Mary Shelley wrote the book Frankenstein in 1831 to "speak to the mysterious fear of our nature, and awaken thrilling horror."
This book was meant to be a thriller. But the question still remains: was she successful in doing so? Did the monster truly awaken thrilling horror? And, what doors did Shelley open, in terms of conversation and questions of social constructs and norms, that still are relevant 188 years later?
In her book Frankenstein, Shelley made large and clear allusions to the brutality of man and the intrinsic disregard for those that don't fit in. She enunciated the monster's large, foreboding frame and his clear detachment from human norms, something that largely contributed to how he was regarded and perceived with terror, especially when seen unanticipatedly.
Victor's monster, in telling his story, reflects on his interactions with man: "I had hardly placed my foot within the door before the children shrieked, and one of the women fainted. The whole village was roused; some fled, some attacked me, until, grievously bruised by stones and many other kinds of missile weapons, I escaped to the open country and fearfully took refuge... Here then I retreated, and lay down happy to have found a shelter, however miserable... from the barbarity of man."
However, this thrilling terror was more literarily symbolic of his inherent differences rather than his actual horrific frame.
In dramatizing the character, Shelley was able to create this legitimate fear towards the monster and his abnormal size, but the thrilling horror that Shelley was aiming for was just an exaggerated reaction/allusion to the inherent nature of man to discriminate against those unlike himself. The book reads more as a parable on societal rejection than it does as a thriller, and that was Shelley directly speaking to the nature of human beings and the natural brutality of man, then and now. Rather than awakening thrilling horror, Shelley awakens a new realization at the need of compassion, whether it be towards a creature different from man in all aspects, including method of creation, or man's fundamental equal, different in other minor and inconsequential aspects.
However, one could argue that the mysterious fear of our nature Shelley intended to speak to was the extent to which man can go to change the overall stability of the world as we know it. The extent to which Victor could go to change the overall stability of the world became clear after the first deaths occurred on his hands, as he reflected: "I beheld those I loved spend vain sorrow upon the graves of William and Justine, the first hapless victims to my unhallowed arts." Shelley, through this book, presents the question of what may happen if the deep rooted greed in our nature overflows and what dangers that poses to the wellbeing of today's society.
Shelly shows how the desperation Victor had invested in this project and how the societal rejection his monster experienced led to the innocent deaths of Clerval and Justine and William and Elizabeth. This proves how the mysterious fear of our nature stems from the idea that 'Overreachers' (like Victor) and society as a whole can go to extents that cause death and destruction. Our nature is mysterious because it's unpredictable - Shelley displays how death and destruction can happen at any time due to any one person, and its fearsome because we don't know the magnitude of the effects or the extent of destruction that could result from one man's acts. So, Shelley shows how we must take responsibility for our own potential to overreach or reject, society as a whole's tendency to recoil, so to quell that "mysterious fear of our nature."
This overreaching nature still applies today, where the exponential rise in technological advancements leads to an equal, exponential rise in greed to introduce the next big discovery, the next big advancement. That poses another question: is today's society more likely to create a modern Victor, a modern 'overreacher,' that causes societal disarray, derailing society's path? Is today's society becoming closer and closer to this 1831 story meant to be merely a "thrilling horror?"