Retcon

Flying Squid@lemmy.worldmod to Lemmy Shitpost@lemmy.world – 914 points –
31

It's a silly nitpick anyway. The monster, Adam, calls the doctor, Victor Frankenstein, his father. Surnames are inherited, thus they are both Frankensteins.

Also, it's not uncommon to call a creation after it's creator ("that painting is a Van Gogh"), so calling him "a Frankenstein" works too.

Mary Shelley said herself that there are two monsters in the book and both are named Frankenstein.

The monster's name is literally Adam Frankenstein

Reminds me of your Winnie the Pooh is named Edward Bear.

No it isn't. He compares himself to Adam once ("I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed") but he never calls himself that. And frankly, considering how much Frankenstein and the monster hated each other I don't think either of them would want to share a name.

Slavoj Žižek's Freudian-Hegelian interpretation of Mary Shelley's story is worth investigating especially in relation to Shelley's family and the French Revolution.