Frankenstein, a horror fiction character who became one of the most famous and one of the scariest figures in the world of literature.
The name Frankenstein first came from a Gothic novel, but movies and cartoons made this name more popular.
Nowadays, the name “Frankenstein” became the symbol of something horrible and scary.
What else do you know about this monster and the book itself?
Check out these 15 darkest facts about Frankenstein!
Frankenstein was a horror fiction character that an 18-year-old girl developed.
When Mary Shelley started writing her novel about Victor Frankenstein, she was only 18 years old.
It’s crazy how a girl that young can develop a horror story like Frankenstein. Usually, girls in her age enjoy their teenage years having fun!
It seems to me that the author could be as strange as Frankenstein himself.
Victor Frankenstein was a young scientist from Naples, Italy.
His grief for his mother’s death and love for chemistry led him to consider giving life to non-living matter seriously.
In the novel, he eventually accomplishes his dream.
He created a creature from a dead body by using science.
However, the humanoid he created from the dead bodies turns out to be a torturous monster.
Frankenstein is a literary character, but the Frankenstein Castle is real.
Mary Shelley got the inspiration to write this novel while she was traveling to historic places throughout Europe.
One of such places was a castle in Hesse, Germany.
The castle is located at 370 meters (1210 ft) on the Odenwald mountain range. This was the perfect place to base the Gothic novel!
The meaning of the name “Frankenstein” is not as scary as the novel itself.
The name “Frankenstein” consists of two German words. The first word is “Frank,” which is the name of a Germanic tribe. The second word is “stein,” which means stone.
The literal translation of this comes to “Stone of the Franks.”
In fact, Frankenstein is actually an ordinary name for a castle in this region.
Odenwald mountain range, where Frankenstein Castle is located, holds some mystery…
Some people reported seeing ghosts around the castle, while others swore that they heard some abnormal noises quite regularly.
However, there is no scientific or factual evidence to prove those claims.
Frankenstein may be Johann Conrad Dippel.
Marry Shelley did not mention the castle in her novel nor her personal journal.
However, she once noted that she visited the German town called Gernsheim.
There, she probably heard the story about the castle and its alchemist occupant named Johann Conrad Dippel.
Supposedly, like Frankenstein, Dippel was a scientist who was a seeker of unusual medical experiences. Dippel supposedly made an elixir of life from animal oil.
Apart from alchemy, he also performed some anatomical experiments by digging dead bodies and giving them life through artificial methods.
Frankenstein is not a monster.
When people hear the word “Frankenstein,” they automatically imagine the hideous-looking monster. However, that is not the correct image.
Frankenstein and the monster are totally different characters. Frankenstein is actually the name of the scientist who created the monster.
Nevertheless, some people may still consider Frankenstein as a monster for creating this hideous being.
Frankenstein was against evil. He actually died trying to kill the monster.
Throughout the novel, Frankenstein looks for ways to kill the monster.
The monster was also upset with Frankenstein since he created him with such a horrible appearance.
His disappointment led him to kill several people who were close to Victor Frankenstein.
The animosity between these two ends when Victor dies and the monster sets sail in a slab of ice for self-persecution.
The book Frankenstein was written as an entry for a friendly competition.
When Mary Shelley, her husband, Percey Shelley, and their close friend Lord Byron traveled to Europe, they made small competition among themselves to create the best horror story possible.
As a result, Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein. In my opinion, she won that competition!
In the Frankenstein Castle, Paranormal investigators heard voices that sounded like “Arbo is here.”
During the shooting of a Sci-Fi TV show in 2008, the paranormal sounds were picked up by recording devices.
A team of international specialists preparing episode #107 of Ghost Hunters International picked up a phrase in the old German language.
The translation of the phrase sounded like “Arbo is here.”
At first, the phrase did not make sense, but when the experts dug deeper into the castle’s history, they found that a knight called “Arbogast” had once lived in that castle.
As popular it is, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein did not win any awards.
Why? Firstly, when Mary Shelley wrote the novel, there weren’t many literature awards available.
Secondly, her fiction genre was unique and couldn’t be put into a specific category.
Currently, critics consider her novel to be the first science fiction ever written.
Mary Shelley saw Frankenstein in her dreams.
According to Mary Shelley’s own words, she came up with Frankenstein’s character after she saw a strange dream.
She dreamed about a young doctor capable of creating a living being by assembling dead body parts.
Experts believe that this kind of dream has formed in her mind because she was deeply interested in Luigi Galvani’s theory of galvanism.
Galvani’s medical experiment could stimulate the muscles of a dead frog by applying an electric current.
There are real-life Frankenstein-like doctors among us.
We don’t mean the monster – we mean the scientist!
You won’t believe that real-life Frankenstein’s are already sharpening their knives to perform their next medical breakthrough. What is their goal?
For instance, Dr. Sergio Canavero is trying to perform the world’s first human head transplant in China.
Although many medical experts do not believe in the possibility of a human head transplant, Dr. Canavero is confident that his theory will work.
The full name of the book is Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus.
We already know who Frankenstein is. Now, we need to learn what the Modern Prometheus part refers to.
According to the Greek legend, Prometheus was a deity who could create a human from clay.
So, the modern Prometheus title matches pretty well with Victor Frankenstein.
The first movie based on Frankenstein was filmed in 1910.
Since then, the novel has inspired more than 130 horror movies around the world.
The first movie about Frankenstein was produced in 1910 by Thomas Edison, which was only 12-minutes long.
Augustus Philips, an American actor, played Dr. Frankenstein. Edison studios shot the film only in 3 days.
The first full-length Frankenstein movie was released on November 21, 1931, in the US.
Frankenstein became so much more than just a novel. As we mentioned earlier, currently, people are associating the name “Frankenstein” with real-life legends and myths.
We don’t really know which of these legends are true, but we definitely know that the story of Frankenstein will live for generations to come.
