Frankenstein and the Gothic as it Appears in Contemporary Culture

To me and probably many others, the part of Frankenstein that stood out most was when the monster was observing the De Lacey family for months before he cautiously approached the blind father and was then chased out by the younger De Lacey family members. When I first read Frankenstein as a high school student, I found this scene very relatable and touching. At the time, I struggled in an environment where people were highly judgmental of each other's appearance, which helped me to identify with the monster when he was isolated from others for his appearance.

The monster later hid in a small hovel, resigning to end all interaction with humans, and watched the De Lacey family, learning about what humans are like from them. This is probably not too different from why some people are interested in reality TV shows. They want to learn what it is like to be a part of a group and culture that they don't think they'll ever really be a part of. Someone who is shy and poor might be interested in a show about a family of outgoing, rich people.

Mostly I was moved by the kindness shown by De Lacey to the monster, and the contrast between him, as a blind person, and his children. What would the world be like if everyone judged people by their words instead of their appearances?

Today in class, when we identified some characteristics of Gothicism, I noticed that this part of the book had many of the Gothic attributes. The biggest one is probably strong emotions. The monster experiences strong emotions when he realizes that no one likes him because he's so disfigured. De Lacey experiences strong emotions as well when he shows compassion to the monster. Finally, when De Lacey's children come in, they experience strong emotions of fear and contempt. Another Gothic theme we discussed was turmoil, which was evident in the way the monster viewed himself, and the turmoil between the monster and the younger De Laceys.

One example I think of as an example of the Gothic as it appears in contemporary culture is the popular TV series American Horror Story. I watched the first season, Murder House. This show dealt heavily with death, immortality, and supernatural. It centered around a family that lived in an old haunted house in Los Angeles. Many people died in the house over the years living up to this family moving in, and everyone who died in the house became a ghost there and weren't able to leave the house for all of eternity. The family's interactions with the various ghosts resulted in subplots that had a lot of mystery and suspense, two Gothic characteristics. Another common characteristic is a main female character who ventures into dangerous situations. This was present in Murder House in a character named Violet, a teenage only child of the family that moved in. She ended up being the first in the family to become a ghost after she befriended one of the ghosts in the house named Tate, but then found out that he was a murderer. Tate represented the Gothic characteristic of having a lot of emotion. He was often almost melodramatic and very dark. Violet suffered from depression. The house itself resembles a stereotypical Gothic style house. It was old and Victorian-style. The show is extremely popular and will soon put out a fourth season. All of the seasons so far have strong Gothic themes in them, showing that Gothicism is still alive and is something that lots of people are very interested in.