Frankenstein
Originally written as a novel about the hubris of genius, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's 1818 story of a "creature" built from dead body parts and then sprung loose to terrorize the locals to the frustration of it's obsessive and self-absorbed creator, is both famous and relatively unknown in certain ways. Nearly all renditions of the Frankenstein story are based on the Hollywood version (of which there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of versions throughout the world) which quite liberally throws out huge chunks of the original story and insert screenplay elements to better fit a modern tale of a mad-monster and a mad-scientist in a contest of wills.
Confusion about identifying the doctor who builds the 'creature' from the creature itself has led to the pop-culture dictum that you can call the monster "Frankenstein" and be correct and call the doctor who built him "Frankenstein" and still be correct.
Ironically, the same situation exists for the secondary character of the spouse of the doctor and for the other creature built from dead body parts to be a mate for the first creature, both women are known in pop culture as the Bride of Frankenstein
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Original Page Aug 2015 | Updated April 2016