A Modern Frankenstein by Madison Levinson

The infamous novel Frankenstein was published by Mary Shelley in 1818. It is now 2017, but 199 years later this novel is still so relevant. Why? Mary Shelley, as an author in 1818, was able to create a stunning masterpiece that touches upon medical and technological innovations, innovations currently happening as you read this. Yet, I can't help but wonder how the story of Frankenstein would have changed dramatically if Frankenstein and his monster were alive today. In this post, I will attempt to recreate the scene of Frankenstein's monster's entrance back into the human world.

"Classic" Frankenstein 

It was a dark and stormy night (cliche, I know, but just keep reading). Thunder and lightning rattled the frame of the lab. If this were an old-time horror movie there would be trees shaking and scraping the windows and probably some really bad graphics. The lab was crisp white except for the thing that lay on the table. That horrid, wretched monster. I mean, who even likes hairless cats? Why was it even in the lab? Oh, there was also multiple corpses sewn together to make one corpse which was also pretty terrifying. Victoria Frankenstein (yes, he's a girl now) sat on her swivel chair at her mac book, which was sitting atop her minimalist glass desk. A small ping erupted and Victoria glanced at her Apple Watch. Her round, green, go button app had finally downloaded (the storm was slowing down the WiFi). She let her finger hit the button.

An electric zap sounded but it was unclear as to whether it was the lightning or the monster's reanimation process. Initially, nothing happened. But as Victoria moved closer she could see small twitches and spasms in the being's musculature. The body seemed to regain color and life before her eyes as the ligaments received oxygenated blood. It was so quiet Victoria swore she could hear the soft beat of a weak heart, whether it was her's or the monster's she was unsure. The monster's eyes popped open with such intensity, Victoria screamed and stared, one eye blue and one eye green. Horrifyingly gorgeous.

Franny Moe 

Once she had looked past the monster's unique feature she noticed the pure grotesqueness of her creation. Nothing was proportional or coherent. Terror flowed over Victoria. The giver of life questioned what she had done and debated abandoning the monster, until brilliance struck.

Her Apple Watch notified her that Kim Kardashain had just posted a photo to Instagram. Of Course! Kim Kardashian! The Queen of Contour! Victoria grabbed her makeup bag and with a couple sweeps of a brush she transformed the monster.

The monster had defined cheekbones, her eyebrows were on fleek, and her smoky eye was fire (no pun intended). Victoria named her new wing-woman Franny Moe. The pair watched The Notebook until the storm passed and then cried each other to sleep. There was no murder or resentment between Vicky and her monster, only a lot of feels and sleepovers.

Children's tales and teaching a child morals. By Owen Welsh

(Frankenpooh was much beloved by younger me)

After reading some of the Canterbury Tales in class, it got me thinking about more childish end of spectrum like fairy-tales, and how they continue to influence our children today. It's a widely accepted fact that how you treat a child in their early years affects them for the rest of their life, you can change the entire way a child thinks with as little as a misplaced comment or by knocking down an aspiration accidentally. Most parents in the Western world try to introduce children to stories when they're very young, to try to teach their children basic phonetics and pronunciations as well as giving them a basic set of morals to base their decisions off of. But does this really lead to a child being more morally correct in later age? It's not my place to decide for all people but there so far hasn't been a storybook that stuck with me throughout my entire life up to this point, let alone any life lessons I may have learned from them. This isn't to say I have no favorite fairy-tales, but I don't think a children's book has had any impact on me beyond "Oh that was pretty funny." But some people insist that there's some 'knack' to parenting that makes a child into an instant success. Who can really say that their rendition of Horton Hears A Who was what made little their little Alexei into some sort of musical genius?

Contrary to everything I just said, I do believe reading is important to people of all ages, the teaching of lessons and being able to look at situations from other people's viewpoints is what has led humanity to the golden age it is in today. This does raise the question of how were the great people of the previous ages raised, how did people like Boudicca, who led a hugely popular and near successful rebellion, do great things if all they were taught as a child was to obey? It's obvious that not all of a child's intellect comes from the books read to them, but what if they weren't read to at all? It was not until around the 1970's that reading to children became more regular, but you cannot argue with the fact that the world is getting smarter every day, so that could be down to exposing children to more advanced books from an earlier age. There's no real way to tell, as we could also attribute the rising intellect of children to a progressive school system or the fact that more people go to school than ever before. All in all, I can't say for certain whether reading to a child will help them become more literate or not, but one thing is for certain, children always have and always will be susceptible to outside influences which mainly involve parents.