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Niamh's Reads: The Cinema of Mary Shelley

  • 3 days ago
  • 7 min read

Deputy Editor Niamh McGonnell-Hall unearths the gothic pulse of Mary Shelley’s cinematic wonder, from stitched flesh to silver-screen immortality 


Please note that this article contains spoilers for the movie Frankenstein (2025)


We meet again, my dear readers, for another gothic piece. For this year’s women’s issue Veiled, I shall be introducing you to the original Gothic heroine: Mary Shelley, and discussing her work’s recent film adaptation, the 2025 Guillermo del Toro film, Frankenstein (2025). 


The Similarities


I was pleasantly surprised and incredibly excited when I saw the screen fade to black, with golden cursive letters ‘The Modern Prometheus’ gracing the screen at the start of the film. I was even more excited when ‘Part 1’ appeared, signalling that del Toro chose to preserve Shelley’s Chinese box structure, which forms the backbone of the original text. This structure allows for the creature's story to be bookended by Victor’s story, which is ultimately encapsulated in the letters of Captain Walton, whose character represents a path forward from the lesson of the two internal parts. 


The segmentation of the film with these title slides created a pause and a reflection, which I believe elevated the film from a traditional sci-fi/horror, where the interrogation is usually packaged in gore or violence, and forced audiences to get a taste of the original literary form of the tale. 


The overall feel of the film was dark and gritty, with purposeful highlights on Elizabeth’s dresses and the creature's patchwork skin. It gave a mood of the eclectic 19th century, the advancement of technology and the tension between the natural world of bright sky and the rise of the industrial in the dark, mechanical cities. This visual collage, for me, matched Shelley’s original work quite well, with a few exceptions. The exaggeration of the abandoned water tower where Victor sets up his workshop was, in my opinion, abrasive and at odds with the previously seamless tension between the natural world and enlightenment. Perhaps del Toro wanted to make this marring of the land by war and industry more obvious? But the gigantic tower had me recoiling from the screen. 


This idea of the Romantic ideology and rapidly advancing Enlightenment sits at the centre of Shelly’s novel. Victor “pursued nature to her hiding-places,” ultimately causing the death of his seven-year-old brother, his best friend, and his wife on their wedding night [1]. Pretty much, everyone he’s ever loved is killed. Oscar Issac executed Victor’s obsession with scientific advancement with veracity and a quality that made me really dislike him, which is a very hard thing for me to do. Another actor who is due a lot of credit is Jacob Elordi, who, at the time of writing this article, is nominated for an Oscar for his performance as the creature. Yes, it helps that he is 6 ft 8, but the way he humanised the character cannot be understated. He was no doubt an integral part of this film, and integral in preserving the original text in it. 


Both del Toro and Mia Goth have translated the tension between the Romantic and the Enlightenment to film perfectly. The way in which the camera frames and adds a liminal quality to Elizabeth adds to her Romantic stance. This is only emphasised through her costuming, enhancing her feminine quality and depicting her as part of the natural world. But she is anything but gentle in how she resists Victor, which makes her a beacon of the Romantic in del Toro’s adaptation, and an intense visualisation of Shelly’s message. 


The Differences


At the beginning of the film, I honestly thought I was remembering the original text incorrectly, and that I must have forgotten that Victor had a fake leg. But, I was relieved to find out that I was not going insane and that del Toro had taken some creative liberties. Some main sticklers include:

  • Victor’s fake leg

  • William’s survival. He was not, in fact, murdered by the creature when he was a child. (Poofing the whole storyline of the maid who took the blame for his death from existence, which I do not have the insane word count to explain the effect this has in this article).

  • Elizabeth is the fiancée of William and not Victor, and she is not the Frankenstein brothers’ adopted sister. (Removing the honestly icky sibling betrothal and giving us Mr Syphilitic uncle in the film).

Another subtle change, yet one that made Romantic literature buffs go full apeshit, was how, when the creature was learning to read, much like in the original text, he was in fact reciting the poem Ozymandias. This poem is the most famous work by Percy B Shelley, who would later become Mary Shelley’s husband. Yes, they inserted a man’s work into this woman-written masterpiece, but it was at least subtly done, with only those who knew this poem recognising its significance. 


Now for the biggest change in the film. The fact that Elizabeth is not betrothed to Victor. I get two things from this change. Number one is how Victor’s pursuit of love may keep modern audiences engaged, if they weren’t particularly enraptured by the original plot. Number two is that it gives Elizabeth a sense of separation from Victor and increases her agency. In the original novel, they were promised to each other since they were children, and by removing this integral link of their marriage, Mia Goth’s character is placed in direct opposition to Victor, rather than disagreeing with him from his side. 


We come to yet another change involving Victor and Elizabeth’s changed dynamic. From her slightly freer position in the film, she comes to the creature's aid. In the novel, she is strangled by the creature as revenge for Victor’s refusal to make the creature a companion. In the film, Victor attempts to shoot the creature, and Elizabeth jumps in front of him, ultimately taking the bullet. This change, like her marital status, has a few effects. It adds to her Romantic position of preserving life; it frames her more obviously as a brave and influential character, rather than a victim, which may appeal to 21st-century audiences. 


But my favourite is that the creature is no longer the villain. The slightly obscure pipeline in the book is that Victor created the creature without responsibility, ignored and abandoned his creation’s pleas, and is ultimately to blame for the creature’s revenge killing of Elizabeth. Now, for those that aren’t too familiar with the intricacies of Shelly’s blame cycle, may immediately vilify the creature, making the whole sequence of events pointless. As different as this event is in the film, I can see why del Toro has chosen to enact this change. With the creature no longer the villain, and Victor’s blame transformed as quite literally, a smoking gun, Shelley’s original message is made clear for a 21st-century audience who may not be willing to overlook the fact that the creature did the actual ‘killing,’ even though Shelley cements Victor as the only one to blame.


WTF is Lord Byron doing there?


As the screen fades to black for the last time, more gilded words appear. Yet they are not Mary Shelley’s words. Oh no. They are those of the Romantic poet Lord Byron, who was present in the mountain cabin where Shelley concocted her tale that would become Frankenstein in that fateful ghost story writing competition. 


“And thus the heart will break. Yet brokenly live on.” — Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. 


It's giving resilience of the human spirit. It's giving perseverance against sorrow. It’s giving WTF is a man’s quote doing at the end of a woman’s quintessential life’s work. A woman, whose mother was Mary Wollenstoncraft, the feminist author of A Vindication of the Rights of Women (which has some serious mic drop quotes). Plus, Lord Byron was banished from England for being a rake, and he did it with his half-sister. For me, it just didn’t sit right.


Some say that Lord Byron inspired the childish Victor Frankstein, and that the use of this quote was a sarcastic jab. Some say that it captures the essence of the creature, who continues to suffer. But if we ask del Toro himself, who stated in a WIRED interview that “there’s no better way to express what the movie’s about than that quote. This comes from a very personal experience for me. The fact that your heart will be broken, you will be pulverized, and the sun will rise again, and you’re going to have to keep living”[2]. Guillermo del Toro brought his own lens to this film, and did what he is very good at—making monsters human, which is exactly what Shelley did in her original text. But I still would have liked a quote for Shelley herself. Shout out to @uncle_lola for this wonderful example. Aah reddit is a wonderful place.


The Result


I am on the fence with this film. It was beautifully shot, with the colour grading perfectly matching the tone of the original text. The dynamic between Elizabeth and the creature was executed exceptionally well by Mia Goth, and I quite liked her change as William’s fiancée rather than Victor’s. At the same time, some changes felt reverse-engineered. For example, it felt as though Elizabeth’s uncle was added to fill a gap that was created by the fact that Elizabeth is no longer Victor and William’s stepsister (que Syphilic Christoph Waltz). Yes, he could be a representative of the spoils of war, etc., etc., but for me, this seemed weaker than if del Toro had intended him to be that. Overall, I’d say this film was a success, and I am happy with how it preserved a good majority of Shelley’s original work, along with her ultimate message. 


7.5/10. Very Gothic indeed


by Nimah McGonnell-Hall


Reference list


[1]Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. 1818 


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