How can we think of Frankenstein and ignore the film classic of 1931? Yet the celebrated film does not follow the novel by Mary Shelley. Although the scene of a futuristic laboratory entrances movie audiences with the mad Dr. Frankenstein and his faithful assistant Igor, the scene is derived from twentieth century imaginations and interests, not the novel itself. .
For good reason, the novelist chose not to begin her story with the chilling event of the dreary night in November. Instead of a major event, the book opens with a series of letters from Robert Walton. It is not his want for the voyage of discovery, but his obsession with fame, that drives him to the unknown in hopes of being credited with expanding mankind's knowledge and control of the universe. Similarly, Victor Frankenstein is drawn to the mysteries of experiments with the unknown. .
Early in his education he read about alchemists and early natural philosophers and becomes so impressed with the power of electricity that he makes it his mission to harness it to procure man's place among the gods. But unlike the familiar films, no faithful Igor helped him rob graves or assisted him in an extravagant, futuristic laboratory. In the novel Frankenstein tells no one of his experiments and worked alone. Specifics concerning the actual experiment are omitted; no account of the actual process of locating, obtaining, and transporting body parts appears in the novel. It just says that he is made up of dead body parts. .
In the novel the necessity of focusing on death itself forms an important part of Victor's study--he believes that only by examining death can he re-create life, and in doing so overcome the human condition. Remove Walton from the story and no audience remains for the important lines; the wider implications of the scientific experiment fail to affect the viewer. The parallel stories, one of attempting to discover the secret of life and the other of forcing nature to open her secrets to man, disappear from the film.