Gothic Genre-Edward Scissorhand and Frankenstein comparison
Uploaded by ProcrastinationStartsHere on Oct 23, 2007
The novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley was first published in 1818 amidst a world of changing views and religious uncertainty. Since this time, the story of Frankenstein and his monster has been appropriated numerous times by novelists and film-makers alike, each new version reflecting the values of an alternate context, the original text altered by the demands of changed cultural and contextual ideals. An appropriation of Frankenstein, Edward Scissorhands (1990) directed by Tim Burton, is a parody of middle-class America with contextual influences from the 1950s and late 1980s. Edward Scissorhands plays with the same notions of creation and idea of the monster or ‘outsider’ as in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, showing too a Gothic influence, especially through setting. The portrayal and role of women, however, varies significantly within these texts. As a result of the differing audience, context and purpose, the story of Edward Scissorhands shows alternative views of the key issues and concerns raised in the original Frankenstein novel.
The notion of creation is something that has preoccupied the minds of humans since the beginning of time and just as the concept permeates the story of Frankenstein, the idea also lays ground to the story of Edward Scissorhands. Victor Frankenstein’s “fervent longing to penetrate the secrets of nature” and desire to have “A new species … bless me as its creator and source” shows evidence of the instability of the church and religion following the period of Enlightenment, where empirical reasoning was valued over spiritual beliefs. As the wife of a Romantic poet, Mary Shelley asserts a Romantic and hence negative view of Victor’s greedy intentions to usurp the power of God in the divine power of creation and the giving of life. Relevant in the late 1980s and early 1990s, at the time of production of Edward Scissorhands, because of increased interest in the area of cloning, the notion of creation was of greater fascination as a technological advancement as reliance on scientific thought and practice continued to be widespread. In Burton’s Edward Scissorhands, the archetypal mad scientist and inventor, played by Vincent Price, also endeavours to build a man. The story of the inventor who “created a man” is framed as a bedtime fairytale. His ventures to mechanically create life and the product of his experimentation are not seen, as they are in Frankenstein, to be horrifying and monstrous. However, similarly to Victor Frankenstein in Mary Shelley’s novel,...