Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein: Part 2 – Yes, It’s Love, but Not How You Think

Posted on December 5, 2025 by A. Elizabeth West

WARNING!!!! THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR FRANKENSTEIN. PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!

Last night, a group of my colleagues and I went out, and one of them had seen Frankenstein, which meant I could wax poetic about it without spoiling. I mentioned something I alluded to in my last post, that Elizabeth’s interactions The Creature were not romantic, but motherly. My coworker asked me to explain.

I’m going to double down on this, so stay with me. This post is an expanded version of my argument.

First, in Mary Shelley’s book, Victor and Elizabeth are the couple. William is just a child, and baby brother Ernest isn’t even in the movie at all. Elizabeth Lavenza is an Italian orphan Caroline Frankenstein plucks like a puppy from a foster home and raises with the children. Victor is basically marrying his non-related stepsister, which is somewhat less incestuous than what other noble families were doing. Making William an adult with an unrelated fiancé allowed del Toro to introduce Harlander, who is so much fun we don’t care that he wasn’t in the novel.

Image: via Entertainment Weekly – Ken Woroner/Netflix

Their flirtation in the film alludes to their relationship in the book. If it had been preserved in the film, Elizabeth would have been The Creature’s de facto stepmother. Watching them play with each other, you get the impression that if she weren’t already taken, Elizabeth might very well decide to accept Victor – but it would be on her own terms.

Second, del Toro’s dual casting of Mia Goth as Claire Frankenstein, Victor’s mother, and Elizabeth Harlander, is significant. I can’t remember in which article I read it, but del Toro said straight out that some men marry their mothers. Victor certainly has a fixation on his.

del Toro also uses color in his films very deliberately. The dynamics are reflected in Kate Hawley’s costume designs. Claire’s clothing is all red. Victor wears red too (gloves, a scarf, a coat). Elizabeth’s primary color is green and/or teal, but around her neck is an ever-present rosary. What color is it? Red. When she visits Victor and sees the dissection, she is wearing red, and for a moment . . . but no, sorry Victor, you weren’t the chosen one.

You want to be, but believing something doesn’t make it true.

Image: Netflix

Elizabeth’s first glimpse of The Creature is shocking. She sees a man in chains, with terrible wounds all over his body. He’s clearly different from anyone she’s ever beheld. She responds to his vulnerability and pain—her first words to him are, “Who hurt you?”

When she returns shortly with William and Victor, it’s clear that Victor is not taking care of this child. He calls him “it” and says the chains are for his own protection and The Creature’s, because “He doesn’t know any better.” Just like a baby.

And he is, at first—scared of the sun, grabbing the razor like a curious baby, rattling the chains Victor puts on him like it’s a game, and playing with the water in the basement sluice like a baby in the bath. Victor tells Anderson, “Everything was new to him.”

On her third visit, alone this time, Elizabeth relates to him as though he’s a small child. He gives her a leaf, and she responds, “A leaf? For me? Thank you!” Her tone is that of a mother thanking a three-year-old for giving her a flower. She continues in that tone when teaching him her name.

Then, when she goes upstairs, Victor is there, lounging with his robe half open . . . looking all sensual . . . what was I saying again? Oh right!

Victor may be an ass, but broody Oscar Isaac is HOT AF.

Image: Netflix

Victor is oriented to the flesh. His research centers around the body, and he’s very grounded in sensuality and his attraction for Elizabeth. Of course the first thing this man would think is that Elizabeth is attracted to The Creature. It’s pure projection on his part. And he’s jealous. She’s not tiptoeing around the tower in a nightie to visit him.

Elizabeth’s nature is of the spirit – she’s very pious despite her interest in science. The dissection reminds her of a “martyrdom painting,” i.e., religious art, and she sees God in the symmetrical structure of the spinal column. She just came out of a convent to marry William. Young Catholic women were often sent to convents to strengthen their religious education because Catholic schools were not legal at certain points in English history, and they would someday be guiding their children in the faith. The families paid the convents for boarding them, which helped keep them afloat.

When Victor accuses her of basically wanting to bang his boy, she says no very emphatically. She talks about purity of soul, that God may have breathed directly into the flesh Victor animated, etc. During the updated Victorian period in which del Toro set the film, twenty years into Queen Victoria’s reign, children were still seen as exploitable resources. It wasn’t until later that childhood began to be revered, and they gained status as people in their own right. Elizabeth, who has already expressed progressive views, is ahead of her time in seeing the innocence and purity of this unusual child.

The Creature looks very newborn and angelic in their previous scene as well – he’s bald, his skin is pale and glowing, and his expression is one of wonder and curiosity. If Elizabeth had lived and had children with William, I think she would have viewed her babies the same way.

It is a love story, but it’s the love of a mother.

Image: Netflix

At her death, Elizabeth tells The Creature (I hate calling him that; his name would be Adam if Victor had even bothered) she realizes that she didn’t belong in the world. She was looking for something more elevated, and she found it with him. Not as a lover, but as pureness of soul, something finer than the earthly. Their connection hinges on seeing that in each other—he is untouched by the world, and to him, she’s just love. She’s the only person who ever treated him kindly except for the blind grandfather. It’s selfless like the love of his only friend, a maternal, caring love.

del Toro has been obsessed with this story for decades. There are references throughout the film to both the book and other adaptations. Victor and Elizabeth being a couple (novel) and the dual roles (Elsa Lanchester played Mary Shelley in The Bride of Frankenstein as well as the female creature), The Creature’s long stringy hair (novel) and his oversized, shapeless coat (Charles Ogle as The Creature in Thomas Edison’s 1910 silent film—watch it here), and too many others to mention. And good for you if you spotted that the sleeves of Elizabeth’s wedding dress look like the bandages on Elsa Lanchester’s arms in Bride. A nod is not an interpretation, however, and love is not confined to the romantic sphere.

If you want to read the book, it’s in the public domain. You can download it for free at Project Gutenberg here: Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley

More Favorite Books

Posted on September 23, 2012 by A. Elizabeth West

A while back, I did a list of some of my favorite books. Since I have hundreds of them, and have been insanely bored, I thought I’d post another.

Lately I’ve been culling my massive collection, in case I can’t find a job and have to move. People always say, “It’s so cool you have so many books!” Yeah, until they have to help you pack them. Hopefully, I won’t have to, but even so, I’m getting tired of dusting them. In the process I’ve rediscovered several books I forgot I had.

In no particular order, below find more of my favorites.

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl

If you know nothing about World War II, you probably know what happened to the Jewish people of Europe when Hitler began to lead Germany in a devastating sweep across the continent. Those who couldn’t escape the initial lockdown ended up in hiding.

Anne Frank and her family, along with acquaintances the van Pels family and an elderly dentist, Fritz Pfeffer (these names are changed in the published diary), hid in a secret apartment above her father’s business in Amsterdam from 1942 until 1944, when some rat fink told on them.

Anne wanted to be a writer, and it’s heartbreakingly clear she would have been a good one. Only her father, Otto Frank, survived the war. He published his daughter’s diary, which documents not only Anne’s family and relationships with the others in hiding, but much of the war itself.

My seventh grade class read this and saw the 1959 film. I can still remember how devastating it was to learn that human beings could do this to one another.

Nana

Number nine in Emile Zola‘s Les Rougon-Macquart novel cycle, Nana tells the story of an attractive girl who rises from a slatternly beginning in the gutters of Paris to become a celebrated courtesan. In her wake, she leaves a trail of broken, ruined and destitute men. I read this one first—my aunt loaned it to me when I visited her in London after my high school graduation. Once I started it, I couldn’t put it down.

Zola, the premier example of the Naturalist school of writing, is extremely easy to read. In naturalism, heredity and environment are believed to contribute to one’s eventual path in life. Emphasis is on believable situations, written as they would be in real life.

Give Zola a try. I think you’ll like him. He even has a Facebook page. :)

Dracula

I have never read this one in school. Usually Frankenstein is offered instead. Actually, in college I took two classes where I had to read Mary Shelley’s book. I finally managed to eke out a damn good paper on Dracula.

Written by a strapping Irishman named Abraham “Bram” Stoker, the novel takes us from England to Transylvania and back again, as the hapless Jonathan Harker travels to the Count’s castle to enact a real estate transaction for his employers.

Stoker wrote believably about Transylvania, although he never went there. The book, written in a mostly epistolary style, is surprisingly action-packed. Sprinkled throughout, we find the latest in late nineteenth century technology, such as Mina’s typewriter and Dr. Seward’s phonograph recordings.

The noble vampire is defined in this book. Before that, tales of bloodsuckers featured mostly Eastern European legends of filthy, long-nailed and bloated corpses. But Dracula is not a romantic figure. On the contrary, he’s like that scary uncle you always felt uncomfortably nauseated around without knowing why.

The Little House books

Yes, I love these! Written by Laura Ingalls Wilder, the beloved children’s series chronicles in fictionalized form her pioneer childhood, from around age five through her marriage to Almanzo Wilder at eighteen.

I don’t think these books should be restricted to kids. There is a lot adults can get out of them as well. It’s fascinating to read about pioneer life at that time. The television series based on the books, Little House on the Prairie, ran from 1974 to 1982 and was watched by legions of devoted fans.

Interesting side note: I have The Little House Cookbook, with all the foods from the books and a ton of cool historical information. You can get it here.

The Ingalls family. From left to right: Ma (seated), Carrie, Laura, Pa, Grace, Mary (seated).

Image: www.discoverlaura.org

Cages of Glass, Flowers of Time

Charlotte Culin’s 1979 novel about a battered child explores the conflicted feelings victims have about their abusers. Claire Burden is fourteen, recently torn from her neglectful artist father to be raised by her alcoholic mother, herself an abuse victim. Claire loves to draw as her father did, but Mom doesn’t want her to, because it is painful for her. Frightened and lonely, the young girl gradually emerges from her dark existence, nurtured by two loving friends.

This young adult book is so good. I read it in high school and looked everywhere for it. It’s out of print, but I finally found a copy on the internet. Highly recommended. I can’t find any other works by this author, and that’s too bad.

Clive Barkers Books of Blood

Technically, these aren’t one book, but six volumes of short stories by one of the masters of horror, Clive Barker. I had been a horror fan for a long time. When the first volume was published in 1984, I devoured it with my mouth open and my eyes wide. It was unlike anything I’d read before.

Barker has since penned quite a few novels that weave fantasy and horror in a completely unique way. Several of his works have been adapted into films that have terrified millions, notably The Hellbound Heart (as Hellraiser) and “The Forbidden,” a story from Books of Blood: Vol. 5 that eventually became Candyman.

I met him in Los Angeles around 1992, at a Fangoria magazine horror convention. He’s a very nice man.