Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’ was an autobiography. The story of a man ahead of his time molding a creation even ahead of its human creator, who then abandons the creation as a failure little knowing that the creation was a success, the human creator a failure. Shelley’s monster was a gifted intellectual, not some Karloffian cretin. Frankenstein’s monster learns of ideal humanity in books: Goethe’s The Sorrows of Werther, Plutarch’s Lives of Ancient Greeks and Romans, but most importantly John Milton’s Paradise Lost. The monster cannot understand why real humans cannot live up to their self-proclaimed ideals. The ideals ring hollow. The monster would spare humanity if only one human could prove the monster wrong. But none does; none can.

The failure of Victor Frankenstein is to play God. The creature’s initial success is thwarted by human cruelty. Mary Shelley no doubt knew that she, too, was an imperfect creation in an imperfect world. For me, Mary Shelley’s message is clear: Hubris is man’s built-in flaw. God’s way of testing our worth. So far, we are failing that test.

A horror story, indeed.