I've just watched Guillermo Del Toro's new movie, his adaptation of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, and wanted to talk a bit about it, and the two legends that I feel relate the most to it.

I've read Frankenstein before, it was the first book I read in English, and so it's been over 10 years since I read it, and likely it was a simplified version, but it was definitely a story that stayed with me, both because of the gothic exterior, but also because of the theme of responsibility, in science and to what we create.

Frankenstein and the Golem

The Golem is a Jewish folkloric creature, though it's been somewhat appropriated by western fantasy in general. There are multiple stories with it, but the general idea is that a Rabbi versed in Kabbalah brings a giant made of mud to life, and that giant then acts as a servant, strong but not very intellectually sharp. Eventually something causes to golem to turn violent, and so the Rabbi has to destroy it.

The parallels between the golem and Frankenstein are clear, and Mary Shelley was probably aware of some version of the legend when she wrote her book, with one of the clearest changes being how Victor's act is seen as wholly blasphemous and in direct defiance of God, whereas the creation of a golem is more of a holy act, requiring deep study of God's creation and words.

Frankenstein also is generally something we would call science fiction, and the golem is more on the fantasy side, which of course shows how often the difference is mostly superficial, as Victor's use of energy and understanding of biology is not much more scientific than a rabbi's ritual and use of Hebrew words to animate his creation.

The final difference, but maybe the most important, is how the golem is ultimately destroyed by the rabbi who animated it, while as much as the "doctor" tries, instead of destroying his creation he only makes it hate him.

Frankenstein and the Changeling

Now we get in the comparison that I believe is not made very often, but which I think helps us better understand the story, both Shelley's and Del Toro's version.

A Changeling is a folkloric creature common across most of Europe. There are multiple legends related to it, but again in broad terms the faeries steal a human child and leave a faerie baby in its place. Because of that change the baby does not develop as one would expect, may be averse to iron or crosses, and is in general a great way and pain to their loving family. The origin of these tales are obviously unknown, but many have theorised that they served as "explanations" for autism, other developmental disorders, or postpartum depression.

In this way, while the connection between Frankenstein and the golem is focused on your responsibility for your creation, and as a warning about creating life by unnatural means, Frankenstein is also a changeling story, as the creature is Victor's child, but he is not the perfect creation that he hoped for. In Del Toro's version the similarities are made even stronger, as Victor is first delighted with his creation, but then his humour sours as the creature does not develop cognitively as fast as he wants and as he grows weak and weary because he has to care for the "monster" all by himself.

I think it's particularly interesting that Del Toro's previous movie was Pinocchio, another story that touches both on creation of humanoid life, and once again in Del Toro's version on the relationship between a parent and a child that does not turn out exactly as they hoped.

In this way we can see the stories as two roads that could be taken, Geppetto's road of learning to love his son despite his imperfections, and Victor Frankenstein's attempts at destroying his child because of them.