Frankenstein question

No leaning on the internet to write your papers for you, yo! Do the right thing! Read each book and come up with your OWN answers. Stay authentic!

The monster is a good being, that does bad things because it is misunderstood and treated bad by society and its creator. Dracula is pure evil. Mary Shelly seems to have an urge to discuss serious matters in the book, the role of science, the role of man when science make man the master of life and death and equals to God, what is a man? how do we treat the "outsider". Bram Stoker seems to have written his book with no other purpose than to scare the shit out of the readers, doing so by taking a demon figure out of folklore and throw him in the middle of the modern world. There are actually hardly any similarities at all, the way I see it.

They are characterized as abominations toward God. And yet they are treated sympathetically (maybe not Dracula so much). Most characters are appalled by them.

Frankenstein is all about the monster's creation - it says something about reckless science. Dracula isn't so much about the monster as it is about social mores of Victorian England. So the first one earns some empathy, but Dracula - no, he's just plain bad.

I originally read both of these books in order to compare them. I have to say I was rather shocked when I couldn't find similar ways in which to compare them, but saying that has made me realize how shallow the idea was. In Frankenstein, the Monster was willing to learn and be humane, but eventually scorned. Dracula was evil from the get go, he was more a creature of terror than I think the Monster was.

I think a lot of people miss that the creature was neither the "monster", the villain nor Frankenstein. Shelley's "monster" was Victor Frankenstein much more so than the creature he created. One of the biggest contrasts is Victor's freedom of choice and the deisre to continue doing what he wants even though his colleagues and friends shy away and begin to fear him. People close to Victor begin to see his madness and mania, but nothing so much as evil. Dracula is never given much of a "free will" to speak of. He is what he was created as, hunger and death. Dracula conveys feelings of pure evil, dread and terror to everyone who isn't under his spell. He did not choose to be evil (although neither does he seem to fight it), where as Victor is presented with concerns and thinks himself above them and ignores them. I think the biggest difference is choice.

Weird that they're abominations, yet the Golem gets a free pass. :o

Mary Shelley treats the creation sympathetically. One could not help love him.

The creation was intelligent and very humane. In fact, I would call him a genius (note the laughable way he educated himself). That and the creation of his mate were the only flaws in the book. Where did Victor get all those body parts and necessary equipment from on some remote Scottish island?

Dracula was pure evil.