The Life of a “Monster”

By: Andrew Dumas

My story is a critical rewrite of a section of the Monster’s story from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus. I always felt the book unjustly portrayed the monster. Yes, he started out as innocent, and learned the craft of language and culture from afar by viewing innocent, compassionate people. But in the end, through misfortune and prejudice, the monster becomes what can only be considered evil.

Instead, when I think of the life of the monster, I see it more as a creature who, starting out trusted humans, learned his mistake, but in so doing did not sink to the whims and treacheries of many people, but instead became a higher form of being. Someone who could see the faults of others, but did not retaliate.

Much like the natives of lands populated by colonists, I see him as a fierce, wild intellect, ‘civilized’ by people, subjected to “help” and religion, battered into service, only to escape before eventually falling to his doom.

In this segment, I attempt to recreate a telling of the Monster’s story after creation up until he is reunited with his creator. I have done my best to portray him not as a bloodthirsty monster, but instead as an unfortunate outsider, subjected to the whims of the rich as well as fate.

*

The rain fell very much like rain should normally fall. This is because the rain understood its job very clearly. It started up high, socializing with other raindrops, then, with the aid of gravity, it fell. Top to bottom.

The leaves and grass being trampled and bent did so much as their ancestors had since the dawn of time. As each foot fell, the blades of grass and leaves dutifully crumpled. Like the rain, they knew their purpose in life.

The creature currently being splattered in the face by rain and sprinting headlong across the ground very much did not understand its purpose. This could possibly have been because it did not have the instincts born into other creatures that were of a similar species to it. It also could have been a fault of parenting and teaching, or more accurately a lack there-of.

More probably, the creature’s lack of purpose in life derived from it having only received life roughly three hours beforehand. The creature did not know that this had happened three hours before. It did not know what hours were. It did not know what rain or grass were, nor did it have a name for splattering and trampling, which were the general actions happening in its vicinity. Aside from the sprinting, which it did at a most impossible speed for something its size.

The creature ran, heedless of impossibilities; possibly because its vocabulary also did not contain the word impossible. It did not stop running for a very long time.

*

Many rotations of light and dark later, or more accurately two months and fourteen days after the sprinting, the creature had found itself a certain residence of living. The residence consisted of a large tree that had fallen over in a gale, been hollowed out by time, erosion and very small mammals and birds, and then abandoned by these creatures for more exciting challenges.

Once the creature’s stomach had discovered how to converse with the brain in order to convey hunger, the creature had begun eating. It tested all kinds of new and exotic materials, such as branches, rocks and dirt, but had eventually settled on nuts and berries.

A lucky lightning strike had provided fire for the creature, which, after several third degree burns and angry yelps, it soon learned could be useful. For instance, when the creature accidentally dropped its nuts on the fire, they cracked and offered up better tasting nuts. Unfortunately, an entire day’s worth of berry collecting was also destroyed experimenting with this procedure. The mistake was not repeated. The creature was a fast learner.

When all the nuts and berries from its area had been collected, it recognized it was time to move to a new location. Moving in an unknown direction, the creature traveled, also unknowingly, toward an outpost in the wilderness of Germany. This outpost, like most others, consisted of a barber shop, a general store, a pharmacy, a gun shop, a place for the men to gather and gossip, a place for the women to gather and gossip, an open yard, some side streets for housing, a manor for the richer people, and alleys for the poorer people.

The creature did not know the names for these places. It did not know the designated activities for these places. It did not know that being naked in civilized society was unfashionable this year, or that walking into a town looking different than everyone else is generally not a good idea. Most importantly, it did not understand the woman in the overly large, gaudy dress. If it had, terror would have filled it’s eyes, and it would have run the opposite direction.

“You poor, poor dear. Don’t be frightened, we’re going to help you,” said Agatha De Lacey.

*

The creature now understood how much time had passed. He knew that four months had gone by since he met Agatha. He also now knew he was a he. He knew this because the De Laceys had told him. They had told him many things, in fact.

They had told him that he was an uncivilized barbarian from the Westerlands. They had told him that living in the wild was very dangerous, and so he now lived in a small basement of the only mansion in town. They had also told him that in order for them to aid him, he would have to help them. So the creature now performed the menial tasks assigned to him each day.

Unlike most rich people, who like to live with other rich people so they can compare their riches, the De Laceys preferred to live distant from those of their class. They did so because, like others of their lineage of wealth, they wanted to feel important. And they wanted other people to think they were important. The simplest way to attain this was to make sure that they lived amidst people who had less money. Because, as is known to people of all nations, money is what makes people important.

Like others who attain this state of high importance, the De Laceys also felt they had a civic duty to help those less important than them. Another way to phrase it was to say that they could spot an opportunity a mile away, much like beavers that see a large stand of felled wood sitting next to a bend in a river.

This they had not told the creature, and so the creature did not realize that working tirelessly for free to do the tasks that would have required four servants was not equal payment for the learning of a few words and patched together clothes to fit the creature’s enormous bulk.

And so, as the creature slaved away for the De Lacey’s, he was treated to lessons in German, which were often beaten into him by Felix, his instructor, a man devoid of patience and compassion. This was considered proper for those of importance.

*

When Felix finally grew tired of wasting his time with the creature, preferring instead to spend his time doing gentlemanly things out in the town, he instead left books in the creature’s possession. The books proved a far better instructor than Felix ever had, possibly because books have a large amount of patience, and lack arms for beating.

Felix had always told him that hurting others was a sin against God, and punished the creature by sending him to the corner of the room when he fought back against his impatient teaching methods.

The creature was confused, then, when he read the books, because when the people from the pages hurt others, they were not sent to the corner. This, he decided, probably had something to do with the fact that God always seemed to tell them what they were doing was right. And as far as he could tell, God overruled Felix.

Safie, a wicked woman who, the creature learned, was married to Felix, was none the less a devout Christian. The creature soon discovered it was easier to be wicked when you were religious. God tended to agree with you more.

Safie attempted to explain her religion to him, though it was slow going. She showed him her bible, and made him read passages from it. She drilled him with questions about scripture. The problem, however, lay in the designation of his species. Since he was so brutally different from everyone else in the town in matter of appearance and origin, the De Laceys were hesitant to call him man. More often they called him monster. The creature could spell well enough to realize that monster and man contained some of the same letters, and so he assumed that the two were pretty close together in the grand scheme of things.

This distinction seemed to be the root of the mistreatment of the De Laceys toward the creature, although these actions, as they often are, were cloaked by the words ‘help’ and ‘education’. However, the creature did not understand the innate wrongness of the situation. This could have been because the creature was so innocent of heart. It could have been because the creature was imbued with an enormous amount of patience. Mostly, it was because the De Laceys didn’t tell him they were doing anything wrong.

*

As time wore on, and the De Laceys continued to take advantage of the brute strength and agility of the creature, he began to learn a new emotion. Hate. Safie preached it to him, for he now understood the word preaching. It meant to take ideas that weren’t yours, make them yours, and then force them on other people. For the creature, this meant that the bible was teaching him something that its original authors had probably very much not meant to teach.

He soon began to relate the ‘love’ and ‘responsibility’ that the De Laceys had for him to hate. They did not like him. They did not respect him. However, like all things in the world, these sentiments had to be couched in a much more supple language.

One evening, banished to his basement for the duration of a ball in the mansion for all the rich people in the area, the creature had overheard Agatha talking with another woman through his door.

“Oh, the poor thing. He just doesn’t understand how the world works. If we were to let him go now, why, I just shudder to imagine what might happen to him,” said Agatha.

The creature had a small suspicion that he probably DID know how the world worked, and probably better than Agatha. She had never had to work, or live in rough conditions. The creature was very familiar with these sorts of things.

“I know the feeling! Our little black slave, bless his heart, how would he survive with skin as dark as his? Why, we are probably the only reason he is still alive. He is quite fortunate that we brought him over from that frightful place across the sea. Can you imagine the dangers in that land? No, it is much safer at our place, working on the fields,” replied the woman.

The creature felt a certain kinship with the slave. While all the servants he had ever met on the De Lacey property had shied away from his form, they too were caught in a web, stuck working for little or no pay, helpless to leave.

“Don’t you just know it? Lord help him, but he just doesn’t understand we’re doing everything we can for him.”

The creature had learned that the phrase “lord help him,” really meant the opposite. Nobody, especially not the De Lacey’s God, was going to help him. He was apparently too busy looking after the important people.

*

One day, while, the creature was cutting firewood for the great fireplace in the house, the senior De Lacey came out and sat on the stairs next to the woodpile. He was the only person on the property who showed him any kindness. The creature suspected this was a result of his blindness and slipping grasp on sanity.

“Why are you chopping that wood?”

“Well, sir,” responded the creature, “the wood has a habit of staying in one piece if I don’t. And they don’t fit in the fireplace quite easily that way.”

The old man nodded at this, apparently accepting it as a satisfactory answer. There was a moment of awkward silence, which the creature felt compelled to fill with the rough sounds of wood being sundered. After a time, the old man spoke up again.

“You know, I always wished I could have gotten out of here. Too bad the kids keep me locked up. I’m barely able even to come out here for air. I think I embarrass them.”

This gave the creature pause. Here was a man, a very wealth man, who also was confined to the premises.

“It’s just too bad I can’t escape, these old legs wouldn’t be able to get me far before they caught up.”

The creatures mind began thinking, which indeed was indeed dangerous at this point. He had discovered, in his readings, that often the smartest people died fastest. It was the slow, ignorant people who survived. And so, as the creature’s own mental processes had vastly outstripped those of his captors in intellect, he had portrayed himself as a dimwitted, lumbering hulk. The learned were more at ease when their prejudices of those different than them were confirmed.

But now, the wheels were turning.

“And how, master, would you go about escaping?” ventured the creature.

“Oh, I’d head out in the middle of the night, when everyone was sleeping. I’d go East for a bit, turn South, then head back West. I’d cross a lot of rivers to confuse pursuers, and I’d make for the more barren regions to the northwest, where there are fewer people.”

And so the seeds for an escape were laid in the mind of the creature.

*

Three nights afterward, the creature gathered his things in a bundle. He placed some candle stubs, his books, a spare set of rough clothes, and a towel in his satchel. He had read in a book once that towels were one of the most useful things a traveler can have. They can be worn when cold, they can dry you, they can act as a signal if you are lost, and in a worst-case scenario, when death is almost assured, you can put it over your eyes so you don’t have to watch.

As he opened he backdoor, rain lashed the ground, and thunder rumbled in the heavens. This was right. In all the books he had ever read, the escape is always made in the middle of a storm. If it hadn’t been storming, he would have been slightly worried.

Setting off, the creature went East, following the directions of the old De Lacey.

Up in his tower, the old man looked out on the world with blind eyes and smiled. He liked the sound of rain.

*

Months went by, and the creature beheld no signs of pursuit. He went far enough to feel safely free of his once captors, and then he went a bit farther. Distance never hurt when it came to escaping servitude.

He found an abandoned house in the forest, and made it his home. He cut his own wood, reread his books, started a small garden, hunted with is bare hands in the woods, and occasionally fished.

It was on one such occasion that he went out to a bridge near his hovel and sat on the wall, rod before him. He heard the sounds of footsteps, and fearful of recapture, hid in a large stand of ferns near the foot of the bridge.

As he watched, a young boy wondered out onto the wall of the overpass. Like all young children, the boy saw a high, thin floor and immediately tested his balance on it. Hands outstretched like a bird, he slowly placed one foot in front of the next. And like all children who balance on high places, he slipped.

The boy splashed down into the water, hitting his head on a rock. The creature, throwing caution to the mild breeze blowing past him, rushed out of hiding to aid the child floating gently down the river.

He used what practices he had learned from his reading to revive the boy, and grabbed the towel he had with him to wrap the wound on the boy’s head. It was at this moment that a man appeared at the entrance to the bridge.

“What are you doing to my son?” he demanded, rushing down to snatch him away.

“Nothing, sir. He only fell in the water and hurt his head. I came to help him when I saw what had happened. Look, you’ll see my towel.”

“A likely story. A barbarian like you, it’s more likely you pushed him in, and intended to lay in wait for me to rob me. Aye, that was your purpose, wasn’t it? Well, I have this gun here,” and indeed, he did have a gun; he was now waving it, “and I’m afraid that you will be coming back with me.”

As he said this the man backed away from the creature, who stood in shocked silence in the middle of the river. Didn’t I just save his son? As the man continued to tread backwards, he slipped on a wet stone, tripping and falling, he lost the grip on his firearm, which fell and, in the nature of all accidents, went off in the one possible worst direction. Right at the wielder.

The man passed out from the pain of the bullet wound.

The creature was stunned. A mental battle ensued, in which the creature debated the merits of sprinting in the opposite direction, or getting medical attention. His life with the De Laceys flashed through his mind, the maltreatment, the hurt, the intentional misleading, the elitist attitudes. He remembered the twisted meanings Safie had taught him, the atrocities from the books he had read.

But he also knew he could never abandon these people. Where Safie had preached hate, he saw the true message of that literature. He was different from all these people he met in this world, but he was not a monster. He reached his decision.

He picked up the two unconscious people, slinging them over his massive shoulders, and hurried in the direction they had come from, assuming that the path would lead to a village. Presently, he came upon a large-ish building, with a sign in front. It read ‘Residence of Frankenstein, PhD’.

He hurried up the walkway, assuming a doctor would be able to assist him. As he harassed the doorknocker in a most unceremonious way, he heard the sound of footsteps approaching. The creature couldn’t help but notice the place seemed a bit familiar.

The door opened.

“Who is-“ started the man who on the other side, as he opened the door. Both man and creature stood in the doorway, gawking at each other. Both were experiencing flashbacks, the creature remembering in a flash the dash from the building, the man remembering the night of his finest creation.

“I wondered when you would be getting back. There is so much science left to do,” said Doctor Frankenstein in the ominous voice only scientists with an agenda are capable of achieving.

“Please, do come in.”