FRANKENBRIDE
Posted by admin on September 20, 2008, 5:17 pm
How should we understand the Bride’s final shreik?
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Posted by admin on September 20, 2008, 5:17 pm
How should we understand the Bride’s final shreik?
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September 22nd, 2008 at 9:15 pm
In Whales’ film “The Bride of Frankenstein,” the bride’s final shriek at the end of the movie is somewhat ironic. Throughout this film we understand that Dr. Pretorius and Frankenstein’s goal is to create a mate for the monster. The monster seeks friendship and companionship, yet all who encounter him are repulsed. The doctor’s hope seems to be that if the monster had a mate he would stop terrorizing the people and live happily with his mate. Unfortunately, the Bride does not seem to feel any attraction or desire to be the monster’s “friend,” as is indicated by her reaction when she first sees the monster. She shrieks in horror upon seeing him, a reaction similar to everyone else who has encountered him.
I think that this response the bride has is very telling when looking at some of the themes that are carried through both the movie and the novel. In both forms of the story, the male figures are on a quest for creation. It is this unnatural act of both having a male creating life, and also the greed these males have for figuring out how to gain the power of creation which naturally is allotted to only women. The bride’s reaction shows that even though men have learned how to create, they are unable to understand the natural desires of women. They assume that just because they create a female monster that she will be happy and satisfied with her male counterpart. The men seem to be taken over by the pride and ego they feel in having found the secret of life. Yet simply making inanimate objects come to life is not the secret to life at all. They have not even begun to think about how a women monster would feel or react to a male, and they are not capable of understanding a women’s desires. The bride’s shriek is a way of showing they have failed at their task. Even though both men have succeed in creating a women monster, they have no true understanding of women, and thus lies their failure.
September 24th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
I certainly agree they have no understanding of women, but I think would go a bit further and say little or no understanding of anything concerning human consciousness or behavior, much less how it might translate into the beings of their creations. It interesting though, how the film portrays the first (male) creature as having an instinct towards violence while the female seem to enter the world with an innocent benign curiosity and love for life. Even her fearful shrieks a fear at the creatures advances inicate a instinct for self-preservation, but not self defense. Likewise, I see , or hear, the final shriek as representing her desire to live, but also her rejection of the creature imposing his contrary assessment that they should not be allowed to live.
October 30th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
In the final scene, The Bride is the only female (at least before Elizabeth is seen behind bars). Is there significance in this? Praetorius, if understood as a homosexual character, has helped to create the bride with Henry (Victor in the book), but does not identify her as a “mate” or a “bride”, rather he calls her a “friend” for the monster. This affirms the theory that Praetorius is gay, because he has no concept of the male-female bond, and it also shows that the bride is perhaps not even seen as a woman, at least not in the traditional, idealized ways, and rather just as another being.
So what does that have to do with The Bride’s shriek? The Bride’s shriek is her statement; her rebellion against the world she was brought into. She is brought into a world of men, and then immediately forced into playing the role of the woman by being given to a man (by this I mean the creature who is identified as male), with the expectations of serving him and his needs. The entire conceit of her creation was to expel loneliness from the male monster and in turn Praetorius and Frankenstein hoped that she and the monster would procreate so that they could create a new race. Basically, she was only created to serve man – the monster, and her creators. When she shrieks, the expectations of her creation are not only changed, they’re shattered.
It seems then that one interpretation of the Bride’s shriek is the rebellion of men and the typical patriarchal society. As seen in Victor’s dream in the book, when women die and subsequently everything, including the creation life is handed over to the men, then only death or chaos can ensue. No life can spawn from men, and as seen with the monster, when life is created it is not as was planned. The Bride is just another example of that for them, except unlike the original monster, she has no desire to forge bonds with her creators. Her shriek is not only an affirmation of the men’s failure at creating life or fostering a relationship a male and a female, but also the bride’s identification as woman and her statement for them.