Despite decades of screen adaptations and an iconic place in popular culture, Frankenstein remains misunderstood. New versions often take more cues from the 1931 movie than from Mary Shelley’s novel, reducing the lead to a mad scientist archetype. As a result, new viewers miss out on the sheer weirdness of Victor Frankenstein’s original characterization as an arrogant young student with an incestuous backstory, dogged by tragedy and raised on an intellectual diet of outdated alchemical pseudoscience. Most adaptations barely scratch the surface of his idiosyncratic personality.
