala thank you 00:28:52.40 Dave Jackson Like I was astounded at how easy it was to read. Um, I mean, it's it's not you know it's not modern language, but it's still there is an elegance to it. It doesn't get bogged down by too much you know description or ah you know I didn't have to stop and look up words and stuff like that. um i That was the big takeaway for me easy read. really, really enjoyed the content, of course. And um just a ah fun note here. So I picked my book up. I was trying to remember. I've had this book on my shelf for decades at this point. 00:29:32.44 Dave Jackson I think I picked it up at a big book sale, like a school or a library was selling books. And I it probably picked it up for like a buck or something. I remember going to a building at the fairgrounds and they just had, you know, thousands of books in there for sale for cheap. And I think I just saw Frankenstein was like, yoink, I'll grab that for 50 cents or a dollar or whatever. And so I had not opened it. And when I started reading it, I sent you some pictures of this. This very clearly was some high school kids like class book for their English class. And so it had a a bunch of annotations and it started out as like, um, 00:30:15.22 Dave Jackson it started out as like, oh, the teacher told them this is a reference to romanticism right here. So the kid like wrote it in the margins and stuff. 00:30:24.47 Jala Mm-hmm. 00:30:24.66 Dave Jackson And then that devolved into just like them just writing their thoughts in the margins. Like how the fuck did he know this? Like that's a literal quote that they wrote in the margins of the book. 00:30:36.16 Dave Jackson So I loved reading the book. And then just like that little cherry on top was like, like re-experiencing it through this high school kid whenever, wherever they were, was very funny to me. So a little extra entertainment. But i really liked it. I can't really think of anyone who I wouldn't recommend this to. And I would especially recommend it to people who think that, ah quote, the classics are too difficult, too slow, ah you know, too outdated, basically, because none of those are true about Frankenstein. 00:31:09.40 Jala Right. So I have a couple of things to say in response. So first off about that kid's comment, you know, with the, how the fuck does he know? 00:31:12.81 Dave Jackson Yeah. 00:31:16.00 Jala I actually, in one of the, um, things that I was reading, studying, because I will be talking about Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein next. 00:31:16.41 Dave Jackson Yeah. 00:31:26.03 Jala When I was looking at stuff about that, one of the points that that movie makes is that the creature is not learning for the first time. He's able to pick up on language and everything as easily as he does because he's remembering language. He is made of different people and he has physical memories like muscle memories and he has dreams of the lives of the different people that he used to be. 00:31:57.20 Jala And things like that. So he actually still retains knowledge of these things. He's just recalling it because he's made of parts. And that's a very cool detail to consider. 00:32:04.89 Dave Jackson Right. 00:32:08.96 Jala And it kind of casts the eloquence of the creature in a different light when you go to this book. 00:32:14.42 Dave Jackson Mm-hmm. 00:32:15.80 Jala Because that's probably something similar to what Mary Shelley was intending, although she didn't specifically say so. um 00:32:22.93 Dave Jackson Right. 00:32:23.74 Jala So the other thing that I wanted to say is that about the writing style. So she was actually given a lot of shit by a lot of critics for a long time because her writing style is quote unquote simple. 00:32:36.98 Jala And so they were like, you don't have the highfalutin language that, you know, ah Lord Byron and all these other people that you were hanging out with had. You know, she talked very plainly because she was a 19 year old woman in the 1800s. 00:32:50.63 Jala I mean, what are you looking for? You know, um but she was very, very well read, but she just didn't write like men of that era. 00:32:53.01 Dave Jackson Yeah. 00:33:00.86 Jala And that's the big indicator there. So like in her day and age, this would be kind of um more picked up by the general public than it would by highfalutin, high-minded people. 00:33:16.15 Jala And it was actually immediately adapted into like a stage play and a bunch of other versions, and she wasn't getting a cut. And there's a whole lot we'll talk about when we get to her. um So yeah, but as for me, as for me and my thoughts about this, ah this book was one of my favorite books. It it was probably my second favorite book slash, i you know, IP, if you will, um after I got into Phantom of the Opera. 00:33:40.38 Jala So Phantom of the Opera was first. I don't know exactly how old I was. It was single digits when I got into Phantom of the Opera. Like I saw Lon Chaney's Phantom of the Opera on TV and I just fell in love with that. And then I saw Weber's version of the musical, love that. And I've just loved it ever since. And then I read the book and whatever. And I actually, it's funny. i Still to this day, I've found an appreciation for the book, but for most of my life, I have hated the book, the original book of Phantom of the Opera, because I don't like the way that the the guy who wrote it was a court reporter, and it shows. 00:34:19.00 Jala And that's ah that's what I'll say about that. 00:34:19.21 Dave Jackson hmm 00:34:21.48 Jala ah But anyway, um for this book though, like I love the way it's written. i love um the story. It is definitely a page turner. It's one of the first things that actually felt suspenseful to me when I was reading it, because that's a lot of the thing is that like it's emotional, it's suspenseful, it really draws you into these worlds inside the heads of these characters, as well as on the world outside and how that mirrors. 00:34:47.02 Jala And because it's gothic, it's got the drama. Because it's romantic, everything is together in one unanimous kind of feeling as we go through everything. And it just kind of hits a sweet spot of, you know, um really, really getting into the media for me. 00:35:04.12 Dave Jackson Mm-hmm. 00:35:04.98 Jala So, yes, I've also always felt empathy for the creature, much like I have always felt empathy for Eric slash the Phantom. I've always been a creature fan, like I'm always for the underdog. I feel bad for the one who everybody hates on because they're ugly or whatever. like you know, been there, been there. Okay. So, you know, uh, anyway, um, I, I don't even know which version I read first, but I have both versions. And and like I was telling you, Dave, I have like a minimum ah of at least eight different copies of this book, uh, in different, printings and additions with some with different types of artwork or cool covers or whatever. And and I've got a bunch of them on my shelf. So yeah. 00:35:49.56 Jala But anyway, I would recommend this book to anybody who likes suspense or philosophy or horror or sci-fi or I mean, there's a whole lot of other things as well. 00:35:56.06 Dave Jackson agreed. 00:36:01.31 Jala It's a great book. Check it out. yeah 00:36:04.12 Dave Jackson agreed 00:36:05.59 Jala So, since I've been talking for a minute, Dave, start telling us about Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. 00:36:12.69 Dave Jackson I would love to tell everyone about Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. So she lived from 1797 to 1851. Her mother was a philosopher and women's rights advocate, and her father was a political philosopher. 00:36:28.49 Dave Jackson You can start to see where some of the philosophy in Frankenstein may have come from. 00:36:33.98 Jala Right. 00:36:35.61 Dave Jackson Her mother died 11 days after her birth due to complications with the pregnancy, so she was raised by her father, who imbued her with his own anarchist ideology and a rigorous homeschooling program before entering into a troubled second marriage. 00:36:51.79 Dave Jackson ah Mary did not get along well with her stepmother. She also blamed herself for the death of her mother and the sundering of her family. 00:37:00.25 Jala And you can see right from the start here, the anarchy, why do you think the church didn't like it so much? And then why would you think she might have published this anonymously? 00:37:07.67 Dave Jackson Yeah. 00:37:11.13 Jala and also, you know her blaming herself for the death of her mother and for her thinking that she's the cause of of this family being troubled afterwards. 00:37:22.10 Jala um It's very much her feeling like the creature. She is the creature given this unwanted life that she she didn't ask for this. She didn't want to kill her mother, but her birth, her very existence is a problem in her life when she's 19 and she's writing this book. 00:37:44.28 Jala she yeah she So let's talk about some of her drama. She got so much drama, oh my god. So she became she became ah romantically inclined toward one of her father's political disciples, Percy Shelley. 00:37:58.39 Jala And he was already married. She, yeah she and her half-sister, Claire Claremont, and Percy traveled Europe and came back with Mary pregnant with Percy's child while he was still married. 00:38:01.04 Dave Jackson Ooh-hoo-hoo. 00:38:11.81 Jala And the couple was ostracized and struggled financially and their daughter was premature and died, as mentioned before. They married a couple of years after this relationship began in 1816, after Percy's existing wife committed suicide. 00:38:28.69 Jala having found out about everything else. 00:38:29.05 Dave Jackson The drama. 00:38:30.69 Jala So ah yeah, so yeah that same year, the famous year without a summer, that's what the phrase was, year without a summer. 00:38:38.94 Jala The couple, Mary's half-sister Claire, Lord Byron, and John William Polidori all spent a summer together near Geneva. Now, John William Polidori is another famous author from that time period, so they're all very highfalutin author types. except for Claire Claremont who was her half sister who was banging Lord Byron at the time. 00:39:02.71 Dave Jackson fair enough then. 00:39:03.93 Jala Oh, it gets it gets it gets so much more. all right. So, Claire Claremont probably was also banging Mary's husband, Percy, at the time. 00:39:17.21 Jala So there's some suggestion that that might have been a thing as well. But anyway, they all passed their time when they weren't doing that by reading ghost stories to each other. 00:39:28.11 Dave Jackson I was going to say, where'd they find the time to write ghost stories? 00:39:31.32 Dave Jackson Everyone's just banging all the time. 00:39:31.48 Jala Well, why do you think Mary's the only one who successfully finished a story? 00:39:36.85 Dave Jackson That's fair enough. Yeah, i got you got a point there. 00:39:37.59 Jala Everybody else was in the other room and she was over there like, I've got a banger of an idea, guys. 00:39:44.73 Dave Jackson Yeah, exactly. 00:39:44.83 Jala And they're like, we've got a banger too, but it's not that. yeah 00:39:49.11 Dave Jackson Not the same type. Yeah. 00:39:51.00 Jala Right. So Lord Byron decided that he you know they should all do a horror writing contest to see who can do the best ghost story. And that's when Mary decided to write her novel and no one else really produced much. And everybody just kind of lost interest right away, which happens usually when you are in a group of guys and you're like, hey, everybody, you're all drinking and chilling out. And you're like, hell let's do this thing. It'll be great. And then somebody writes three lines and then they put down their pen and then somebody else writes two pages and then they stop. And then there's that one person, that one dedicated person writing in the corner. And that that was Mary. 00:40:28.84 Dave Jackson Mm-hmm. 00:40:28.88 Jala So she was 18 when she began the story and she published it. It actually came out with her, I believe with her name when she was 20, but it was published anonymously when she was 19. 00:40:40.73 Jala So technically she started it when she was 18. But Percy, her husband, did perform heavy editing work on the original. Mary used plainer speech and Percy, who was a poet, added some more florid word choices and turns of phrase and sometimes actually rewrote entire sections. There's different versions that you can get like the Norton Critical Edition has some of the original Frankenstein notebooks that show some of the edits and some of the original text and like where things were embellished and everything. 00:41:13.94 Jala So meanwhile, after all of that happened, Claire eventually bore Lord Byron's child and sent her to him. And he shoved the baby into a convent and she died. 00:41:26.20 Jala Because he was like, because if y'all don't know about Lord Byron, he was like a player. He was all over the place banging everybody all the time, constantly. 00:41:36.24 Jala So Clara was not the first. She was not the last. She was, I don't even know what number she was. We don't know how many children he had, you know? But anyway, so he definitely didn't want to be tied to a baby. 00:41:48.92 Jala So he put the baby in a convent and yeah. 00:41:51.03 Dave Jackson Yeah. Keeping the convents ah stocked. Good job, Lord Byron. 00:41:56.28 Jala Right, well, as you might imagine, this caused bad blood between the sisters and Lord Byron for a number of years. So both Claire Claremont and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley hated his guts for a long time. 00:42:11.64 Jala And Mary and Percy had two more children, but only one of them survived, Percy Florence Shelley. Percy Sr., the husband, died of drowning in 1822, only four years after the couple got married. So he just was off on a lake somewhere and fell in and just like... 00:42:29.30 Jala fucking drowned and she he's gone, Mary's tried to have kids and all but one of them died and then I think Percy Florence Shelley was like really sickly if I remember correctly. 00:42:39.78 Jala um She devoted her life to raising her son and was often struggling financially in part because of the fact that like she and Percy had so much scandal and this kind of excommunicated her from a lot of her possible support network. 00:42:57.43 Jala As you might imagine. So anyway, ah so she ends up contacting Lord Byron. um Lord Byron was really moved by by Percy's death and was like, 00:43:13.11 Jala hey, you know, we was besties. And I know you hate me, Mary, but like, I think it's probably better if I just like help support you from now on. I'll be your sugar daddy and I'll keep you and your little son afloat in the name of Percy. 00:43:28.37 Jala Except like he thought that was a great idea. 00:43:28.79 Dave Jackson Mm-hmm. 00:43:30.29 Jala But then when she was like, hey, I need money for food, he's like, could you fuck off? Like he got bored and and mad because he got bored about everything and he just got irritated. 00:43:42.29 Jala He did end up keeping them afloat for a while, but um you know, like he then eventually just got irritated and couldn't be bothered and wanted to go somewhere else and go bang some more women. 00:43:52.30 Jala So, um you know, he spent his money elsewhere. But Mary, by the time she died finally, did think really fondly of him. At that point. 00:44:03.51 Jala But like they have definitely were up and down all throughout their lives. So... 00:44:09.46 Dave Jackson this uh this is like the most depressing reality show ah that you're describing with uh with her life and the people around her 00:44:15.48 Jala And it's... And you know, it's the simple version. This is the Cliffs Notes. 00:44:22.36 Jala Yeah, it's a lot. But yeah, in 1831, she sold the right the copyright to her book to Richard Bentley for 30 pounds. 00:44:32.64 Jala That was the last benefit she or her family would ever receive from this novel, for 30 pounds. And there was a stage play adaptation in production at the time, and like I mentioned. And you know like there were other adaptations. There were multiple stage plays. There's one in particular that you know was really famous that was going around. 00:44:51.06 Jala And she didn't get any kind of money from that at all. They just were like, mine, yoink, mine. 00:44:59.26 Dave Jackson Yeah, that's pretty depressing. i So I hadn't read that far in the notes. And as we were going through it, I was like, I bet she didn't make any fucking money from this. 00:45:06.90 Jala Nope. 00:45:07.80 Dave Jackson I just did a quick calculation, 30 pounds in 1831. And in today's money is like 4,000 bucks. So not a lot. I mean, probably helped for a little while. 00:45:18.49 Jala Right. 00:45:21.20 Dave Jackson And then, yeah, that money is going to run out at a certain point. 00:45:23.70 Jala Right. Well, and to top it all off, Mary's final years were plagued with illness. And that was likely stemming from the brain tuber that she had that killed her when she was 53 years old. So she didn't even get past the age of 53. And she died penniless. 00:45:43.03 Dave Jackson Yeah, we hear that. 00:45:43.06 Jala Wow. Right. 00:45:44.15 Dave Jackson We hear that a lot about like ah famous authors and artists from well from all throughout history, of course. But like you know it feels like such a common tale for these like classics or if you look at like painters and and things like that. 00:45:51.49 Jala Right. 00:45:59.89 Dave Jackson It's a very common ending for them to basically have never made money from the thing that they ah the thing that they created and enriched all of human history past that point with. 00:46:14.23 Jala Right. That's why it's important to invest in the arts, even though every, every person in every age is always trying to keep that down if they are a person in power. 00:46:25.66 Jala yes, for real, for real. So yeah, as you might imagine, the Mary Shelley of age 19, who was there with her, her soon to be, or actually her husband, they, they got married by that point, her husband and all of her besties and her half sister, 00:46:42.54 Jala and just chilling. And I mean, yes, she lost a baby, but like things were still kind of open and new. And like, there was possibility out there for her. Like the, the, the kind of viewpoint that she had at this point is vastly different than the viewpoint that she had by the time she sold the rights and did this overhauled edition 1831 and she felt far much, you know, if much more, um draw towards Victor, the character of Victor, because she was like, I created this fucking monster of a book, this thing, because all these other people are are co-opting it. And I'm giving shit for this because, you know, the religious community doesn't like, you know, the messages and this, that, and the other and whatever, all this other stuff. 00:47:26.68 Jala And so like, she's like, yeah, I, I hate it. I hate it. She, she did not like her book at that time. That's why she sold the copyright. She was sick of it. 00:47:36.08 Jala She's like, I'm done. 00:47:37.56 Jala I'm done, man. You know? And like that, the changes that she made for that edition are much kinder to Victor as a character for sure than the original 18, 18 version. 00:47:48.86 Jala But that's because like who she was as a person had shifted so much by the time we had gotten to that point. But 00:47:56.34 Dave Jackson Interesting. We can revisit that when we talk about the different versions, but that wasn't my impression from reading it. 00:48:04.09 Dave Jackson But maybe in income maybe in comparison. 00:48:04.18 Jala And that's, and that's the nicer one, right? 00:48:06.78 Dave Jackson Yeah, maybe in comparison. 00:48:08.89 Jala Right, right. So that's the nicer version of it. So just keep that in mind. 00:48:12.86 Dave Jackson Okay. Fair enough. 00:48:15.90 Jala Yeah. So before we go into the spoiler section, though, we've already talked about the book. We talked about Mary herself and all of that fun. So before we get into spoiler wall territory, tell the folks one more time about Tales from the Backlog and where they can find that. 00:48:31.03 Dave Jackson Yes. So ah Tales from the Backlog is wherever your video game podcasts are found. And also on YouTube, if you want to see me while I talk, I also show some gameplay clips and stuff like that. 00:48:43.39 Dave Jackson um But again, it is a weekly show where we deep dive one video game per episode, ah sometimes do topic discussions, but it is mostly talking about the games that we play. 00:48:54.07 Dave Jackson And if you want a good place to start, again, you can pick any episode because it's no spoiler for a while. But Jala was most recently on the show with Dave talking about a cool indie game called Decarnation that more people should play. 00:49:07.75 Dave Jackson Almost nobody talks about it and it's a very cool game. 00:49:11.10 Dave Jackson ah So that is a place. Also, if you want a game that everyone talks about, Jala also did an episode about the Resident Evil 4 remake with me. So those are two places to go check out Tales from the Backlog. 00:49:23.81 Jala Woohoo! Yes, and absolutely do that. i The fact that you have it as a weekly show blows my mind when you drop Tears of the Kingdom. I'm like, what? 00:49:34.51 Jala For one week? podcast? 00:49:36.47 Dave Jackson To be fair, Tears of the Kingdom took me legitimately two years to finish. 00:49:40.51 Dave Jackson I was playing it for a very long time. 00:49:43.07 Dave Jackson ah I didn't just play it all in one week. 00:49:46.07 Jala I still haven't finished playing Baldur's Gate 3. I'm still in it. Because like I picked that up and then stuff happened. I picked that up and i picked it up again and stuff happened. And you know it's one of those games that when you're in it, you have to be in it for a long time at a time, you know a stretch. 00:49:59.70 Dave Jackson Yeah. Yeah, and it's ah it's a game to savor. No reason to rush it. 00:50:04.41 Jala Right, right. So I've had it since it first came out. 00:50:08.09 Jala One day I will finish it, maybe. i do pick it up and play it every once in a while, but there's just like long pauses. Anyhow, yes, so go check out Tales from the Backlog, and we will erect the spoiler wall. We are erecting the spoiler wall. 00:50:22.49 Jala The spoiler wall is now fully erect. 00:50:25.18 Dave Jackson Fully erect spoiler wall. Beware. 00:50:34.20 Jala All right, we are back on the other side of that spoiler wall, which is actually formed of a gigantic sheet of Arctic ice. 00:50:45.46 Jala And we're ready to talk about this book in detail. I mean, not gross detail, but a pretty good detail. Anyway, and let's talk about the 1818 edition, as mentioned previously, and then we'll kind of dig into what changes were made in the 1831 edition from there. 00:51:02.17 Jala So, Dave, do you want to kick us off talking about the series of letters? 00:51:06.81 Dave Jackson Yes. So I'll just say before I start, I forgot. So I think I read this in high school English class. I'm pretty sure we read Frankenstein. I remember something about Frankenstein happening in English class, but I had forgotten... 00:51:22.42 Dave Jackson most of the details. I knew, you know, Frankenstein's the name of the scientist. 00:51:26.81 Dave Jackson I remembered that. That's basically all I remembered. 00:51:29.73 Dave Jackson So I had no idea that we start with this framing device, basically, of ah Robert Walton, who is not Victor Frankenstein, in a series of letters, 00:51:42.87 Dave Jackson He is the captain of a ship bound for the North Pole, just on an expedition trying to reach the North Pole. And he's sending letters back to his sister in England about the progress of the mission. ah The mission goes well early on, but, ah you know, surprise, an Arctic expedition, they get stuck in impassable sea ice. They're trapped in the ice and while trapped in the ice, Walton encounters Victor Frankenstein, who has been traveling by a dog sled, 00:52:12.51 Dave Jackson across the ice and has been severely weakened by the cold and the journey and things like that. So Walton brings him aboard the ship, helps nurse him back to health, and Victor Frankenstein regales him with the fantastic tale of the circumstances that led him to this situation. 00:52:31.93 Jala Right. It's like, I rescued you from the ice. And the first thing that you do once you're recovered enough to speak is to trauma dump. 00:52:40.78 Dave Jackson This is, is this the first trauma dump? Is this, are we setting a new thing in, uh, in literature? 00:52:48.38 Jala It's, it's definitely a thing. It's, it's like this guy had no idea when he rescued this guy, you know, this, this random dude out there on the ice that this guy was just going to open up a can quite as big as this one. 00:53:00.79 Dave Jackson Yeah, he, I mean, so this is like, I don't know, 10, 20 pages at the beginning is these letters. And then it's like most of the book is just this, him, you can imagine him like laying in bed and the captain in his chair, just like, oh my God, he keeps going with this story. Like it, dude, it's cold and it's dinner time. Let's, let's, ah let's get some rest. 00:53:23.32 Jala well maybe but also there's not a lot to do out there on the arctic ice maybe it was like and i mean it really does read telenovela style so i mean you know it could be he just got his popcorn or whatever equivalent that they might have had on a ship in the arctic ice ah so might have been but yeah 00:53:26.90 Dave Jackson That's, that's, they are trapped in ice. Yeah. So. 00:53:38.71 Dave Jackson That that's true. Yeah. 00:53:44.25 Jala So Victor first describes his early life in Geneva at the end of a blissful childhood spent in the company of Elizabeth Lavenza, his cousin in the 1818 edition, but his adopted sister, not actually blood related, in the 1831 edition, and his friend, Henry Clerval. 00:54:04.31 Jala Victor enters the University of Ingolstadt to study nature or natural philosophy and chemistry. There he is consumed by the desire to discover the secret of life and, after several years of research, becomes convinced that he has found it. 00:54:21.69 Dave Jackson Do you want to, ah so do you want to like, uh, talk about how we think about it or we, you want to run through the plot first and then talk about the stuff later? 00:54:31.13 Jala it's easiest to talk about it while we go because otherwise we'll keep going in the plot and then we'll forget what we were going to say. 00:54:33.78 Dave Jackson Okay. That's fair. 00:54:39.82 Dave Jackson Yeah. So this is, I mean, this is the introduction to that thing I was talking about earlier, where Victor, um you know, comes from this idyllic background and he just becomes obsessed with this breakthrough that he thinks he can make, this this progress, right? Scientific progress. He's going to discover the secret of life. um Lots of stories, you know, old stories ah deal with like alchemy and things like that. These like secrets that they're just out of reach. You feel like you can do them. And Victor thinks that he can do it. And he just pursues this and pursues it and pursues it. Never really questions like 00:55:19.64 Dave Jackson you know, what's gonna happen when I bring something to life? He never questions this. And then, you know, um that's one of the things that I like about this. 00:55:33.37 Dave Jackson It reads like a kind of like a biblical story, right? 00:55:37.21 Dave Jackson Like a cautionary tale against, you know, breaking the order of nature or the order of God or something like that, if it were a biblical tale. 00:55:47.39 Dave Jackson This is what can happen to you. And the fact that he comes from an idyllic background, his childhood is perfect in the book. 00:55:55.48 Dave Jackson The fact that he comes from this background, like squarely puts the blame on him. Once we get to see what's going on and how he reacts to all of this, and it's clear that he's the villain of the story. 00:56:08.38 Dave Jackson It all comes back to like, what I like about this is that this was not pushed on him by anybody. This was not, um this was not a product of his upbringing. This was recklessness and carelessness on his part. The blame is squarely on Victor here. And I like, I like this a lot. 00:56:28.02 Dave Jackson Yeah, like it a lot. 00:56:31.00 Jala So there's a couple of things that I want to say. Uh, so first off the thing that the, about him having this idyllic childhood, and then he just decides, gets it in his head and gets obsessed and it just kind of one track minds it from there. 00:56:46.41 Jala It reads a lot like the gifted child, you know, who, who thinks they're special snowflake that can do whatever, you know, and like, he's got that mindset and he hasn't had his bubble burst yet. 00:56:57.50 Dave Jackson Right. Yeah. But he's, he's been, uh, what's the word he's been, um supported and emboldened his whole life probably to be like, yes, you can do whatever you want to do. 00:57:08.42 Dave Jackson You can do whatever you, you put your mind to. It's all possible for you, my son. 00:57:11.54 Jala Well, and the part of the thing is too, is that in the 1818 edition, a lot more involvement of Victor's dad. Victor's dad is actively educating him, actively talking to him about the different things that he's studying and inspires Victor and coaches him along much like Mary's own father did to her. 00:57:34.78 Jala In the 1831 edition, His role is dramatically reduced to where it's focusing almost entirely on Victor. and having it be like, no, his father didn't involve that. He found out this thing from this other guy entirely that wasn't related and it didn't have anything to do with his dad. 00:57:52.75 Jala And so like the father's role was downplayed quite a bit and the culpability was put more squarely on Victor versus where it was a generational thing in the original where the father had you know imparted this to the son and this wonderment and this no limits kind of feeling. 00:58:11.66 Jala The father did that. And then Victor took that and moved forward. So a massive difference in that origin, but it's interesting because the amount of change in the book is very small. 00:58:23.94 Jala It's deleting little sections and switching out little, little sentences here and there, but because the book is so economical and thin, those little changes make all the difference in terms of what it's saying. 00:58:37.75 Dave Jackson Interesting. But still a, um in the 1818 version, still a, like, his family is perfect. Everyone loves each other. 00:58:44.82 Jala Yeah. Mm-hmm. 00:58:45.82 Dave Jackson Like, it's an incredible, it I mean, I remember reading this and just being like, this is like, this is the storybook fairy tale childhood in the, you know, in the beautiful scenery in Switzerland and things like that. 00:58:57.56 Jala right before Grimm comes in, you know, the Grimm brothers come in and and do their dark work and we're about to get to that for sure. 00:59:05.12 Jala But so yeah, um armed with the knowledge that he has long been seeking, Victor spends months feverishly fashioning a creature out of body parts he obtained via grave robbing. 00:59:17.84 Jala So the original version, he was robbing graves. 00:59:22.52 Jala And that was a very common practice back then. All of the medical schools and stuff, if they didn't directly rob the graves, they paid people to go rob the graves and bring them all of the the corpses and stuff. 00:59:33.40 Jala They paid solid good money for that. So absolutely, absolutely a thing. 00:59:38.65 Jala So one climactic night in the secrecy of his apartment, he brings his creation to life. When he looks at the monstrosity that he has created, however, the sight horrifies him. 00:59:49.98 Jala And this is funny to me because like, you know, I know you were like so super spellbound with a lot of this stuff. And I'm like, I think Victor's a little bitch. like yeah was my I think that was my exact phrasing when I was talking to you about it because I was like, because Victor the whole time, throughout the whole book, he screams and he runs and he's just like, come on, dude, like you did this. 01:00:10.78 Jala what do you And I understand the whole bigger point. But, you know, like when I first read this, I'm like, what? What? 01:00:18.10 Dave Jackson it is It is funny that it's like, as soon as it comes to life, that's when he's horrified at what he's looking at. 01:00:18.58 Jala You know. Right. 01:00:24.34 Dave Jackson But like, he's been looking at dead and decomposed corpse parts forever. 01:00:30.82 Dave Jackson Unless he was doing it with a blindfold on and then took the blindfold off when it came to life. Yeah, it is kind of funny that he's like, oh yeah, this is actually horrifying right here. What's in front of me? 01:00:41.42 Dave Jackson Only when it comes to life. 01:00:43.28 Jala He's like, oh, I didn't realize. like Okay. 01:00:47.19 Dave Jackson Exactly. 01:00:47.71 Dave Jackson Yeah. ah He had been pursuing that and never considering what happens if this works. 01:00:55.63 Dave Jackson It's just the process and just pursuit. 01:00:59.03 Jala Oh, and something that I do want to say too, just to ah mention the Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein real quick, is that um in the next little section, so he freaks out and he runs away from the lab, right? 01:01:10.40 Jala And then he goes and he falls asleep. 01:01:10.65 Dave Jackson Yeah. 01:01:12.32 Jala And so like when he wakes up, the critter is there and it's looking at him and he's like, oh shit, you know, cause he already ran once. 01:01:18.29 Dave Jackson Mm-hmm. 01:01:20.76 Jala Now where what's he going to do now? You know, and um so the thing is, is that when Frankenstein is adapted, it almost never has this scene where it's like him in the bed waking up and seeing the creature and realizing that he, he you know, got, you know, oh, God, it's here. 01:01:36.83 Jala It's animate. It's come to me, followed me, you know, um and all of that. And so like it's it that movie happens to portray this scene and I think does a very good job of you know expressing the particular way that and GDT is like interpreting the story. 01:01:57.11 Jala So anyway, but in the original book, though, after this terrible night of sleep, He's interrupted by the monster looming over him. And then he runs out into the streets. 01:02:09.24 Jala He's just like, I'm not going home anymore. Bye. He just leaves. 01:02:13.72 Jala He just leaves. Could you imagine just leaving? 01:02:15.93 Dave Jackson I don't know about you. 01:02:18.17 Dave Jackson Yeah, just he know he's rich. He can just be like, no, I'm just never going in that apartment ever again. It's fine. I'll be okay. 01:02:25.91 Dave Jackson that's I guess that's what it's like when you're that rich. 01:02:26.66 Jala Daddy will buy me another one. I mean, geez. 01:02:28.19 Dave Jackson Exactly. Yeah. I was surprised at how early this happens in the story. 01:02:34.20 Dave Jackson Like I said, I didn't remember any details about how things went in the story other than he makes the monster and 01:02:41.53 Dave Jackson chaos ensues um this is so early in the story um this feels like something in a you know in a different arrangement of these story parts this would be like the climax is the monster comes to life and then there's some sort of thing that happens afterwards but this is very early and there's a lot of the book where he's just 01:03:04.22 Dave Jackson you know, on the run from this, not on the run, but he's avoiding this thing that he's made. And um a lot of it is more suspense than action, which i think ah which I think is suspense and dread rather than like he's being chased across the country, which is not really what's going on. 01:03:26.81 Dave Jackson So cool, but surprising that it happened so early in the story, for me at least. 01:03:31.77 Jala Right. Well, usually the suspense that's built up is for, you know, that, that act of creation and everything, but this book is doing a different thing because that's just the beginning of the actual thing that she wants to talk about. 01:03:47.13 Jala So that's why it's like, no, like that whole process of building up and trying to ah figure everything out. 01:03:47.16 Dave Jackson Right. 01:03:54.21 Jala Like we don't see Victor fail. You know, realistically, he failed a lot before he got to the point where he figured this out. We don't see any of that at all. We just time skip over all of that. We don't, we don't care, you know. 01:04:05.18 Dave Jackson It's fine. He spends a lot of time in the lab. We understand that. 01:04:08.68 Dave Jackson And he's ah slowly getting better until boom, it happens. 01:04:12.66 Jala Right. So he runs screaming. And then even though the monster is gone, he he's terrified when he ends up running into his friend, Henry Clerval, who just happens to be there to study at the university. 01:04:26.74 Jala And he ends up taking his friend to the apartment, forgetting somehow that the critter was there. And then he goes inside. 01:04:35.62 Jala He's like, oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Oh, shit. And then he goes inside to go look. And then like the the creature's not there. So he's like, okay, okay. But like, he's so freaked out that he ends up falling into a feverish illness, which this happens multiple times as well. 01:04:52.28 Jala i mean, he just works himself up. Like he's a nervous boy to begin with. And he just faints on a Shea lounge pretty often in here. 01:05:01.38 Jala So, you know, that's, that's where we go. 01:05:02.94 Dave Jackson Yeah, like let me just, ah I'll just go ahead and say, as someone who is nervous and stressed, ah you know, often enough, ah i this would but this would absolutely wreck me if this happened. 01:05:16.13 Dave Jackson i don't think I would be a functioning adult if this happened, so 01:05:20.38 Dave Jackson ah Yeah, me and me and Victor, i get you for now. um So ah he's sickened by what he's done, and he he prepares to return to Geneva to his family um after being nursed back to health. But just before departing Ingolstadt, he receives a letter from his father informing him that his youngest brother, William, has been murdered. Grief stricken, he hurries home while passing through the woods where William was strangled. He catches sight of the monster and becomes convinced that the monster is his brother's murderer. He arrives in Geneva and finds that Justine Moritz, who is a kind, gentle girl, family friend, had been adopted by the Frankenstein household. 01:06:25.34 Jala And so at first, I will say, every single time I read this book, when I get to the point where, you know, he gets the letter from his father and he's rushing home and then he gets to the woods and he sees the creature and he's like, he surely did it! 01:06:38.66 Jala I'm like, you are jumping to some conclusions. Like, 01:06:42.17 Jala You weren't even around the creature for like a minute, even you ran immediately. Like, what do you know about the creature? You just make a big old assumption. But because it's the era that it is, he was right. But I get mad every time he's right. I'm like, he shouldn't have been right. You know he shouldn't have been right. 01:07:02.46 Jala You know, there should have something else should have done it. 01:07:04.66 Jala But anyway, that's just me. 01:07:06.30 Dave Jackson I will say ah this, the scene where he is in the woods at night and he sees the monster, um that is the the part where this book became page turner until the end. 01:07:18.34 Dave Jackson Basically until the end, it never lets its foot off the gas. And he like sees the monster in the woods. They both kind of get spooked at the sight of each other and the monster just climbs a mountain like super fast. 01:07:30.54 Jala Yeah, he's just like a goat. He just jumps up the... Yeah, and that's partially... 01:07:35.64 Jala and It's mentioned in the book, but it's partially because when Victor made the creature, he was also using animal parts. So he could very well be part goat. 01:07:46.94 Dave Jackson yeah just uh as a like a first real encounter we'll say with the monster to show you the superhuman qualities of it just scales a fucking mountain in like a couple minutes and you're like oh okay this thing's serious business um would have no trouble killing somebody i really like so this is the start of victor's like 01:07:47.00 Jala Just throwing that out there. Continue. 01:08:01.35 Jala Yep. 01:08:12.15 Dave Jackson The real start of his downfall because he knows ah the monster killed William and he could try to exonerate Justine from, you know, the charges against her. 01:08:29.34 Dave Jackson But he spends a long time being like, I just can't say anything. No one's going to believe me. And correct me if this is 1831 version, not 1818. 01:08:39.24 Dave Jackson But he spends ah a long time just basically bemoaning the fact that he he can't tell anyone um because he feels responsible. 01:08:48.74 Dave Jackson He knows that he's responsible for this, ah but he doesn't say anything. And then he tries to tell someone and the judge is like, all right, man, but like, I can't, the public's not going to accept this. 01:09:00.38 Dave Jackson Like, this is not, I don't know if this is true or not, but we, this, we can't go on what you're telling us. Your story is not going to cut it. So yeah. 01:09:08.50 Jala Right. There's no evidence, you know? 01:09:11.45 Dave Jackson And she had the evidence is that she had a locket or something that, uh, yeah. 01:09:15.10 Jala Yeah, it was a locket, a family locket that was an expensive piece of jewelry that she that Elizabeth had given to William before William went out and allegedly Justine had killed him so that she could take the locket. 01:09:29.62 Jala What actually happened is that William had the locket. 01:09:29.66 Dave Jackson Right. Mm-hmm. 01:09:32.38 Jala He was killed by. the creature ah because William screamed when he saw the creature and then the creature got mad and then coincidentally found out that it was you know Victor's ah you know brother or whatever. That just happened to be you know like the world's worst coincidence at that point. Um, but actually he screamed, he wanted to, to kill the kid, but then he also found out, um, that like before he decided to kill William, he also found out that it was Victor's brother and then was like, Oh, you belong to my enemy. 01:10:06.60 Jala Definitely going to die now. Um, and then that's what happened with that. 01:10:10.39 Jala Then Justine had gone out to go look for William. And then she ended up like getting really tired and then just, you know, she couldn't go back home yet because she hadn't found him and whatever. 01:10:22.16 Jala And it was dark. And so she just like took shelter in a barn and then the creature found her there and then planted the locket on her to set the blame on somebody as a fall guy. 01:10:34.07 Jala And, Yeah. So it was this whole evil machination of the creature in this case. 01:10:41.18 Jala So, yeah, but like there's no evidence of that. 01:10:45.76 Jala So, you know, I mean, other than the fact that like a small, slight girl like Justine could not have... 01:10:54.83 Jala exerted enough force to kill the child, you know, strangling him, you know, like could not have so have strangled that child, but whatever. 01:11:03.99 Jala They didn't have anything else to go on. So ah what made it worse for Victor, though, is the fact that Elizabeth was so upset in telling Victor, oh, I can't believe I can't believe that she would do that. 01:11:15.43 Jala Oh, this is my favorite person. And oh we were bosom buddies and stuff. And so Victor is just like having that nice knife twisted in him. 01:11:24.25 Dave Jackson Yep. And it's all because of, um, like this is, he had his first reaction to seeing the monster had been, run away and pretend it doesn't exist. 01:11:36.85 Dave Jackson And this is the part in the story where it becomes something that he can't run away from. He can't pretend it doesn't exist. And he's like, i he at this point in the story, he doesn't have like an action that he's going to take, but he's just like, ah, fuck, like this is all my fault. 01:11:54.66 Dave Jackson Like he's realizing there are consequences for what he's done in the past. 01:12:00.15 Dave Jackson Both the creation, but then the abandonment. both of those actions coming back at him? 01:12:06.75 Jala Mm-hmm. Absolutely. So then at after this happens, after Justine's ah unjust ending, he hopes to ease his grief by taking a vacation to the mountains like the rich boy he is. 01:12:21.88 Jala And while he's alone one day crossing an enormous glacier, the monster approaches him. 01:12:22.07 Dave Jackson Yes. 01:12:28.47 Jala And it admits to the murder of William, but begs for understanding. Lonely, shunned, and forlorn, he says that he struck out at William in a desperate attempt to injure Victor, his cruel creator. 01:12:42.14 Jala The monster begs Victor to create a mate for him, a monster equally grotesque to serve as his sole companion. He even tells Victor, ah I don't need to eat meat even. 01:12:53.10 Jala I will fucking eat berries. Like, that's fine for my constitution. He's a vegan. He's like, I'm vegan. 01:12:59.45 Jala I'm not even going to kill animals. I'm not going to prey on anybody's livestock. I will eat berries off a bush in South America. And he literally says he's going to go to South America with his mate. 01:13:10.13 Jala Like, he's got the plan. I bet he probably already checked, you know, what you know boat he was going to be on. 01:13:11.84 Dave Jackson Yeah. 01:13:16.09 Jala You know, like he's already got the route figured out, you know, and Victor's like, I i don't want to do this thing. 01:13:22.93 Jala No, no. But then he's swayed by the eloquence of the monster. And so then he decides, okay, if if I can do this and you won't hurt anybody else, then, okay, I'll do this thing just to get you out of my hair. 01:13:38.30 Jala I'm worried about my family and Elizabeth. 01:13:41.78 Dave Jackson mostly worried about Elizabeth. 01:13:43.26 Jala Right. Right. 01:13:43.94 Dave Jackson He's got a big old crush on his cousin or adopted sister, depending on your version, Elizabeth. And his father, too. And I guess anyone else close to him. But yeah, this... 01:13:55.58 Jala Well, his father also like has been saying, I want you two to get married. 01:13:56.36 Dave Jackson Yeah. Right. 01:13:59.66 Jala And like, it says at the beginning of the book that they wanted him to marry. And that's one of the things that the church got real mad about because originally she was a cousin in which, you know, like people were marrying cousins back then, you know, but whatever. 01:14:06.71 Dave Jackson Right. 01:14:12.09 Dave Jackson Sure. ah I mean, adopted sister who's lived in your house your entire life isn't much better, you know? 01:14:16.63 Jala I know is no, it's not. It just removes the whole, you know, blood tie thing. 01:14:23.42 Dave Jackson Right. Yeah. 01:14:24.85 Dave Jackson This scene where he's like hiking out in the mountains is like really beautifully written, describing um nature. 01:14:30.56 Jala Mm hmm. 01:14:32.43 Dave Jackson And, you know, the you've seen pictures of Switzerland, listener. You know that Switzerland's beautiful. And this is what it's talking about here. that kind of romanticism, as you you mentioned at the top of the show, on full display here. 01:14:45.57 Dave Jackson Where does he go when he needs to heal? You go out in the woods, go for a hike, go be one with the mountain, which, I mean, that works for me too. 01:14:49.57 Jala Right. right 01:14:53.27 Dave Jackson So good idea. I just wish ah i wish my local scenery was as nice as ah as Victor's in Switzerland. 01:15:00.25 Jala Well, I mean, be born rich, maybe. you So, and I will, I do want to mention too, that a lot of this takes place in Geneva because that's where Mary Shelley and the crew were when they were busy banging and writing bangers. 01:15:04.31 Dave Jackson True. Yeah. Yeah. 01:15:16.29 Jala So, you know, or at least Mary was writing a banger anyway. Nobody else did. 01:15:22.90 Dave Jackson Yeah. So he's going to make a ah second monster to serve as a companion for the first one. um So ah let's see. 01:15:34.74 Dave Jackson After he returns to Geneva, Victor does, that is, he heads out for England. Henry goes with him to gather information for the creation of the female monster. 01:15:46.65 Dave Jackson Victor leaves Henry in Scotland and he secludes himself on a desolate island in the Orkneys and works reluctantly at repeating his first ah mistake slash success. 01:16:00.81 Dave Jackson I love the imagery of this like desolate island battered by waves and storms and stuff like that. 01:16:00.82 Jala Right. 01:16:08.73 Dave Jackson He's in like a shack trying to put this together. 01:16:12.82 Jala It's a shack. 01:16:13.97 Dave Jackson Yeah, the mad scientist imagery here is really, really good. 01:16:18.42 Jala Well, yeah, and not only that, but it's like, I am a rock. I am an island. 01:16:24.07 Jala Like, to talk about the romantic, I'm one with my environment. 01:16:28.23 Jala Like, he's in a shack on a rock in the middle of the ocean with a storm, and not one friend is there, and that's exactly where he is mentally, emotionally as well, is in this exact same thing. 01:16:39.16 Dave Jackson Right. Yes, exactly. 01:16:42.87 Dave Jackson So he's out on the island. He is creating the second monster. But one night he is struck by doubt about the morality of his actions. Victor is thinking about the morality of his actions. 01:16:52.96 Jala Gee! 01:16:55.19 Dave Jackson Good for you, Victor. 01:16:56.89 Jala How long did this take place after you started this whole thing? 01:16:58.84 Dave Jackson yeah Exactly. ah So um he ah looks out the window right at the moment when he's doubting this and he sees the monster glaring at him from outside. um And so horrified by the possible consequences of creating a second monster, ah Victor destroys it. He destroys the new creation and vows that he will not do it. The monster, not happy about this, vows revenge and swears that he will be with Victor on Victor's wedding night. 01:17:29.40 Dave Jackson How sweet. How romantic. 01:17:30.46 Jala Yeah. Well, and one thing, one thing to note too, is that when the monster was looking in on him and he turned and he looked out the window, it wasn't just that the critter was looking at him. 01:17:41.55 Jala It was looking at him and he had a big devilish grin on his face. 01:17:44.79 Jala Like he looked like Satan, you know, basically. 01:17:47.79 Jala And so, I mean, like he was just like, oh shit, shoot maybe I don't want to make another one. 01:17:53.90 Jala you know, maybe that's a bad idea, guys. Yeah. 01:17:56.92 Dave Jackson Right. He's, I want to like, i want to camp out on this a little bit because it's kind of, um this is where Victor like tries to turn it around a little bit where he's, he basically ah didn't think about any of the implications the first time, the first time he made the monster. 01:18:17.31 Dave Jackson it was just, can I do it? You know, what happens when it's done? no That's future Victor's problem. Yeah. 01:18:23.83 Jala Right? 01:18:25.53 Dave Jackson Now he's, he's, he goes through this thought process again in the 1831 version, at least he goes through this thought process of like, okay, so the monster says he's going to take his, uh, his bride or his companion. They're going to go to South America. Uh, okay. What if he's lying? Number one, uh, number two, what if the other one doesn't want to, and you know, 01:18:48.82 Dave Jackson goes out into the world and is angry just like this one is. um Number three, what if what if they're not peaceful? 01:18:56.15 Dave Jackson Like, what if I'm unleashing two of these things on, you know, it's not here in my backyard, but somewhere else they're going to wreak havoc wherever they go. 01:19:06.65 Dave Jackson um I think... I think in the 1831, he talks, it's not South America. It's like an island in the Atlantic that he talks about. um But anyway, it's like, what makes you think he'll stop there? What if they get bored of that place and decide to go somewhere else? And, you know, Havoc will follow them wherever they go. So he decides, basically, he's weighing... 01:19:31.93 Dave Jackson I can either trust the monster and hope that the new one agrees with this plan that they were not here for to agree to. Basically the female companion is not part of this decision-making process. Right? 01:19:45.72 Dave Jackson So we just got to trust that this is going to work out. Um, and then my family will be safe again, trusting what they say or, roll the dice that I can protect my family somehow and, you know, say, no, I'm not unleashing this on the world in all the different bad ways that this can go. I'm not sending that out in the world. 01:20:07.06 Dave Jackson He doesn't say this, but he's like, this has to stay like with me. It has to stay local basically. He's like kind of taking responsibility for it, but he's endangering all of his loved ones by doing so. 01:20:21.78 Dave Jackson And so this is like... It's like the Victor Frankenstein redemption arc. Not really, but it's like him making... 01:20:28.43 Jala Right. 01:20:31.15 Dave Jackson It's a philosophical dilemma, right? It's the trolley problem in a way. Only the people on the tracks are your most loved ones, basically, at versus an entire continent wherever they end up. 01:20:44.11 Dave Jackson So it's a really interesting choice. I didn't remember this at all about the story, um that he basically chooses to maybe sacrifice, like possibly sacrifice the people closest to him for the greater good in a way. 01:21:01.66 Jala Right. So there's a few things that are kind of cool about this whole part and discussion. First off, the concept of free will that he brings up here, it's in both versions of the second creature, the female that he's going to make, possibly not going along with the plan. 01:21:21.20 Jala It's echoes of Eden and the Fall of Man, is it not? You know, God created Man, Man disobeyed and did whatever the hell they wanted to and wrecked havoc on the garden, basically, or whatever. 01:21:30.62 Dave Jackson Right. 01:21:33.72 Jala I mean, they didn't really, but like. you know, for all intents and purposes, according to God's decisions, that was a big no. Out you go, and now you will suffer, and everybody will suffer, and suffering forever, you know, as a result of, you know, this willful creation, this free will that is given to the creation that, you know, is then sent off awry. 01:22:01.27 Jala So that's just like a nice mirroring effect right there going on when he thinks about that point. Now, as to the rest of what you're talking about in the 1818 version, like he does think about these things, but it is far more, he says, oh, he's gonna come on my wedding night. 01:22:19.78 Jala I'll be ready for him and I'll kill him. Or he might kill me, but at least Elizabeth will be fine. 01:22:24.90 Jala He has no idea that the critter is gonna come for Elizabeth. He doesn't think that's going to happen. He thinks the critter is going to kill him. 01:22:33.82 Jala I'm going to kill you on your wedding night, is what he thinks. 01:22:36.12 Dave Jackson Right. 01:22:36.50 Jala So it is not him trying to shield his loved ones. It is him saying, well, I'll own up in that. He can kill me. You know, that's fine. 01:22:46.44 Jala He can kill me. And then that'll stop the rage of everything else. 01:22:47.94 Dave Jackson I'm not even sure that 01:22:51.19 Jala So... 01:22:51.38 Dave Jackson Yeah, I'm not even sure that in the 1831, it's not presented as like this, you know, selfless decision that he's making. 01:22:58.71 Jala No, Victor is all about Victor. 01:23:01.08 Dave Jackson Right. But he does consider that like his family is in danger um because the monster has made threats to his all of his loved ones in the past. 01:23:10.85 Dave Jackson Like, if you don't go along with the plan, I'm going to kill all of your loved ones one by one, basically. 01:23:15.53 Jala Mm-hmm. 01:23:15.90 Dave Jackson And so he remembers this when he's making the decision. But ultimately, he decides that that's the lesser evil. If you have to make the decision, that's the decision that he makes. 01:23:28.70 Jala Right. Yeah. So later on that night, Victor takes a boat out onto the, onto a lake and dumps the remains of the second creature into the water. I want to know who got that body washed up on the shore and what they thought when they saw it. 01:23:44.68 Jala Whew. Anyway, the wind picks up and prevents him from returning to the island. And in the morning he finds himself ashore near an unknown town, Upon landing, he is arrested and informed that he will be tried for a murder discovered the previous night. 01:23:59.89 Jala Victor denies any knowledge of that murder, but when shown the body, he is shocked to behold that it is his friend, Henry Clerval, with the mark of the monster's fingers on his neck. 01:24:12.38 Jala Victor immediately falls ill, raving, and feverish, and is kept in prison until his recovery, after which time he is acquitted of the crime. 01:24:23.22 Dave Jackson it's um the monsters following through on his promise like immediately following the like he saw victor destroying the second one and was like he got straight to business going to find his friend basically and uh victor's like oh well well well if it isn't the consequences of my own actions basically 01:24:41.62 Jala Yeah. Well, and he was only acquitted because his father was worried because he hadn't heard from anybody. And so he wrote. 01:24:49.86 Jala And so he happened to write and then ended up finding out why is Victor in jail? And, you know, no he would not do that. 01:24:55.67 Dave Jackson Right. 01:24:56.96 Jala That was his bestie, you know, and all of that. And that's why he ends up being acquitted. 01:25:01.69 Dave Jackson Rich kid, ah get daddy bails him out of jail. Yeah. 01:25:05.80 Jala Mm hmm. Yep. Yep. So what happens after he returns to Geneva? 01:25:11.45 Dave Jackson So after returning to Geneva with his father, Victor marries Elizabeth and the whole time he fears the monster's warning and suspects that he will be murdered on his wedding night. 01:25:23.80 Dave Jackson To be cautious, he sends Elizabeth away to wait for him. While he awaits the monster, he hears Elizabeth scream and realizes that the monster had been hinting at killing her not him 01:25:35.94 Jala Mm-hmm. 01:25:36.31 Dave Jackson Victor returns home to his father, who dies of grief a short time later. Victor vows to devote the rest of his life to finding the monster and exacting his revenge, and he soon departs to begin the quest. 01:25:49.56 Jala So I just have to say this. For a nervous, nervous boy to just decide he he's had enough and he's going to go out there and instead of having seven nervous fits where he's like in a bed for like months and months and months at a time, he's just going to go out there and go murderfy the thing. like That's a big fucking leap that I just... 01:26:11.19 Jala Even if he's pretty cracked by this point, I just, I think he would collapse and die. i don't think he would have gone after them. I'm just saying, just realistically. 01:26:19.93 Dave Jackson He becomes, this is the first instance in English literature of someone becoming the Joker. 01:26:27.93 Jala Yeah, and it's just like, okay, like that this is not, I don't know, man. 01:26:34.30 Dave Jackson Yeah, no, it's a bit of a leap, but you can rationalize it by saying that he has nothing left. 01:26:42.03 Dave Jackson Everyone's dead. So everyone except for him. 01:26:42.74 Jala Right. 01:26:47.05 Jala Nobody's going to take care of him if he's on his chaise lounge anymore. He's got to go. Yeah. 01:26:51.13 Dave Jackson Exactly. No one's going to bail him out of jail. He's not, at least the way I remember it, it's not a righteous, like, I need to protect the world from this thing. 01:27:03.84 Dave Jackson It's just purely a revenge because you've taken you've taken everything from me. 01:27:06.39 Jala Personal revenge. Yep. 01:27:09.81 Jala Yep. Absolutely. So Victor tracks the monster ever northward into the ice. In a dog sled chase, Victor almost catches up with the monster, but the sea beneath them swells and the ice breaks, leaving an unbridgeable gap between them. 01:27:25.62 Jala At this point, Walton, which is the sea captain, remember him? Who's getting the trauma dump of his life, encounters Victor. 01:27:33.08 Dave Jackson Yeah. 01:27:34.10 Jala And the narrative catches up to the time of Walton's fourth letter to his sister. So ah Walton then, oh, do you want to say something about that before we talk about that? 01:27:46.23 Dave Jackson Yeah, i like the um i like the like the relentlessness of the revenge. like At all costs, it's not like a good quality relentlessness. And the way that they show this, as especially during this Arctic section, is ah Victor gets like a pack of sled dogs to pull him across the ice. And one by one, the sled dogs keep dying, and he just keeps pushing the other ones harder and harder to catch up. um And it just shows how... 01:28:15.96 Dave Jackson like one track mind he is like he's chasing him in the polar ice. Like it's, this is, this is beyond like a dangerous situation. This is a suicide mission type of thing. Like there's no thought of like coming back after this. There's no thought of taking care of anyone else. It's just single track mind. And I, I like that just to show how far gone Victor is at this point. 01:28:46.01 Jala right and you know another thing too I'm just really curious because i don't think the book says do you remember any point in there where victor says it all how he plans to kill the monster who is far faster and stronger because 01:29:01.59 Dave Jackson No, I mean, i assume he brought a gun with him, but that's all I got. 01:29:06.10 Dave Jackson But like, i don't, you know, what, what about what, what, what do we know about the monster that would make you think that a gunshot's going to take it down anyway? So that's, I mean, that's kind of the nature of this revenge plan is like just pursuit with it's, it's the thing from the beginning. 01:29:16.06 Jala Right, right. 01:29:24.82 Dave Jackson Again, it's like the pursuit of this thing. i don't know what's going to happen when I get there, but that's, that's what we're doing. 01:29:32.09 Jala Well, and that's the whole point of like the echoing of the sea captain with Victor is because the sea captain has that same relentlessness, that same dogged drive, single minded at all costs. 01:29:42.42 Dave Jackson Yes. Yeah. 01:29:46.45 Jala And that's why it's very important that Victor is telling his tale to this man, you know. 01:29:51.48 Dave Jackson Right. And like um they, the sea captain is, his crew is on the verge of mutiny because they're trapped in the ice and they want to go home as soon as they can. And the sea captain, like you said, he's got that same kind of dogged pursuit of the goal that Victor's had. 01:30:12.66 Dave Jackson And he's like, no, we're going to the North pole. And all his crew is like, the fuck we are like 01:30:16.60 Jala and Right. Mm-hmm. 01:30:17.66 Dave Jackson We want to go home. we're almost like People have died out here on the ice. 01:30:21.94 Dave Jackson We want to get out of here. side Just a small side note. um My Roman Empire, Jala, is reading about polar expeditions and Antarctic expeditions on Wikipedia. 01:30:34.98 Dave Jackson i cannot wait. as soon as I'm reading one ah book right now. As soon as I'm done, I'm going to read Endurance, the Ernest Shackleford story. 01:30:43.15 Dave Jackson and which I have read the Wikipedia synopsis of a dozen times at this point. 01:30:48.59 Dave Jackson This is my Roman Empire, polar, ah specifically like doomed polar expeditions. So cool to see it in Frankenstein and like kind of have these stories intertwine and reinforce those ah those same types of characteristics between the main people. 01:31:07.13 Jala I was in a whole thing about climbing the Himalayas for a while, so I get you. 01:31:11.19 Dave Jackson There we go. 01:31:11.53 Jala And so ah so I was right there in this cold snow and and whatever, although you know vertically not you know going across. 01:31:20.28 Dave Jackson I researched Mount Everest base camp treks when I was living out in Asia. 01:31:20.31 Jala Anyway. 01:31:24.82 Jala Oh yeah. 01:31:26.72 Dave Jackson I was like, that is on the travel list. And then now I'm so far away from It's probably not happening, but um I do know some people that did it and it looked like a lot of fun. 01:31:32.34 Jala Right. 01:31:36.82 Jala Yeah. Oh, I was really into reading about the histories of the Sherpas. I got a book about that and I was just, uh, it's very cool. 01:31:42.10 Dave Jackson Yeah. Yeah. 01:31:44.13 Jala Uh, there's a book called head strap. That's all about the Sherpas. And it's like the first time anybody has sat there and documented all of the Sherpas lives because most of them are illiterate. 01:31:51.95 Dave Jackson Yeah. 01:31:53.34 Jala Anyway, so very big side tangent, but also very cool. 01:31:56.28 Dave Jackson Yeah. 01:31:59.91 Jala So yeah. So the very end, let's wrap this up. ah Walton tells the remainder of the story in another series of letters to his sister. Victor, already ill when the two men meet, worsens and dies shortly thereafter. When Walton returns several days later to the room in which the body lies, he's startled to see the monster weeping over Victor. 01:32:21.89 Jala victor's corpse the monster tells Walton of his immense solitude suffering hatred and remorse he asserts that now he is thou now that his creator has died he too can end his suffering the monster then deport departs for the northernmost ice to die And so the thing about it though, is that um like the, the way the book ends is such that the sea captain is thinking back to Victor telling him, well, he's really eloquent, but he's also slippery and tricky, tricky. 01:32:41.50 Dave Jackson Yeah. 01:32:53.62 Jala He might not have gone out to go kill himself. He might be out there still, you know, but he ends up turning the boat around and going home and learning. 01:33:04.08 Jala He doesn't want to go follow the monster. He's like, okay, we're going to go home now. And that's how that wraps up. 01:33:08.54 Dave Jackson right 01:33:10.68 Jala ah One thing I realized that the summary does not have is that the creature, when he first is talking to Victor and trying to persuade him that, oh, I need another one like me, tells Victor about how he, when he was abandoned, pretty much immediately, he wandered until he found like a little cottage out in the woods. 01:33:30.52 Dave Jackson Yeah, I was just going to ask. 01:33:30.66 Jala And, mm-hmm. And so that was something that was mentioned like when he's trying to appeal to Victor's sense of compassion. And so basically the real TLDR here is that he was hiding out and watching this family and learning language again from this family and spent some time there, um you know, just in love with this blind man and you know how everybody in the family treated them, treated him, and you know, there's Felix and then his sister and then Felix ends up having like an Arabian, like there's this whole weird racist thing in the middle of it that gets into like, you know, his Arabian wife or whatever. 01:34:12.47 Dave Jackson Yeah, he gets a wife as a reward for helping like this this imprisoned merchant. 01:34:17.63 Dave Jackson And yeah. 01:34:19.41 Jala There's a whole bunch of other stuff that goes on that is cut out from most versions, and most adaptations of this. But anyway, the long story short is that he learned language because the people were teaching the Arabian lover slash wife English. And so he learns English as a result. And while everybody is out one day, he decides you know that he wants to appeal to the sensibilities of the blind old man. 01:34:45.56 Jala And, you know, talk to him and everything. And then, you know, he starts to talk to the old man. Everything is going pretty well. But then everybody else shows up and goes, holy fuck. And then he goes, save me. 01:34:57.28 Jala And then, you know, like everybody tries to kill him, basically. And then he runs away and is is heartbroken or whatever. 01:35:01.88 Dave Jackson Right. 01:35:03.72 Jala But then... So that's how that ended up happening. But he's like, why was I cast out just because of how I look? you know and that was really like the first place when he started to turn evil. 01:35:18.46 Dave Jackson Yeah. And he had been like, he had been like helping that family too. 01:35:22.26 Dave Jackson um He had been, you know, basically doing chores for them in secret and kind of helping them because they were in a rough spot. 01:35:26.64 Jala Yeah. 01:35:29.06 Dave Jackson They needed the help and he helped them out a lot. 01:35:32.66 Dave Jackson And then that's how he's repaid once they finally see him. Yeah. 01:35:37.20 Jala Yeah. Yep. So yeah, there was that thing. And um so something that I did want to mention, it's not in the notes or anything, but it's something that I know just from studying a lot of stuff recently about La Belle Epoque in the area of time right beforehand. 01:35:53.69 Jala is that um at this particular point, a lot of places in Europe, because of the industrialization that was going on and the people and the wars and you know revolutions and everything, um there was this sensibility that the the current generation, whatever it was, was worse than the last generation. Like there's been this fall from grace and that it was manifesting itself in the you know like physical ugliness of all the people as they were born with defects and things like that. 01:36:25.50 Jala And this is, or not born at all, stillborn or died young or this, that, and the other. And those are direct effects of like the massively increasing working hours and the poor conditions in the industrial revolutions, you know, um kind of kind of thing before the you know pre-industrial revolution really. But like, 01:36:45.78 Jala you know like During the um you know beginning of all these different technologies and how that like lowered quality of life for a lot of people. and um 01:36:56.06 Dave Jackson Yeah. Mm-hmm. 01:36:56.70 Jala Anyway, so with all of that kind of stuff in the air, it's not a surprise that you get things like, the Phantom of the Opera or, you know, the Frankenstein where the ugly creature, you know, is, is turned against for being ugly, but it's not their fault that they're ugly, you know? 01:37:16.95 Jala So it's kind of like a common theme that would be especially, relevant to the time period with all the birth defects and things going on at that time. So, 01:37:30.01 Jala So yeah, like, let's go ahead and segue into the changes for the 1831 edition. 01:37:37.05 Dave Jackson Yeah. Now, it's interesting. um ah Some of the points here um of things that are changed for the 1831 edition are not the takeaways that I had reading that edition. 01:37:51.58 Dave Jackson um so I don't know if it's just like the way that I analyzed it as I read. um i mean, I have no doubt that the language was changed, but I feel like my takeaways were still basically the same of what you say from the 1818 edition. 01:38:09.34 Jala Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 01:38:10.01 Dave Jackson This idea of free will being emphasized in the 1818 versus fate being emphasized in the 1831 and how you know If something is a result of fate, then it is not necessary it may it's a philosophical you know ah discussion, but it may or may not be your fault if you were destined to do a certain thing or this situation was destined to happen. 01:38:39.32 Dave Jackson um I definitely more agree, even though I read the 1831 edition, I still had the takeaways that free will on Victor's part and on the monster's part, more so on Victor's part, free will is to blame. 01:38:58.46 Dave Jackson Their free will and their decisions are to blame, rephrase that, for their actions and the consequences of those actions. 01:39:09.43 Jala Right. And the thing is, is that like when she was editing the 1831 edition, she wasn't overhauling the book because at this point, remember she hated the book. 01:39:19.80 Jala She was like, I'm going to spruce it up a little bit with a little bit of different language and have this little um prologue thing in the beginning that she wrote that isn't in the 1818 edition, talking about like how she came up with the idea in the first place and that it was all based on a nightmare she had and so on and so forth. 01:39:39.10 Jala There were some changes that she made, but she's not overhauling. So, you know, it's not like the original 1818 version is gone. 01:39:49.07 Jala It's just that the, like there's additional language that has some other implications on top of what's already existing. And in some places stuff was taken out or changed like completely, such as Elizabeth, for example, being an adoptive sister rather than a cousin or whatever. 01:40:08.70 Dave Jackson Yeah, I think that interpretations of some of that language can also determine whether you view it as fate and destiny versus like just someone saying like someone bemoaning my fate. 01:40:24.83 Dave Jackson There's a lot of talk, especially late in the book, especially from the monster, of just being like, I've just had the shittiest lot in life. All of these things that have happened to me, the fate of my life has been just, it's been so terrible. And what did I do to deserve this fate? Yeah. 01:40:46.17 Dave Jackson And I think you can you can read that either way. And I think I read it more along the lines of just like this result more so than this was all lined up for me. This this path, this fate was predetermined, you know? 01:41:03.74 Jala and Right, right. The changes in the language definitely would have affected, I think, the audience of the day more than it would the audience of the current timeframe because... 01:41:16.89 Dave Jackson Yeah. 01:41:17.18 Jala we have the influence of all of the Frankenstein media that has come out since, you know, leaning us a certain way. 01:41:22.30 Dave Jackson Yes. Yeah, even. 01:41:26.13 Jala So we're predisposed to read it in a certain way that wouldn't read the same as anything that a critic of that era would because the book wasn't very old at that point. 01:41:29.85 Dave Jackson yes 01:41:36.84 Dave Jackson Yeah, that is true. Like, even though I said I didn't remember details from Frankenstein, I know the gist of Frankenstein, right? 01:41:46.43 Dave Jackson Everyone knows the gist of Frankenstein. And so you come into that, and that's the that's the lens through which you take it in. 01:41:55.38 Jala Right, right. And, you know, ah especially with it being such an impactful work that has been iterated upon and influential for ah so many different other works. We know what happens when a mad scientist does their thing. 01:42:14.01 Jala We know that that's a bad thing that they did and that you know regardless of whether or not it's some you know Faustian devil told them to or whatever, like they made the bargain, they did the thing, it was their fault. 01:42:14.26 Dave Jackson Yes. 01:42:26.25 Jala You know like we, but that, that this is the beginning of the trope. 01:42:30.78 Jala This is the beginning. So, you know, like, that's why you know, a lot of these notes when it's talking about these differences for, for someone who's never seen this story before, they would see a difference that would be a greater difference than what we would with all of our influences. 01:42:48.28 Jala So yeah, yeah. 01:42:48.34 Dave Jackson I would be curious if there's if there's any listeners out there who have never experienced Frankenstein in any capacity before. ah If there's any complete blank slates out there, I would be curious how you read it. 01:43:00.31 Jala Right. Right. Me too. Me too. So in the 1818, Victor's mistake was not in creating life, but in creating and then abandoning that life. 01:43:11.13 Jala Um, in the 1831, his mistake was creating life at all. ah it's It's more like, he's like, I played God and that was a bad thing that I did. you know um Like, yes, he made several other mistakes along the way after that, but the point that he made life at all was the problem. And that, again, that's probably due to the religious criticism that she received from the church where they were like, 01:43:36.66 Jala no, this is not the right message you're putting out. you know So there was a change made. She removes the crime of intentional neglect by depicting Victor as a victim of destiny. 01:43:51.16 Jala So we also didn't really talk about his instructors at all. We kind of glossed over all of that because it's not the most interesting part of it, but you know, he has this whole exchange where he's talking to a couple of different professors when he first gets first gets to Ingolstadt and he His first academic mentor, Kremp, is referenced in the same breath as the angel of destruction in the 1831 edition. 01:44:16.99 Jala Chance, or rather the evil influence, the angel of destruction, which asserted omnipotent sway over me from the moment I turned my reluctant steps for my father's... DoorDash, that's great. 01:44:28.78 Jala ah Okay, that's a great autocorrect. 01:44:29.54 Dave Jackson That's a great autocorrect. 01:44:32.06 Jala Wow. 01:44:32.42 Jala ah Door. Led me first to Mr. Kremp. I should leave that in there, but I'll take it out. Okay. Anyway, door led me first to Mr. Kremp. So yeah, like it's again, here's the fate, fate, fate, angel of destruction. The devil did it. The devil made me do it. Um, and about Mr. Waldman, which is another one of his professors, such were the professor's words. Rather, let me say such words of fate announced to destroy me. 01:45:03.32 Jala So again, that's some of the language change that's there. 01:45:05.53 Dave Jackson Yeah. 01:45:05.96 Jala I mean, like, it's very clear if you were reading it for the first time and you read the 1831 and you weren't already privy to all of the media, like that is pretty clear what it's trying to say. 01:45:16.15 Dave Jackson It's possible. 01:45:16.31 Jala So. 01:45:17.15 Dave Jackson I mean, I clearly, I read that very much, that that second quote as, ah you know, the words of fate, aka those fateful words, those words that set me on this path. 01:45:28.70 Dave Jackson You know, the thing that planted that seed in my head that I then chose to follow, as opposed to, yeah, you you get it. 01:45:35.16 Jala Right. And yeah. 01:45:38.14 Dave Jackson I've said it. Yeah. 01:45:39.67 Jala Well, I think too, that it might also be um partially because etymology changes over time and like the way that people, the significance that words have and the, you know, like the connotations that they will have alter over time. 01:45:46.90 Dave Jackson Yeah, that's true too. 01:45:55.97 Jala So it is entirely possible as well that it is more natural for us in this era to read it the way that you're reading it. 01:46:03.26 Dave Jackson Right. i And i didn't I didn't do any research about contemporary analysis of Frankenstein. I just read the book. So um your as always, Jolly, your research and preparation for the podcast is much more thorough than mine. 01:46:18.34 Dave Jackson um So yeah, all I have is my own brain, which is in 2025, know? 01:46:22.74 Jala Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm just trying to say, like, you know, just as a thought experiment, you know, try to think about it in terms of like, if you didn't, if you were divorced entirely out of like all of the media that you've seen and knowing the story because it's just everywhere and it's so well known, you know, like you're interpreted. 01:46:43.85 Jala And then also again, the way that the words were used back then was a bit different, you know, even if it's still understandable today, you know, so. 01:46:52.38 Dave Jackson Yeah. A hundred percent. Um, it's interesting to me see, and we've already chatted about this a little bit, uh, that Victor is little bit more, in a sympathetic light in the 1831 version than the 1818. Um, um, 01:47:07.33 Jala No. 01:47:08.47 Dave Jackson um Again, I read the 1831. Victor makes the right choice at a certain point in the story, but its it doesn't seem like he's turned oh he's turned a new page in his life or anything like that, which then makes me wonder, how bad was Victor in the 1818 version? 01:47:27.06 Jala I've never liked him. I'm pretty sure, I don't know for a fact, but I'm pretty sure that I probably read the 1818 first because I have literally never, never felt any sympathy for Victor. 01:47:40.71 Jala So I feel like I must have read the 1818 first. 01:47:41.39 Dave Jackson Yeah. 01:47:43.83 Jala ah So in the 1818 version, the creature too has free will and chooses his path. In the 1831, he is more like a lost animal caught up in the unfortunate chain of events. 01:47:55.64 Jala And there's like a lot of different passages where wording was changed around that to give it more of like this kind of mindless creature. Not really mindless, but like, you know, caught up in things kind of situation going. 01:48:12.22 Dave Jackson Yeah, it's the it's this this pure, good character that just has everything bad happen to them. 01:48:25.02 Dave Jackson And you know they're the only thing they think they can do at that point is is is violence is where it ends up. 01:48:25.11 Jala Yeah. 01:48:32.73 Jala Right. I mean, like, what's a wounded animal going to do if it keeps getting stabbed at? What's going to do? 01:48:37.41 Dave Jackson Yeah. 01:48:37.94 Jala It's going to turn on you and try to hurt you, regardless of whether or not you're you're nice, which nobody is nice to him. You know, nobody is nice to the creature. 01:48:44.06 Dave Jackson Right. 01:48:44.97 Jala But like, even if you were nice, you would still get bitten. You know, it's it's that kind of thing. 01:48:48.56 Dave Jackson Yep. ah Yeah. See me trying to shove a pill down my dog's throat and how he reacts to that. 01:48:52.95 Jala Right. Right. Right, right. Oh, goodness. Victor is shown in a far more sympathetic light in 1831. He is at times even a bit admirable. Shelley stresses in the rewrite that he was left to his own devices as a youth and had to cobble together his own education in science. This transforms his scientific curiosity from a pursuit of hubris in the original to a renaissance search for the ideal. Right. 01:49:19.48 Jala What a lofty goal. It's a lofty goal he's got. This makes him seem almost heroic for sacrificing his health and time toward the creation of the creature, at least until he creates the creature. 01:49:30.54 Jala Then you're like, okay, maybe not my dude. 01:49:31.29 Dave Jackson Yeah. 01:49:34.30 Jala So. 01:49:35.58 Dave Jackson if you if you If you look into it, I think that the hubris element is very obvious still in the 1831, but um it definitely does glorify how much he sacrifices health-wise 01:49:43.84 Jala Mm-hmm. 01:49:53.24 Dave Jackson in pursuit of this thing. And that, I mean, grind culture has, has arguably like never been more celebrated than it is right now. 01:50:02.33 Jala Right. 01:50:02.88 Dave Jackson Uh, so yeah, it's like, Hey, Victor, ah take a nap, take a mental health day. Those body parts will still be there tomorrow, buddy. 01:50:11.22 Jala Right. Except they might be a little too decayed by then. He's got to get it in today, you know. 01:50:17.05 Dave Jackson yeah. Just go get a new leg out of the graveyard. 01:50:20.22 Jala Right. 01:50:20.27 Dave Jackson There's plenty of legs out there. 01:50:21.62 Jala So many people are dying in those wars, Victor. It's fine. 01:50:24.60 Dave Jackson Yeah. 01:50:24.66 Jala you know but yeah, so this change implies that Victor's neglect of the creature is only perpetuating the cycle of neglect he inherited from his parents rather than being intentional harm, which is what it was in the original. 01:50:39.11 Jala So it turns into a generational thing rather than it being in willful intent. So yeah. 01:50:47.00 Dave Jackson I disagree with that, with that analysis of it. um Victor's parents may not have been... like active in education. 01:50:57.92 Dave Jackson Like you said that his father was in the 1818, but his parent, like his childhood was perfect. 01:51:02.80 Dave Jackson I don't think that he, it didn't seem to me like he carried any childhood trauma. 01:51:03.13 Jala Right. 01:51:07.46 Dave Jackson His dad is his best friend in the entire world other than, you know, Claire, Claire Vol. 01:51:09.14 Jala Yeah. 01:51:12.86 Dave Jackson So I don't necessarily agree with that, that it's a cycle that he starts. 01:51:15.77 Jala Right. 01:51:18.54 Dave Jackson Victor starts it. And then the monster, you know, a cycle of violence, the monster then perpetuates, but, 01:51:25.69 Jala It's not neglect in like the larger picture. It's neglect specifically in the mentoring and shaping of Victor's mind. 01:51:39.03 Jala And if you're hands off with the shaping of your child's mind, don't be surprised when he turns into a school shooter or whatever, you know, is I guess kind of the, it's the kind of thing that they're going with. 01:51:47.03 Dave Jackson Sure. Yeah, i i see that. 01:51:51.11 Jala It's not like, oh, you know, like this kid was, you know, a perfectly good kid and he had a good everything. His parents loved him, but then he turned into a mass murderer, you know? 01:51:59.93 Dave Jackson It's a different type. it like the the neglects are very different. 01:52:04.57 Jala Right, right. 01:52:05.85 Dave Jackson I mean, Victor's neglect is like total. The total abandonment of his creation. 01:52:15.99 Jala So Victor's father in the original iteration actively explains to Victor the folly of the work that he is studying, being all the alchemy and stuff, and this shapes Victor's understanding and victor's understanding actively. His father also performs scientific experiments which are completely omitted from the 1831 edition. The 1831 underplays Victor's scientific education at home prior to Ingolstadt. Any mention of his father teaching him and his brothers was completely removed. So again, this is just like putting more of the culpability um more on Victor where it's like, no, Victor, Victor, um, 01:52:53.34 Jala did this all on his own. It wasn't, you know, like, it's funny because it both wasn't his parents, but also was the free reign he was given by his parents, you know? 01:53:04.86 Jala You can read that any, any number of different ways. There is a generational trauma read of it. 01:53:11.34 Jala There's also a read where it's like, no, that means it's even more his fault, you know? So, and I think you're, you're interpreting more, more of his fault. 01:53:15.54 Dave Jackson Yeah. And that's, that's right. 01:53:19.70 Dave Jackson I read it more in that, um in the, again, in that kind of like biblical sort of way where you have like this, this perfect pure creation with a perfect background that is then corrupted by this unholy pursuit. 01:53:34.22 Dave Jackson We'll say. 01:53:34.62 Jala Right. Or this knowledge, this knowledge that he gets, right? 01:53:35.62 Dave Jackson Yeah. 01:53:37.93 Jala You know, that he got the apple. 01:53:38.33 Dave Jackson Yeah, unholy knowledge. I mean, this is this is this is the forbidden knowledge. 01:53:39.67 Jala Right. Right. 01:53:43.09 Dave Jackson You should not be doing this. 01:53:44.79 Jala Mm-hmm. So Shelley wrote a new introduction which frames the story as inspired by a nightmare, giving it a spookier gothic feel that sets it up before the thing starts. That's not in the original version. um However, she also deleted the opening quote from Paradise Lost, which was in there in the original, reducing some of the direct symbolism that she was pulling from. i don't know that it necessarily... 01:54:09.50 Jala I don't think it takes it out in my opinion. um i think it might've reduced it a little bit because it's not on the nose. Like here's, here's Paradise Lost directly quoted in my book. 01:54:21.56 Dave Jackson Right. 01:54:21.84 Jala I'm talking about Paradise Lost y'all, you know, but I mean, probably for, for the people of the time when the book came out, if you didn't have that quote in there, a lot of people wouldn't have necessarily read Paradise Lost and wouldn't get the reference, you know? 01:54:24.06 Dave Jackson yeah 01:54:37.43 Dave Jackson It's the same thing we talked about with like our modern, ah all of the all the influences we bring to analyzing anything. 01:54:47.62 Dave Jackson Everything we've ever encountered goes into the way we see the next thing we see. 01:54:48.04 Jala Right. Right. 01:54:53.40 Dave Jackson And so immediately before starting a story, if you read a quote from Paradise Lost, you're like, okay, I'll be on the lookout for this. 01:55:01.05 Dave Jackson So yeah, I get that for sure. 01:55:03.93 Jala Yeah. So the language overall is darker and more fatalistic. She had by this point been plagued by bad health and was widowed and struggled through a whole bunch of personal tragedies and, you know, being completely poor and everything. So it's very fatalistic sounding versus, you know, some of the wording in the 1818 is not quite so tragic, let's say. It gets more gothic, not less. Yeah. 01:55:30.42 Jala So yeah, the character origin shift, we already talked about Elizabeth, but also the understanding of science originally came from his father. In the rewrite, he learns from a stranger who explains about lightning striking a tree. 01:55:42.38 Jala And Clairvaux transforms from a hobbyist linguist into someone with colonial ambitions, which echoed the kind of vibe of the time of 1831 when she did the rewrite. 01:55:53.20 Jala And, you know, like colonialism was really on the rise. And also, if I'm not mistaken, I think Lord Byron was of that persuasion at that point as well. 01:56:03.75 Jala So, that got dropped in there to make Claire see so if Mary Shelley thought of herself as Victor and then Clerval his bestie is Lord Byron who was supporting her sort of you know and she thought well of at that time you know it makes sense to make Clerval more like Lord Byron so some of her actual life kind of floating in there 01:56:22.92 Dave Jackson Yeah. 01:56:28.54 Jala Yeah, so Shelley also streamlined many of the descriptive passages, added more reflective sections to improve the kind of choppy beginning of the novel and deepen Victor's internal space. ah These changes to me where there's those reflective parts really does smooth out. Like the 1831 is a lot smoother of a pill when you start it, you know, than it is when you're reading the 1818. It's a little bit jumpier and you aren't as seamlessly in Victor's headspace as you are with 1831. 01:57:03.90 Dave Jackson Mm-hmm. 01:57:04.86 Jala So, ah Shelley's original version feels like she sees herself in the creature. We already talked about that. And the notes for the 1831 edition, she referred to the novel as a hideous progeny, which rather directly showcases her sympathies for a Victor. 18, yeah. 01:57:21.94 Dave Jackson Yeah, this ah this thing that she's created that has ah probably, yeah, exactly, spun out and had a life of its own and sounds like, you know, the way you described it, um not necessarily making her life a lot better. 01:57:22.07 Jala eighteen yeah right? A will of its own. Yeah. 01:57:37.33 Dave Jackson So, yeah. 01:57:38.10 Jala Right. Yeah. Yeah. so in 1818, Elizabeth rants about the evils of capital punishment, and this was completely removed from 1831 edition. That was a little bit of Mary Shelley's own beliefs thrown in there for good measure, and then she took those out later on. 01:57:51.20 Dave Jackson Mm-hmm. 01:57:54.36 Jala And Elizabeth feels relief that Justine was innocent in the 1831 edition. She's way more worried about Victor and how Victor's feeling. Not that she's not relieved about Justine, but the emphasis is different there. 01:58:07.44 Jala Victor's depression is emphasized in the 1831, which we've talked about. Like you've talked about how depressed and how affected he is by everything. That's ah specifically more so in 1831. 01:58:18.88 Jala And in 1831, he goes alone to the Alps rather than being there with his dad. 01:58:19.26 Dave Jackson m 01:58:25.53 Jala His dad joined him 1818. And Elizabeth. Right 01:58:34.36 Dave Jackson Kind of at more exploration of his, you know, thorough depression throughout most of the book as a result of ah everything that's happening as a consequence of his ah his creation and his actions, basically. 01:58:47.92 Jala Right. Right. 01:58:50.17 Dave Jackson He's a wreck the entire book after, basically, as soon as the monster's made, he's a wreck until the end. 01:58:57.82 Dave Jackson And I like that. 01:58:57.85 Jala Well, and part of that is, again, Mary Shelley of 1831 is a wreck you know, she's feeling Victor. 01:59:05.91 Dave Jackson Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 01:59:09.49 Jala She's really feeling Victor and she's writing him up a lot because she's probably infusing him with a lot of her own feelings, you know. So in the Alpine scenery in 1831, Victor sees the omnipotence of God, sees God out in the wilderness, that was not there in the original version. So again, infusing a little bit more religiosity into the thing for the critics. 01:59:33.66 Jala And when Victor and the creature are talking, there's a passage that's a little bit different. So in 1818, how is this? I thought I had moved your compassion and yet you still refuse to bet on me the only benefit, or bestow, I think, bestow on me the only benefit that can soften my heart and render me now and render me harmless. 01:59:53.44 Jala And then 1831 says, how is this? I must not be trifled with and I demand an answer. Very different tone for the creature. And that's just like an example of you know some of the tone for the creature changing. 02:00:04.76 Jala He's a lot more um you know, like ah he's appealing more to Victor's humanity and he's like, hey, why won't you like me? You made me What is happening? you know, and all of that. And doing the very Paradise Lost, you know, man has questions, you know, questions for God and why, why God, why? And that's what the original was like. And he's just turned into more of a villain in 1831. 02:00:34.84 Dave Jackson I will say that most of the creature's dialogue, I think still does reflect more of that 1818 style of those two quotes that you read. Like the creature is like very well-spoken and tries, like legitimately tries to talk to Victor uh, rationally. 02:00:58.52 Dave Jackson And then we get to a point where there's no more talking. Um, but, and then it's in basically in, ah in conversation with anyone else that the creature talks to in the whole story, it's that same type of vibe that, you know, very intelligent, very well-spoken, very, um, uh, lots of reasoning and things like that. 02:01:01.29 Jala Yep. 02:01:18.71 Dave Jackson He just gets to a point with Victor where he's like, no I'm not there's no reasoning with you anymore, so we're getting to business. 02:01:27.03 Jala Right. Right. So when Elizabeth is murdered and a crowd of people go in search of the murderer, Victor laid on a bed and started to worry about his father. 02:01:37.48 Jala But in the 1831, he doesn't even think about his dad. He's that's gone. 02:01:41.91 Dave Jackson He just leaves. 02:01:43.03 Jala Yeah. He's just like, bye. 02:01:44.44 Jala Okay. So scholars also used to favor the 1831 edition. This is just a factoid for its more traditional literary appeal And presently, Favor has swung back to the 1818 version for its deeper thematic development within a shorter number of pages. 02:02:01.85 Jala The original is more incisive and dares to ask more penetrating questions. The 1831 is safer and more publicly acceptable. She's no longer filled with the youthful fire of her radical ideology, but is world weary and more prone to conform rather than stand out. 02:02:20.50 Jala So... 02:02:21.46 Dave Jackson That sounds pretty real to me. You know, think back to the ways that you, again, 18 years old, 19 years old, the way that people kind of act out, stand, try to stand out when they're that old ah versus you get a little bit older and part of your, part of your driving desire for things you do is to be left alone. 02:02:42.23 Jala So especially with all the scandal that just followed her around like the plague for her entire life, you know, 02:02:51.67 Dave Jackson Right. She's got to just be like, i just need some peace and quiet, you know? 02:02:55.45 Jala I would like to be on that island, please, in the middle of the ocean in the shack, you know. 02:03:01.34 Jala So, so yeah, so those are the extent of the notes of the differences between the two. Again, like part of part of it is like the way that it's been repeated and passed down as just like an archetype, right, is something that influences how we are predisposed to reading it. But there are interesting differences. If you read them back to back, which I did before we were doing this show, I read them back to back and it was hard for me to pick out. 02:03:31.93 Jala I was playing spot the difference as best I could and it was difficult for me to pick out the differences between the two. And part of that is, again, knowing already the story. 02:03:38.81 Dave Jackson Yeah. 02:03:41.88 Jala yeah ah you know, you're like, oh yeah, and then this is the part where this happened. You know, like it's harder to parse those differences, you know, and in get into the nitty gritty like that. 02:03:52.89 Jala So again, if people are interested in that, there is an entire breakdown of every passage that changed in the Norton Critical Edition. 02:03:53.57 Dave Jackson Mm hmm. 02:03:59.97 Jala I will link that in the show notes. 02:04:02.33 Dave Jackson There we go. 02:04:03.51 Jala Yeah. So let's segue into talking about the themes and the resonance, all this stuff that we like to talk about. There's a lot of themes. I was writing these and I kept writing and I'm like, holy shit, there's so much to go over, so many things to talk about. 02:04:19.13 Dave Jackson It is a deep story. 02:04:20.31 Jala Yeah, kick us off. 02:04:20.37 Dave Jackson Yeah. So the first one we have is the consequences of defying nature and the role of family. um You talked about this before, that Victor kind of takes it upon himself to create life by himself, removing women from the process. um And his creation is... ah Different, in a way, we'll say. 02:04:48.76 Jala Right, right. And so um a lot of people, when they do a feminist read of this, see the creature as inherently stunted because there wasn't that influence of the woman. 02:05:01.27 Jala You know, there was no motherly figure. And it lacks all of that nurturing. There's just, you know, just it being dumped out in the world. And then guess what happens? And, you know, science has proven that if you have a child, because for some ungodly reason, people have actually done this. They've taken a child and just put it in a room and only given it like milk every once in a while and like not given it any kind of nurturing. And then like it is it's like it... 02:05:29.33 Jala it's fucked up. The kid gets fucked up when that happens because it needs that, and not necessarily from a woman, not necessarily the mother, just any form of nurturing whatsoever. 02:05:40.36 Jala And, you know, like it's just at that time period in the 1800s, it would have been the mother doing that. 02:05:47.86 Dave Jackson And I mean, Victor, you want to talk about a lack of nurturing, like Victor runs out the door within five seconds of seeing it. And then, you know, that's it. 02:05:58.78 Dave Jackson There's no, no there's nothing, there's no contact. And the monster, you know, tells its backstory and you see there was no nurturing from the outside world either. So it turns out to be one of those feral children that grows up in a bedroom. 02:06:12.49 Dave Jackson Although, you know, admittedly, well-spoken, intelligent, and compassionate. 02:06:19.83 Dave Jackson You know, we talk about the idea of nature versus nurture, which might be further down in the outline. i haven't scrolled that far down yet, but um the idea that the creature, despite being abandoned and then being, you know, left alone to wander and then um cast out from this village and stuff, it's still inherently good. 02:06:42.33 Dave Jackson And it only takes, you know, it takes rejection after rejection after rejection before it finally snaps and is like, well, okay, I'm going to make your life miserable, Victor. um But until, you know, for a long, long time and several rejections into the story, the monster is good. It's inherently good. 02:07:06.84 Dave Jackson you know, I wonder, because I kind of, if you compare and contrast the monster with Victor, like you want to say like Victor, is he inherently good? Like nothing in his childhood, because his childhood was perfect again, nothing from his childhood would really sway him onto this irresponsible, evil decision-making process. 02:07:31.93 Dave Jackson Unless it's just the fact I'm going on ah several different talking points at once. 02:07:36.98 Jala Yeah, it's fine. Go for it. 02:07:37.66 Dave Jackson So I apologize. Unless Victor has never, you know, no one's ever told him no before in his life. 02:07:46.38 Dave Jackson And so he has this unchecked-- He never asks, "is this the right thing to do? Should I be doing this?" The Jurassic Park quote, you know, "your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should." And no one ever made Victor consider that, I don't think. So not to say that his parents never, you know, disciplined him or anything, but his childhood was perfect. 02:08:16.15 Jala Well, part of it is the fact that with a perfect childhood, the way he talks about it, he never had any worries, which means he never had any responsibilities, which means that he never had a reason to question whether or not something was the right thing, because he never had any consequences for anything before. And then he also didn't have responsibility before. So no responsibilities and no consequences. You know, by the time he finally gets to the point that he gets to, it's like he doesn't have any kind of a framework to go on for how to how to go about this. And for some reason, he decided he didn't want to tell anybody about doing this. He just decided to go do it and start robbing graves and shit. So...You know, lack of communication is a big thing in this book. 02:09:05.96 Dave Jackson Victor's a nepo baby billionaire. 02:09:15.32 Jala Yeah, it's wild. So, yeah, that's a question that I think the answer may possibly vary depending upon the person that you ask. So circling back to the whole nurturing, broken family dynamic thing, something that's interesting is the fact that Victor displays symptoms of postpartum depression but none of the joyful parts of having a child. So he has fear, guilt, depression, anxiety. Those are all common responses postpartum. And Victor has all of that, but he doesn't have any of the joyful response at all to creating a new life. And that's where the horror comes from for him and for the reader, both you're, know, he is horrified when he sees it. There's no motherly instinct, if you will, to towards this. Oh, I've made this thing, it's beautiful. None of that. So the entire undertaking is part of the "spectacle of masculinity," as critic Bette London calls it. Victor is privileged not just by his wealth and happy existence, but also inherently by his gender. His short-sightedness may be interpreted as part of the lack of real accountability for those in power. He becomes a martyr-like figure rather than culpable for his crimes. He and his loved ones do ultimately pay the price for his actions, but he is never taken to task by society ever to his dying day. 02:10:57.75 Jala You were comparing him to a nepo baby billionaire. It's there. 02:11:03.16 Dave Jackson Yeah, I mean, that and then also um in a patriarchal society, I think that's most of the way to saying that word correctly. 02:11:16.06 Dave Jackson Men like Victor are given more reign to just go unchecked. And that's how we get, you know, the Elon Musks of the world that are just, you know, fucking things up with no accountability. So Victor is definitely one of those. 02:11:30.04 Jala Right. And the thing is, again, Mary Shelley was idolized her mother, even though she'd never known her mother in her life. She idolized her mother and her mother's writings. 02:11:40.28 Dave Jackson Right. 02:11:42.33 Jala And her mother was a staunch feminist. So this is definitely part of the text, you know. So, ah yeah, Victor's Own Childhood is super idyllic. his first problem arises when he's 17. 02:11:54.53 Jala Now, granted, it's a big problem. His mom dies, but, like, he's never had anything, like, go wrong before that. 02:12:01.18 Jala Um... So for me, that fact speaks to me about Mary's deep yearning for a loving family that she might have had if she hadn't, according to her and whoever else was blaming her, killed her mother. So I think the fact that he has this idyllic past is based on her desire for that same thing. Right. 02:12:24.60 Dave Jackson it could be also i mean if the idea is to show how far someone can fall through their own actions then victor starts at the top there's no you know he couldn't have had a better childhood until his mom dies 02:12:38.04 Jala Right. Well, and then too, if you think about Victor and you think about how later in life, Mary decided that she was more like Victor than she was originally. Like the fact that Victor had this, this, you know, hope and this love and this, this situation when he was younger and then, you know, stuff went to shit after that, like that, that would resonate more with her. 02:12:47.36 Dave Jackson Mm-hmm. 02:12:58.97 Jala Like her own story resonated with her. So, you know, But um yeah, and the creature blames so his suffering on the fact that he does not have a family or any anybody to you know any society to be with. And even though Victor is, in a sense, his father, their relationship is antagonistic, strictly. 02:13:26.49 Dave Jackson I had something and then it, it's, I was like, no, I've already said that twice. I don't need to say it again. 02:13:31.00 Jala Well, you can talk about this other thing that's your one of your favorite themes from the book. You know? 02:13:35.45 Dave Jackson Yeah, ah the potential horror of science unchecked by morality. um Like we've said a bunch of times throughout the process of ah of his pursuit of his experiments, Victor never considers what happens if he succeeds. 02:13:50.25 Dave Jackson It's just about the achievement. It's just about the pursuit of knowledge, um you know, trying to accomplish your goal without any thought to what happens if you do it. 02:14:02.39 Dave Jackson This this is something that you know, it's timeless. This is a timeless thing. There are countless new ah technological and scientific advancements made throughout history. And even, you know, right now we're living through another one where it's like, okay, we can do this. We can make this. Is it going to make people's lives better? Is it going to make society better? Is it going to, like, it's going to make, I'm, 02:14:32.65 Dave Jackson I'm talking about gen AI right now. Um, but the idea that it's going to make people's, um, menial tasks easier while making their lives worse as a whole, ah not part of the, um, not part of the deliberations. 02:14:49.78 Dave Jackson I don't feel like by the people who were, uh, trying to make it happen. 02:14:50.23 Jala Right. 02:14:54.10 Dave Jackson Um, it's just, can we make it happen? Yes. Therefore we make it happen. 02:14:58.81 Jala And shove it down everyone's throats. 02:15:00.95 Dave Jackson Yes, exactly. And this, you know, I put the Jurassic Park quote in here because that's exactly, that's what Jurassic Park's about too. So um it popped straight into my head. 02:15:11.36 Dave Jackson But yeah, this is this is universal. It has been a thing as long as people have been experimenting and, ah you know, making advancements and it will continue to be a thing. 02:15:22.45 Jala Yep, forever. And again, that's one of the reasons why this is such a timeless classic of a novel. So let's talk about the consequences of ambition. 02:15:32.38 Jala Ambitious is dangerous because it can become evil or lead to evil ends. Not all the time, but it can. Victor himself compares his work to the destruction of entire civilizations. 02:15:44.47 Jala This is a quote from the book. If no man allowed any pursuit whatsoever to interfere with the tranquility of his domestic affections, Greece had not been enslaved. Caesar would not or would have spared his country. 02:15:58.62 Jala America would have been discovered more gradually, and the empires of Mexico and Peru had not been destroyed. He suggests that his ambition makes him like Satan, a la Paradise Lost. His delusions of grandeur extend even to his wickedness as he compares himself to none other than the devil incarnate. 02:16:18.94 Jala You know, he he's got grandiose visions of himself, and why wouldn't he be? He's a privileged Nepo baby billionaire. So his response to the creature's perspective reads, at least in 1818, as a critique of colonialism, because the privileged, well-off white man is abjectly horrified by the sudden inclusion of the other in his scope of the world. 02:16:40.09 Jala And just like a colonizer, he can't bring himself to care for the other. 02:16:46.32 Dave Jackson It's interesting to think of If you're in a position where you could live in comfort and not, you know, just every day is just going to be perfect, you know, like Victor's upbringing, basically. 02:16:59.54 Dave Jackson He could just chill in Geneva and have a great life, but he chose to um be ambitious, and that was his downfall, is that unchecked ambition. 02:17:10.84 Dave Jackson It's an interesting thought experiment of basically, like would we all be more satisfied if we weren't striving for something greater? 02:17:22.94 Dave Jackson i don't know that it... you know It certainly doesn't apply to everybody because everyone's station in life isn't as nice as Victor's. um But... Again, we go back to like talking about the unchecked scientific progress or scientific pursuits. 02:17:40.60 Dave Jackson That's ambition that takes a ah turn that goes too far, we'll say. 02:17:45.76 Dave Jackson So it's maybe not necessarily the consequences of being ambitious as Victor maybe lays it out, but the consequences of being ambitious and never thinking of like... 02:17:59.38 Dave Jackson Never thinking things through. Just being blindly ambitious. 02:18:03.22 Jala Right. There has to be a checks and balances system in place. There has to be some kind of happy medium that is reached. 02:18:07.19 Dave Jackson Yeah. 02:18:11.22 Jala There has to be some kind of balancing of things, you know, consideration of aspects in order to get to the healthiest and most productive form of ambition. 02:18:23.61 Dave Jackson Think before you act. 02:18:24.89 Jala Right, right. So, yeah, let's talk about it. 02:18:28.05 Jala We already talked about the inherent goodness of creatures, nature versus nurture. I've already talked about that. um So the same kind of concept of nature versus nurture kind of comes up for us today with stuff like all cops are bastards and the sentiment that we need less government, not more in that. So Mary Shelley is unquestioningly on the side of the inherent innocence of man, which aligns with the religious sensibilities of the time as well as anarchism. Because if there's no hierarchical structure in place to govern people, then they have to be inherently good enough to not murder each other and be good. 02:19:11.97 Jala So the idea of, you know, all cops are bastards and we need less government and the whole anarchist, you know, thing is, is predicated on the fact that people have to be good first for that to work. 02:19:25.94 Dave Jackson If yeah, for that to be unnecessary. Yeah. 02:19:28.02 Jala Right. Right. So, and of course, like there are, ah some of the people who are clamoring for, you know, massive reforms are not necessarily saying there needs to be nothing in place. They're just saying something different needs to be in place. But the problem with any bureaucracy is if you replace it with another bureaucracy, it's going to go the same way and fuck up at some point, you know? 02:19:49.43 Jala So yeah. Talk about the next point. Well, yeah. 02:19:53.30 Dave Jackson Yeah. So the next one is the destructive nature of secrecy. um So had Victor disclosed what he had, Victor told any, anyone, anyone at all, what he was doing um further tragedy might've been avoided or at least mitigated. 02:20:03.70 Jala Literally anyone. Yeah. 02:20:10.29 Dave Jackson It's not until two people have died that Victor tells anyone what he's created. 02:20:18.52 Dave Jackson Not when his friend comes to visit him and finds him in poor health. ah Not, you know, that's that's it. That's when he first tells somebody. um And what kept him silent was the horror at what he'd done. But had he... 02:20:35.29 Dave Jackson opened up. um He may have had access to community for support. 02:20:41.33 Jala Right. 02:20:41.47 Dave Jackson He may have had someone hey say, hey, Victor, maybe that's not something you should be doing. Maybe this is not going to end well for you. But he didn't. And um that that lack of community, that lack of um you know companionship of any kind, is that's what the creature experiences. 02:21:03.66 Dave Jackson It's Victor's, you know, in a way, Victor pursues all of this stuff by himself. He doesn't really engage with a community too much. I mean, he has his people at the university that, you know, he's probably bouncing ideas off of, but, you know, how much did he really tell them? 02:21:21.40 Dave Jackson She doesn't go into that in the book. So we're left to assume that no one... stopped him or no one said something strong enough to dissuade him from it. Um, if it was possible to dissuade him from it. Um, 02:21:39.61 Dave Jackson But so he goes it alone, basically. But it's his like his privilege and his upbringing that allow him to do that and succeed. Whereas the creature has nothing and the creature has no privilege. And so we see the creature's story um because of that. He doesn't have anyone around to help with anything. 02:22:01.66 Jala Right, right. And again, like if we go back to the whole idea of colonizer versus, you know, the other, anybody who's not the colonizing power, you know, the creature is basically a minority in the middle of a country full of colonizers, you know, and nobody will be nice to him. Nobody will help him. 02:22:20.28 Jala You know, everybody is pitiless and merciless. So, so yeah. 02:22:27.74 Dave Jackson And the next one kind of along those lines is the need for communication. Kind of talking about that. So Victor kept everything a secret, could have avoided some of these things had he been talking and collaborating and communicating. ah But not only that, um Victor refuses to communicate with his creation. He refuses to talk with the creature, even though the first time they have a conversation, 02:22:55.32 Dave Jackson The creature is obviously well-spoken, intelligent, can be reasoned with, rational, all of those things. But Victor refuses. i mean, I think that the reason was um he says, ah he basically says, like, tell me the truth. Did you kill William? 02:23:14.42 Dave Jackson And the creature says, yes, I did. and that's like Victor shuts everything off after that. 02:23:19.61 Jala Right. 02:23:20.15 Dave Jackson There's no more communication. Yeah. Which, I mean, he's pissed. I get it. He's pissed. You killed my brother. i understand that. But he wasn't really open to he wasn't really 02:23:29.40 Jala My name is Inigo Montoya! 02:23:33.02 Dave Jackson yeah he wasn't he wasn't really open to communication before that point either. 02:23:37.30 Dave Jackson It was like, I will not talk to you until you answer this question, basically. 02:23:41.75 Dave Jackson So no communication between the two. And then there's other ah points in the story where Victor keeps secrets that he shouldn't have kept because it leads to other people's deaths. 02:23:53.18 Jala And then, you know, something about a secret is that it'll just keep on getting more and more complicated for you to keep on holding on to that secret the longer you go and the more people that you end up ah encountering with, you know, like this, this elephant in the room, if you will, although it's really like a creature, you know, with, with yellowy eyes and stuff. There's also the irrevocable nature of loss and guilt. Both Victor and the creature experience these sensations, particularly Victor, of course. But no take backs. Once gone, there's no course correction. You can't undo that. 02:24:31.13 Jala And Victor does not learn his lesson after William dies. He keeps on along the same path as if he has no choice. And, you know, again, in the original, that was really more for hubris reasons. 02:24:38.44 Dave Jackson Mm-hmm. 02:24:42.81 Jala And in the 1831, it's still hubris, but it's also laced with this idea of fate. So. 02:24:52.06 Dave Jackson In this, um kind of like this paralyzing indecision to for Victor, like, um you know I've created a monster. 02:24:56.31 Jala Right. 02:25:02.26 Dave Jackson I don't want people to know that I've created the monster, and they're not going to believe me if I tell them anyway, so therefore I will keep it to myself until it's too late, basically. 02:25:14.20 Jala So here's the funny shit. he was not thinking about whether he should do the thing when he made the monster, but then afterwards when he has made it, he thinks a whole lot about whether or not he should tell anyone that he made the monster. He got the memo, but a little bit too late. About, maybe I should think about it before I act, but then he became paralyzed with indecision, as you say. 02:25:44.76 Dave Jackson And then the, you know, the time that he actually does think a situation through and act in a timely manner, people were going to die regardless, probably. 02:25:56.40 Dave Jackson Like, it it's, you know, again, he found himself in the trolley problem because he didn't make the decisions earlier in the story. 02:26:05.98 Jala Right, right. So we also have the harmful effects of loneliness and isolation. Victor and the creature are both isolated. 02:26:12.98 Jala Victor is an island, even as he's surrounded by loved ones. And the creature who has no choice and no one will abide him is obviously by default alone. And the book seems to suggest that alienation is both the cause of evil as well as the punishment of for evil so my protectors had departed and had broken the only link that held me to the world for the first time the feelings of revenge and hatred filled my bosom And that was the creature talking about the people in the cottage and their abandonment. But his murders only serve to make him even more miserable. so it's a self-perpetuating cycle. You get upset and you're whatever because you're lonely, but then that makes you even more lonely and ostracized for the things that you do because you're lonely. Yeah. 02:27:03.64 Dave Jackson You made me think there was a part, you know, when we were doing the summary, we talked about it, but, um, when they're getting ready to get married, Victor and Elizabeth. He's like visibly distressed the entire time because he knows the creature is going, has promised to be there on his wedding night. And he's visit he's a wreck. And Elizabeth asks him a couple times, like, what's wrong? Please confide in me. You know, I'm your bride-to-be. I'm your best friend. Like, please confide in me. And he basically, like you said, he isolates himself. He just says like, 02:27:45.53 Dave Jackson you know, our weddings in three days after our wedding night, I will tell you everything. Just basically pushing it off and pushing her out, like keeping himself isolated, but also isolating her. because there, there's this terrible secret hanging over him and he will not share it. 02:28:03.70 Dave Jackson And, You know, again, what could have been avoided had Victor communicated and been like, there's this thing, you know, thing that's going to happen on our wedding night. What if we, what if we change our plans? What if something else happened? But he's too, whatever goes into his decision to keep her out of the loop, it ends up with her dying. 02:28:28.39 Jala Right, right. There's also that but there was an essay that I read that was about racial science and the Yellow Peril. 02:28:41.81 Jala We'll talk about that in just a second. 02:28:43.25 Jala So the creature has yellowish skin and is massive and is first seen in the novel as crossing the steppes of Russia and the Tartary. In Mary Shelley's day, he would have been immediately recognizable as a Mongolian. 02:28:57.74 Jala Mongolian is one of the five races identified by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach in 1795 in what would later be identified as the beginning of physical anthropology. Before Blumenbach, differences in skin and hair color, skull shape, and other factors were considered adaptations of place with all humans lumped together. Blumenbach classified races as subgroups within the human species, and this was cutting-edge science at the time. One of his most ardent disciples, William Lawrence, was also a good friend to the Shelleys. So Lawrence assigned moral characteristics to each race following Kant and Herder. Mongoloids were considered savage, inherently violent, barbaric, and destructive, as well as culturally stagnant. The creature's skin is compared to that of a mummy, and Egyptians were considered a mixture of races rather than Ethiopian, which Caucasians thought were inferior. And so the creature has some noble qualities, but he also has inherent barbarism. And it's all tied to this this kind of fear of people from Asia and other places. And the way that people were basically described in essentially taxonomy of the time as being of these, these races and where did the races come from and all of this mess. But you know, this, this person who was very close to the Shelleys had assigned morality to it. So that is why the creature is yellow and yellow and yellow because of this concept of the Yellow Peril. 02:30:44.57 Dave Jackson Yeah, I suppose you could, if you're taking that historical influence into it, I had assumed his skin was yellow because he was made of corpses and, you know, it was discolored, but, you know. 02:31:37.94 Jala So that is a thing where, you know, like that could be a way that we read it these days. But back then, it would have automatically been registering under this this taxonomy, this this physical anthropology that was cutting edge science at the time, which remember, Mary Shelley's whole book is based on cutting edge science of the time. 02:32:01.27 Dave Jackson Yeah, I was going to say, sorry, glad it's not cutting edge of science now. 02:32:05.92 Dave Jackson We've come a long way since that, yeah 02:32:06.10 Jala Right. So tell us a little bit about sublime nature and the eco criticism angle because I read a thing about that too. 02:32:18.81 Dave Jackson Yes. So um I talked about, you know, one of my favorite scenes and one of my favorite, you know, descriptions of nature is that scene when Victor goes out on vacation, a hike to clear the mind and landscapes are pervasive throughout the book. And they're really important to the story. And as a romantic piece, nature itself is a place of respite and solace when one is in need. 02:32:44.60 Dave Jackson Um, As the mood of the narrative shifts, the landscape, the landscapes shift as well. They grow tumultuous and dangerous, echoing the interior landscapes of the characters. 02:32:55.62 Dave Jackson We go from the, the mountains of Switzerland to the storm battered remote Island in the, uh, you know, off the coast of, off the coast of the UK or wherever that takes place. 02:33:03.17 Jala Mm-hmm. Orkneys. 02:33:08.57 Dave Jackson Um, um, And then up into the Arctic, even worse. So it can be said the environments and the characters couched within them are one and the same. There's no line in between, um which is which is interesting as, you know, 02:33:25.72 Dave Jackson when you have a character going through this internal chaos, as Victor is, say, when he's supposed to be making this second monster, that he's doing this thing in, he does not want to do it, but he feels like he has to. 02:33:39.30 Jala Right. Yeah. 02:33:41.28 Dave Jackson And then he makes the decision not to. 02:33:43.28 Dave Jackson So while he has this, this tumultuous inner ah conflict, he's in a remote storm battered, just shitty Island um landscape. 02:33:55.45 Dave Jackson So um echoing interior and exterior. 02:33:59.77 Jala Yeah, absolutely. And another interesting little thing to note is that Mary and Percy Shelley were vegetarian and that the creature was vegan. 02:34:10.12 Jala So like, as mentioned before, so I didn't realize that Mary and Percy were vegetarian. 02:34:16.44 Jala I did eventually find it when I was doing research on her life, but actually it was Moxie. 02:34:21.56 Jala So shout out to Moxie who told me first, Hey, This is maybe really important and maybe you want to talk about this, you know? And I was like, okay, yeah, let me let me see how that pulls in. 02:34:31.74 Jala I don't have anything to say about it other than it's a thing. And, you know, it was echoed, you know. 02:34:35.35 Dave Jackson other I mean, it does it does show some of the like inherent goodness of the creature. Not necessarily that it's vegan, but that it's not harming. 02:34:40.76 Jala Right. 02:34:43.85 Jala It's not harming other sentient beings, right. 02:34:45.21 Dave Jackson Right. It's not killing. It actually, like throughout the story... Only people who are associated with Victor are, you know, met with violence from the creature, right? 02:34:57.82 Dave Jackson And nothing else, not even any not even animals, nothing else. It's just related to Victor. And those people around Victor, they're innocent also, but, you know, they have that association. 02:35:08.76 Dave Jackson So I think that does speak a little bit to the inherent goodness of the creature, that it doesn't want to bring death everywhere it goes. 02:35:16.80 Jala Right. right So the work itself is seated comfortably in what is called critical animal studies, particularly animal rights. And this is the direction to go in when I would talk about eco-criticism. So while it's not overtly about ecology, the text does broach the subject of what we classify as human and non-human and how do we treat that life. 02:35:40.54 Jala Because Victor very obviously thinks that the creature is not a human being, even though it's able to speak eloquently and looks, you know, at least approximately like a human and, you know, is able to reason and feel and do all these other things and do good in the world. 02:36:00.08 Jala Even though that is the case, Victor very flatly does not see it as human at all. So, yeah. So a little bit about what ecocriticism is, because I've mentioned it a few times. So it is a movement which began in the 90s. It aims to have, it aims to be like largely anthropocentric with sharp lines drawn between human and non-human. And thus this book, which directly calls this line into question has almost never been treated from this perspective other than the critical essay in the Norton critical edition, Frankenstein and Ecocriticism by Timothy Morton. Romantics like Wordsworth and Shelley strove to confuse and undermine the difference between nature and the human, the object and the subject, history and natural history. 02:36:52.02 Jala You can see this again, like in the way that the landscape works. and the characters are the same, one and the same. You know, like that's part of that romantic urge to make everything into, you know, one. You know, it's also the same thing that eventually inspired the hippies to be one love and everything. Like that's, 02:37:11.76 Jala That's the same that that was directly inspired by the romantic movement. So um this novel is deconstructive in that it's not eliminating categories, but testing them to breaking point in order to point out these inherent absurdities of categorization in the first place. the act of categorizing at all seems monstrous. When you see the creature talking so rationally to Victor and being so patient and taking this rejection time and time again, and still you know being there and trying to reach out to Victor and make a connection with him. 02:37:48.60 Jala And you know you if you begin to say, okay, like does this creature by virtue of what he looks like merit this treatment from Victor? 02:37:58.81 Jala you know it starts making you question some things. um who and what ah Who and what do we care about? And how are we to care about those things? And for Darwin, monstrosity is a natural variation in the course of evolution. Life itself is monstrosity. 02:38:18.36 Jala So in this way, the creature is as natural as anything else, even though he's human made. 02:38:24.60 Jala So the monster is what we cannot predict. 02:38:24.80 Dave Jackson Mm-hmm. 02:38:29.82 Jala It is a quote from that particular essay. So. 02:38:34.20 Dave Jackson Yeah. I mean, if there's anything, if there's any quality that we can ascribe to humanity, it's being unpredictable. So, yeah. 02:38:41.59 Jala Right. 02:38:42.89 Dave Jackson um You know, you mentioned very early in the show that this, that Frankenstein could be seen as one of the first sci-fi stories. 02:38:55.13 Dave Jackson And these themes of, you know, what do we perceive as human versus what do we perceive as not human? It's like this, like one of the hallmark themes of sci-fi, except we would most often have it as a robot or some sort of artificially constructed consciousness or something like that. 02:39:06.26 Jala Yep. 02:39:16.38 Dave Jackson that would then go through, yeah, or an alien, right, that would then go through all of the same things that the monster does in this story, and it would ask us the same questions about, you know, 02:39:16.69 Jala Or an alien, you know? Yeah. 02:39:28.98 Dave Jackson this thing is conscious, this thing is intelligent, this thing is well-spoken, this thing is empathetic. What more qualities does it have before we consider it to be human and then ascribe it the same treatment that we would to humans or the same rights that we would to humans or something like that? 02:39:48.18 Dave Jackson It's just, I think that I'm going through some like sci-fi stories in my head where you could just swap the monster out with a robot And we have the same themes and the same discussions going on. 02:40:00.97 Jala Right. It's, I did a show earlier this year about the movie companion and companion is about an AI, you know, um AI entity who is mistreated and, you know, is, is trying to find her place in the world. 02:40:16.97 Jala And it's a Frankenstein story. Guess what? It's all a Frankenstein story. 02:40:19.99 Dave Jackson Yeah, or I mean, it's Vivi in Final Fantasy IX who goes through all of these same types of things from the creature's perspective and Vivi's perspective. 02:40:21.37 Jala Yeah. To a degree. 02:40:31.69 Dave Jackson It's, you know, so many stories about ah androids versus humans and things like that. So yeah, science fiction. 02:40:40.12 Jala So that is all of the extensive notes that I have written about this book. um i I wanted to bring up those themes and let people kind of sit with those and just kind of think about them for yourself. I'm not out here trying to tell you what you need to interpret and take away from the book. There's so many things that you can dig into and a lot of these things because they are philosophical questions inherently do not have answers, not single answers. 02:41:12.79 Jala You know, there's not like an unquestioning response to any of this. 02:41:13.15 Dave Jackson Yeah. 02:41:16.03 Jala So food for thought, food for thought for sure. 02:41:16.82 Dave Jackson Yeah. Yeah. get Guess what? Nature versus nurture has not had a definitive answer since this book was written and it's not going to have one in 200 more years. 02:41:27.01 Dave Jackson So yeah. 02:41:27.19 Jala Right. Yeah, absolutely. so That concludes, I don't think I have, but we've kind of covered everything I can think of about this book. So I think that concludes our look at this um novel in both versions of it, plus everything else, the trappings around it and everything. 02:41:44.73 Dave Jackson Mm-hmm. 02:41:47.89 Jala So Dave, any final thoughts about the novel, your experience of it, the discussion and all the other digging that we've gone through? 02:41:57.69 Dave Jackson Well, um as is always the case with good stories and let's say like thematically rich stories, I had a lot of fun experiencing it by myself, but a lot of the joy for me is in discussing it, seeing other points of view. And then, ah you know, when we go through that that list of um thematic content that we talked about, ah entire angles to criticism that I'm never going to come to this story with myself. 02:42:26.10 Jala Right. 02:42:26.19 Dave Jackson So seeing it from, like you said, that, that eco criticism air angle, the, um the feminist reading of Frankenstein, all of those things are outside of my own experience and my own, you know, what I bring to a ah story. 02:42:42.11 Dave Jackson So reading about those, talking about it with you, it enriches the, the fiction, fiction, especially it enriches the experience of, of, 02:42:55.04 Dave Jackson analyzing and kind of internalizing the story. However, whatever we're going to take away from it. um It's fun to do it by yourself, but it's more fun to do it with a friend. 02:43:04.66 Jala Well, especially since everybody's got some difference between what they're going to interpret and what they're going to bring to the table, everybody's experiences are vastly different in the world. 02:43:11.93 Dave Jackson Right. 02:43:17.63 Jala So that's what is so fun about discussing these things. 02:43:21.31 Jala So if y'all want to continue to hear Dave talk about things forever and ever, so many hours of content, Please do go check him out on Tales from the Backlog anywhere you get your podcasts. 02:43:37.72 Jala Dave, where can people find you on the internet if you are to be found? 02:43:42.55 Dave Jackson I can be found in a lot of places. In addition to all the podcast apps and YouTube where you can find my shows, ah you can find me in Jala's Discord server. um I'm real Dave Jackson in there. If you want to talk about Frankenstein, ping me and I'll hop in. You can find me on blue sky at TFTBL pod. Not so easy to remember. So just search Tales from the Backlog. You'll find me there. 02:44:09.18 Dave Jackson where I am mostly posting about video games because that's what I like to talk about. So um it is fun to talk about a book though. So thank you again, Jala, for having me here to give this the deep dive. 02:44:22.33 Jala It was providence that you were able to read this book and were interested in coming on. So I am very thankful to have you. 02:44:28.71 Dave Jackson Yeah. 02:44:29.57 Jala I was wondering if i was gonna have to drag my Dave on again. Be like, sorry, guy, you got to come back on to talk about this now. 02:44:34.36 Dave Jackson Read this book. Yeah. 02:44:38.94 Jala Yeah. But so, yes, I appreciate you coming on. And it's been a minute. So, you know, it's about time to have another discussion. 02:44:44.68 Dave Jackson Mm-hmm. 02:44:46.71 Jala So appreciate you. As for me and where you can find me, I am everywhere on the Internet at Jala Chan, including Jala Chan. Place, where you found this episode and all of the others. 02:44:57.99 Jala So until next time, where we talk about more Frankenstein ad nauseum for two more episodes. of this show, just a different interpretation. 02:45:10.39 Jala Take care of yourselves. Remember to smile and don't go chasing monsters off into the Arctic ice. [Show Outro] Jala Jala-chan's Place is brought to you by Fireheart Media. If you enjoyed the show, please share this and all of our episodes with friends and remember to rate and review us on your podcast platform of choice. Word of mouth is the only way we grow. If you like, you can also kick us a few bucks to help us keep the lights on at ko-fi.com/fireheartmedia. Check out our other show Monster Dear Monster: A Monster Exploration Podcast at monsterdear.monster. Music composed and produced by Jake Lionhart with additional guitars and mixed by Spencer Smith. Follow along with my adventures via jalachan.place or find me at jalachan in places on the net! [Outro Music]