In reading the book Mary Shelleys Frankenstein, and watching the by the same title, I discovered several large differences. Primarily, the edited and modified parts were changed to make the movie more interesting. In the book, Marry Shelley described everything in great detail. She included details that may not pertain to novels storyline directly, but more to the timeframe of the novel. When a movie comes out made after a specific novel, the screenplay eliminates most of these minute differences.
For example, the letters in the beginning of the novel were depicted as high action scenes rather than in letter format. The introduction of the movie was my first difference listed. In the book, the captain of Frankensteins ship, R. Walton, wrote letters home to his sister about his voyage to the north pole. In the movie, it depicted these letters as action sequences happening in real time. A couple of in-depth differences in the introduction that jumped out were the big storm at the beginning and how the boat hits a bunch of Ice.
Also they see Frankensteins monster in a dogsled. One very important difference was the absence of a background story for Elizabeth. In the movie, you have no idea where Elizabeth came from. She could have been born from a cow or something. She could have been released from purgatory to relive her life in the midst of the Frankenstein family. The story of Frankensteins youth was trimmed back to a mere twenty minutes as opposed to one-third of the book. It was somewhat interesting to me how Frankenstein grew up.
Also, Frankenstein had an elaborate good-bye party when he went of to college. In the book this did not happen. When Frankenstein went to college in the book, from my knowledge, he did not argue as much as he did in the movie. One of the primary differences between the book and the movie was the reversal of who came up with the re-animation process. In the book, Frankensteins professor (Waldman) merely came up with the idea of re-animation, which stimulated Frankensteins intense imagination.
Frankenstein came up with all the processes for re-animation, and only had the support of his wonderful professor who received all the credit of the miraculous achievement in the outlandish movie. In the movie, the professor demonstrated his achievements to Clerval and Frankenstein with the extremely beastly arm. The arm was covered in a think layer of fur. Therefore I referred to it as beastly. Another thing that was different was the frog that Frankenstein reanimated. It was not described in the book.
Frankenstein, when woke from his awful monster-thrashing, Clerval stated that all the children were dying from this outbreak of Cholera. Frankenstein immediately responded with, Thank god. This statement was not mentioned in the book. Finally, Frankensteins monster did not read Frankensteins journal in the book. But, in the movie, Frankensteins creation was able to read the journal in its entirety. There were many differences that I may have missed, but I think I covered many big differences between the novel and the movie.
