Rant #1,670: The Monster

We have to go way back in history to talk about today's Rant subject.

Back in 1818, Mary Wolstonecraft Shelley wanted to show the guys that she could write a novel, too, and somehow, she came up with a story that resonates nearly 200 years later.

Today, "Frankenstein, or the modern Prometheus," was first published.

The novel brought to our senses one of the great monsters in history, and yes, the monster is The Monster.

A lot of people, to this day, mistake the name Frankenstein for the monster, but, in fact, Frankenstein refers to Dr. Frankenstein, the mad creator of the being that was The Monster.

If you remember, Frankenstein had a good heart, and his intentions were valid ones.

He wanted to create the perfect human being.

But rancid body parts led him to create a being that was very imperfect, a monster that terrorized the countryside.

The book was kind of a metaphor for the ages, where perfection is often the goal, but something less than perfection is usually the result.

And in modern times, with plastic surgery available, I always thought the metaphor was an even stronger one, that you can aspire to perfectness, but what you often get is less than perfect.

But whatever the case, Shelley created not only The Monster but a monster, in particular in popular media.

Once her characters hit the big screen, there was simply no turning back.

Frankenstein and The Monster almost became one and the same, and the name Frankenstein came to mean a monster, whether you are talking about Boris Karloff or Glen Strange or dozens of other actors who have portrayed this role.

We even got comic monsters, in Fred Gwynne on "The Munsters" and in such classic comedies as "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein" and "Young Frankenstein."

But the guy with the electrodes in his neck was created by a woman, and maybe she was saying even more about her male counterparts than we can imagine.

Maybe she was saying that no matter how hard we try, there is no perfect male, or no perfect person.

Heck, Hollywood even created a mate for The Monster in "The Bride of Frankenstein," and even she wasn't good enough for either him, or herself.

But whatever the case, it all started with Mary Shelley, and today, two years short of its 200th anniversary, "Frankenstein" lives on, as solid a novel as ever has been written.

Again, it wasn't perfect, but neither was the good doctor or The Monster, and I think that was pretty much the underlying theme of the book.

Even with practice supposedly making perfect, even that falls short of the goal, and maybe that is how it is supposed to be, anyway.

Humans aren't perfect, never will be, and even our creations are flawed.

Just ask The Monster. He will back me up on this.