When Forgiveness Does Not Suffice: the treatment of oppressed bodies in Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein
Though long-anticipated by many, Guillermo del Toro’s film adaption of the beloved classic, Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus (1818) by Mary Shelley, fails to expand on the world of the original novel and promotes the further silencing of oppressed and othered bodies.
Frankenstein (2025) is the only adaptation of the story I have ever watched since I read the book seven years ago. Therefore, I went into the film not with an intimate grasp of the original plot, but a nevertheless lasting impression of the story’s compelling nature and nuance. Despite my relative ignorance to inconsistencies in the narrative, I left the film knowing something of the original was gravely missing. I had been entertained, but, ultimately, disappointed.
Classics are classics for a reason. Shelley’s Frankenstein continues to be read today and adapted into screenplays because her story about a young man, Victor Frankenstein, who successfully brings a man to life from assembled body parts, continues to capture readers. Indeed, the story’s interrogation of the ethical and moral relationship between creators and their creations and where the bounds of human omnipotence lie are relevant in any society preoccupied with perpetual productivity and the desire to dominate nature.
While del Toro’s adaptation explores these central themes, it doesn’t capture the nuance found in the original. Having just re-read the novel after watching the film, it is clear the numerous changes to the plot significantly dilute the story into a more palatable product. However, what makes the original novel great is the way it lingers in the messiness of uncomfortability and moral ambiguities.
In particular, del Toro’s portrayal of the oppressed body, as found in the Creature and Elizabeth, is severely lacking in nuance and critical compassion, opting instead to shroud their oppression in passivity. This sentiment most cruelly betrays the soul of the novel, which embraces the despair of injustice and unresolved traumas.
Monster as Other
Aside from its compelling contemplation of the relationship between creator and creation, Shelley’s story remains a classic because of its underlying engagement with what it means to oppress, and be oppressed; to belong, and to be other.
For many marginalized and oppressed groups across the globe, it is easy to see oneself in the Creature’s plight. The Creature’s central aim is to be embraced and loved as he is, rather than scorned for his appearance, perpetually othered by those whose companionship he seeks.
In contrast to Shelley’s Victor, del Toro’s Victor is rewritten in such a way that there is no doubt in the audience’s mind that he is the real ‘monster.’ Raised by an abusive father, del Toro’s Victor continues the cycle of abuse in his treatment of the Creature.
Not only does this modified character arc eliminate any possibility of engaging in the rich moral dilemma Victor faces in the novel, but it also does not change the fact that the Creature remains the ‘monster’ in wider society. While the creature and others close to Victor may recognize his sinister personality, it is always the creature who is hunted, abused, outcast. He is perpetually out of place, forcing him into indefinite displacement.
Nevertheless, this dynamic still accurately portrays the reality for many people living within systems of oppression. While the privileged oppressors are accustomed to demonizing the oppressed (perhaps even invoking epithets not so unlike ‘monster’), the oppressed are often not blind to the monstrous behaviors of their oppressors. However, this habitually does little to negate the power of the privileged, such as in Victor’s case.
On this point, del Toro successfully manages to humanize the Creature and highlight the injustice he faces, creating a character that still has the power to resonate with old and new audiences.
Forgiveness ≠ Accountability
However, the ironic and most disappointing aspect of the film is the ending. After going to great lengths to demonize Victor, the film is brought to a rapid conclusion, in which Victor miraculously has a change of heart and seeks the Creature’s forgiveness. Even stranger is the father-son heart-to-heart moment that follows, culminating in the Creature’s gracious forgiveness of his ‘father,’ Victor. From then on, he resolves to live a full life, bolstered by Victor’s hopeful last words, despite the fact he has not yet found a way to properly be in the world.
Although the Creature briefly expresses that vengeance and lust for murder is not in his nature and apologizes to Victor in the novel, there is no overly heartwarming reconciliation between the two because, at the end of the day, neither of them can change what has been done nor improve the circumstances of the other. Victor’s creation evidently turned out to be far greater than he imagined and the Creature’s perpetual loneliness too heavy to bear, prompting his resolve to end his life.
The original ending can arguably be read as far grimmer – though more realistic, in my opinion – than del Toro’s version, but I would argue the opposite. As the credits rolled, I was deeply disturbed that all the past two and a half hours amounted to was a story about forgiveness,
parading the notion that all is well as long as the oppressor is forgiven without actually being held to account for his actions.
Although I am perfectly happy with the original ending, del Toro’s rendition would perhaps make more sense in Shelley’s novel, where Victor possesses a moral conscience, therefore rendering it feasible that the two characters could arrive at something closer to reconciliation. Del Toro’s extensive vilification of Victor makes the ending that much more disappointing and ill-placed because, even in the face of his actively abusive Maker, the Creature swiftly succumbs to his cries for mercy. And then Victor dies, condemning the Creature to an eternity of loneliness.
Despite del Toro’s empathic characterization of the Creature, this ending demonstrates a grave lack of understanding and appreciation of the oppressed body’s plight. Instead of more seriously sitting with the deep injustice that the Creature has inherited and interrogating what, exactly, justice is or could look like, this Disney-esque conclusion serves to invalidate the Creature’s rage and suffering. His ready submission to Victor’s comfort is confusing, particularly in light of the vengeance that fuels him for the majority of the film.
It is only on death’s door that Victor feels compelled to extend a compassionate hand to the Creature and earnestly requests that his past abuses be forgiven. This desire for reconciliation does not stem from a place of sincerity but selfishness since Victor is the only beneficiary. Similarly, our modern-day oppressors may feebly apologize for past and current crimes against oppressed peoples in order to garner social or political favor, while failing to relinquish their privilege and thereby alleviate those ‘others’ of their oppression.
The creature’s forgiveness is the kiss of death for the film as a whole. His readiness to let bygones be bygones and reassure Victor that all is in the past even though nothing about his present circumstances have changed underlines Victor’s privilege and maintains his dominance as creator and oppressor.
Love: the Pacifier for Male Violence
Likewise, Elizabeth’s character represents a failed opportunity to interrogate systemically oppressive social structures present in the story and in modern-day societies.
In contrast to Elizabeth’s marginal role in the novel, del Toro expands her character with allusions to interests in entomology (study of insects) and politics. However, such characteristics do not do enough to free her from the gaze of the rest of the men in the film, including the gaze of del Toro himself. While she expresses a greater degree of intellectual thought in this adaptation, she is nevertheless trapped within womanly expectations imposed by the society around her and internalized by herself.
As in the book, she remains a pawn in the story’s events, though del Toro’s story offers her as a more overt sex symbol as she oscillates between the desire of several men in the film: William, the Creature and Victor. She is lauded for her beauty and her feminine softness, rather than her wit and intellect. This is most clearly exemplified by the way her uncle and William swiftly leave the dining room when she starts talking about the injustice of war.
Despite del Toro’s minimal efforts to write a more headstrong, intellectual woman, this is undermined by her death scene, whereby she declares herself a perfect embodiment of the patriarchal trope that woman’s only worthy pursuit in life is to love and be loved by, or simply attract the gaze of, a man.
While Elizabeth is tragically killed by the Creature in Shelley’s novel as a manifestation of the Creature’s vengeance against Victor, she is inadvertently and fatally shot by Victor while protecting the Creature.
Continuing a haphazard, underdeveloped love story between Elizabeth and the Creature, the Creature is the one to carry her out of the scene and into a remote cave, where they spend her final breaths. As her breath steadily leaves her, Elizabeth professes,
I sought and longed for something I could not quite name. But in you, I found it. To be lost and to be found, that is the lifespan of love. And in its brevity, its tragedy... this has been made eternal. Better this way... to fade... with your eyes gazing upon me.
This moment conveys a potent passivity to her death, failing to address the injustice of the situation. The romanticization of her death as some poetic end to her and the Creature’s love (which isn’t all that believable given the fact they do not really have much of a relationship at all) blatantly sidesteps the reality that her premature death is a result of male violence.
In the novel, her death scene is not explicitly written into the story and overall her presence is limited. So, while some credit can be given to del Toro for giving Elizabeth more of a voice in his adaptation, it is ineffectual on the whole because her voice has not been written to represent women, but to pacify the horror of male violence.
Upon her death, her previously expressed interests in science and politics appear frivolous and largely unserious passions since her only real passion, evidently, is the all too elusive ‘love,’ which she doesn’t receive from any of the characters in del Toro’s film. Despite the suggestion that she and the Creature could have built a sort of love, romantic or otherwise, a gifted leaf and one conversation is not a solid enough foundation for love. Given the lack of depth explored in
their characters and relationship, it is even insulting that such miniscule interactions are portrayed as being enough of a compensation for her tragic end.
The Death of Frankenstein
These weak efforts to give voice to the oppressed bodies of Shelley’s Frankenstein only to have the characters further submerge themselves in their own oppression by forgiving Victor in the Creature’s case, and expressing indifference to her wrongful death in Elizabeth’s case, embodies a violent attack on the moral of the original tale.
In the spirit of his Victor, del Toro seems to create a grand world that is meant to wow, but it is a world which he, too, does not understand. His manipulation of the plot to heavily engage with themes of abuse and oppression is paired with an apparent lack of clarity about how to appropriately grapple with such serious issues. He overrelies on overdone tropes and exceptional actors to tell his story, forgetting his responsibility as the director and writer to give the story life.
Just as Victor’s life spirals tragically into death upon his triumph over life, so, too, Frankenstein as we know it is put to death in del Toro’s adaptation upon his effort to bend the film to his will, rather than giving the story further space to breathe and grow. The Creature’s and Elizabeth’s conscious complicity in their oppression is merely the most harrowing demonstration of his inability to embrace the ambiguity that permeates Shelley’s novel, instead creating a world where the victor always wins.
Mattea Mun is a mixed-race Korean-American writer based in London. Her studies in Comparative Literature and Russian at University College London has guided her passion for fostering intersectional discourse through writing. Currently, she writes as matteamun on Substack, where she regularly publishes social and political commentaries and creative nonfiction, often centering reflections on identity politics. She also co-runs the publication, xplicit content, on Substack which is dedicated to nurturing intersectional discourse along the lines of feminism, anti-racism and decolonization