I pretended I wasn’t scared when I watched an old black and white Frankenstein movie but I certainly lost a few hours’ sleep after watching one as a child. The plot was very simple, a crazed professor (Victor) was convinced he could create life. Both he and his loyal helper made their way to a graveyard to find a freshly buried corpse. A few adjustments to the remains in a remote castle, a good lightning storm and, hey presto, the dead come back to life. Never the prettiest figure as the enhancements that allowed the ‘monster’ come to life limited his appeal.
The story always had a heroine with whom the monster had an attraction and, like a teenager, he struggled with his feelings. During the second half of the movie things go pear shaped. The monster becomes jealous of the love that the heroine has for another man who is easier on the eye than poor Frankenstein. His misplaced anger cause him to do silly things and fills the locals with terror until he is hunted down and destroyed. The only one who holds onto the possibility of humanity in this fearsome creature is the heroine of the story who brings a tear to the eye of the monster in his final hours.
With the passing of years, I see the Frankenstein story differently. When we look at the neglect of the environment and the fallout from neo-liberal market and even the day to day complexity of computerisation wherein one cannot allow for human situations, the moral of Frankenstein strikes a chord for me. The novel tells us that we create the monsters that destroy us and how true is this today?
Jesus had his own Frankenstein monsters. One day, when he went to the temple, he saw all the money changers and dealers destroying a sacred place. He lost it with them and set about throwing them out. There are days when I sit back and look at all the problems I am dealing with, and when I honestly ask how many of them are of our own making I can understand the frustration and anger of Jesus in the temple. It is so easy to blame the homeless for being homeless, the refugee for leaving his home and the drug abuser for abusing but this sometimes distracts from ‘the monster’ that created the problem in the first place.
There are many things that can only be seen through eyes that have cried. – Blessed Archbishop Oscar Romero