Young Frankenstein and Frankenstein Comparison

            Mel Brook’s movie “Young Frankenstein” and Marry Shelly’s book “Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus” are of two very separate genres.  The movie is a great comedy that ends happily and keeps its viewers laughing consistently, while Marry Shelly’s book is a tragic horror story with almost the opposite effect.  The book involves very serious action, containing almost no humor and ending tragically.  Comedy and tragedy can easily be looked at as opposite one another, but really accomplish the same goals in two completely different ways.  Mel Brooks and Marry Shelly’s works both have common themes throughout them, even though they are presented and dealt with in different ways.

            One of the most common themes throughout Marry Shelly’s book is that of companionship.  This not only applies to the monster, but is also applicable to Victor, Walton, Elizabeth, and Victor’s family.  Almost every character in the book is lonely or wants companionship at some point in time.  The main two dealing with the issue are the creature and Victor.  The creature doesn’t fit into society, and can’t befriend anyone because of his looks so he lives miserably and lonely.  At the same time Victor has to power to find companionship, but is so obsessed with his work he pushed them away and becomes a lonely man over time as he drifts and his family is killed.  This theme is also very present in the movie.  The main course of action in the movie is the monster going out into the human world, and trying to find companions and fit in.  There is one main difference between two works regarding to this theme.  In the movie the creature is embraced by his creator and finds happiness and companionship.  While in the book Victor is killed by the creature and the creature runs off to die itself, neither of them ever finding happiness or companionship.  Nonetheless both approaches transmit the same message and theme to their audience.

            Another example of how comedy and tragedy can use opposite emotions to communicate the same points, is the creation of the monster itself.  In the book Victor Frankenstein creates the monster because he is interested in nature, and wants to achieve something great scientifically.  In the movie the situation is similar, the grandson of Victor, Frederick Frankenstein, finds himself reading his grandfather’s notes and decides to create a monster himself.  In both stories the outcome is bad.  In the book the creation is hideous so Victor abandons it leaving it helpless, and eventually leading it to turn evil.  While in the movie, Fredrick gets an abnormal brain accidentally and that causes the monster to be completely stupid.  This unintelligent monster is never really evil, but is mistakenly looked at that way at times because of his fear of fire and other circumstances.

            Mel Brooks takes a tragic horror story, and turns it into a hilarious comedy without changing the themes too much.  In the movie it is almost as if Mel Brooks tried to answer all of the “what if?” questions, and presented many alternate possibilities and outcomes for the story.  This technique left the viewers with the same themes and basic storyline, but portrayed them in a comedic matter rather than a tragic one.  The only big contradiction in the movie was the ending.  The characters all survive, Victor never marries Elizabeth, a companion for the creature is made, and everyone lives happily ever after.  This is very different from the outcome of the play, but is explainable because the movie fitting the definition of a formal comedy has to end happily, while the book being a formal tragedy has to end on a worse note.  Overall I enjoyed both the book and the movie, and think Mel Brooks did an awesome job making a great tragedy into a funny comedy.