Disclaimer: I've never read it but I've seen various plays and movies (including the live broadcasts of the recent Danny Boyle ones). This is set just after Victor's rejected his creation.
Victor brought life to the dead, and now he's living in a patchwork of corpses. He feels lethargic, heavy, as though his very self is half-rotten and useless. If he hadn't known how to walk already, he'd be trapped in his monstrous creation.
It's punishment, he supposes. If Prometheus had his liver torn out every night for bringing fire down from Mount Olympus, then this is lenient in comparison.
He has woken in a dark, misty wood. It's some time before dawn, and all is silent. Victor is somewhat surprised that the Creature can feel cold. Although he moves slowly, he still moves; long hours of digging, sawing, and searching have come to fruition in this perfect, terrible form. There are no squeaks of sockets in joints, nor any torn stitches. Victor knows that he's committed an abomination, but at least he did it very well.
People react in the same way Victor did. He's too tall, too grey, too yellow in the eyes. He's not one of them. Victor discovers that the Creature can feel pain, too. He lumbers away, willing his mismatched feet onward. Every step is an effort, as though his mind is not in full control.
The Creature, though ... the Creature dances. He throws back Victor's head and laughs. His eyes sparkle at Elizabeth, his Elizabeth. It isn't by choice, but Victor finds himself with a thick skin, now. Even so, the sight of his creation conversing, drinking, and slotting in to the Frankenstein family is at once a testament to Victor's ability and a dagger to his stomach.
How can they not recognise a difference? Why is Elizabeth looking at the Creature in a way she's never once done with Victor? Can his identity truly mean so little that he can be replaced by a week-old aberration?
William raises short, chubby arms, and the Creature laughs. He reaches down and picks the boy up. He puts him on his shoulders and whirls around to the applause and gasps of the women surrounding them. William squeals with delight, his flushed young face aglow; Victor's former features are relaxed. He looks healthier than he's ever been, like he's been going outside in daylight, and sleeping through the night.
He looks beautiful.
~
Victor has made his monster well. No matter what the villagers threw at him during his journey from Ingolstadt to Geneva, he survived. He feels pain and hunger and tiredness, but he needn't cave to any of them.
Victor discovers that, no matter what he does, he cannot kill what he's created. It takes a few weeks and many attempts, but in the end he accepts it. His punishment is not merely to have his wretched creature steal his life; it is to be hated for eternity, rejected in the same way he'd cast his own creation from him. If his laboratory was the Garden of Eden, his existence now was purgatory. ~ PS I adore your Horrible Histories prompt, as well!. EDITED FOR TYPO
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Feet of Clay
Date: 2012-05-29 12:26 pm (UTC)Victor brought life to the dead, and now he's living in a patchwork of corpses. He feels lethargic, heavy, as though his very self is half-rotten and useless. If he hadn't known how to walk already, he'd be trapped in his monstrous creation.
It's punishment, he supposes. If Prometheus had his liver torn out every night for bringing fire down from Mount Olympus, then this is lenient in comparison.
He has woken in a dark, misty wood. It's some time before dawn, and all is silent. Victor is somewhat surprised that the Creature can feel cold. Although he moves slowly, he still moves; long hours of digging, sawing, and searching have come to fruition in this perfect, terrible form. There are no squeaks of sockets in joints, nor any torn stitches. Victor knows that he's committed an abomination, but at least he did it very well.
People react in the same way Victor did. He's too tall, too grey, too yellow in the eyes. He's not one of them. Victor discovers that the Creature can feel pain, too. He lumbers away, willing his mismatched feet onward. Every step is an effort, as though his mind is not in full control.
The Creature, though ... the Creature dances. He throws back Victor's head and laughs. His eyes sparkle at Elizabeth, his Elizabeth. It isn't by choice, but Victor finds himself with a thick skin, now. Even so, the sight of his creation conversing, drinking, and slotting in to the Frankenstein family is at once a testament to Victor's ability and a dagger to his stomach.
How can they not recognise a difference? Why is Elizabeth looking at the Creature in a way she's never once done with Victor? Can his identity truly mean so little that he can be replaced by a week-old aberration?
William raises short, chubby arms, and the Creature laughs. He reaches down and picks the boy up. He puts him on his shoulders and whirls around to the applause and gasps of the women surrounding them. William squeals with delight, his flushed young face aglow; Victor's former features are relaxed. He looks healthier than he's ever been, like he's been going outside in daylight, and sleeping through the night.
He looks beautiful.
~
Victor has made his monster well. No matter what the villagers threw at him during his journey from Ingolstadt to Geneva, he survived. He feels pain and hunger and tiredness, but he needn't cave to any of them.
Victor discovers that, no matter what he does, he cannot kill what he's created. It takes a few weeks and many attempts, but in the end he accepts it. His punishment is not merely to have his wretched creature steal his life; it is to be hated for eternity, rejected in the same way he'd cast his own creation from him. If his laboratory was the Garden of Eden, his existence now was purgatory.
~
PS I adore your Horrible Histories prompt, as well!. EDITED FOR TYPO