Frankenstein lives on in the popular imagination as a cautionary tale
against technology. We use the monster as an all-purpose modifier to
denote technological crimes against nature. When we fear genetically
modified foods we call them "frankenfoods" and "frankenfish." It is
telling that even as we warn against such hybrids, we confuse the
monster with its creator. We now mostly refer to Dr. Frankenstein's
monster as Frankenstein. And just as we have forgotten that Frankenstein
was the man, not the monster, we have also forgotten Frankenstein's
real sin.
Dr. Frankenstein's crime was not that he invented a creature through
some combination of hubris and high technology, but rather that
he abandoned the creature to itself. When Dr. Frankenstein meets his
creation on a glacier in the Alps, the monster claims that it was
notborn a monster, but that it became a criminal only after being left
alone by his horrified creator, who fled the laboratory once the
horrible thing twitched to life. "Remember, I am thy creature," the
monster protests, "I ought to be thy Adam; but I am rather the fallen
angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed... I was benevolent and
good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be
virtuous."