Frankenstein’s monster is a fictional character that first appeared in Mary Shelley’s classic novel of tragedy and horror “Frankenstein or the modern Prometheus”. In the novel, the monster has no name and it is called simply “the creature”. However, after the novel was turned into a film in 1931,  the monster became popularly known as Frankenstein. This is a mistake! That was the name of the monster’s creator, not the creature himself. The film directed by James Whales in 1931 with Boris Karloff is still considered by critics as the best adaptation of the novel. Boris Karloff created a new icon of terror that continues to be alive in popular imagination. Together with Dracula, released  the same year, it started Universal Studio's golden age of 1930s horror movies.

Dr. Frankenstein (Colin Clive), a young scientist, and his hunchback assistant Fritz ,build together a human body, the parts of which have been secretly collected from dead bodies. Frankenstein wants to create human life through electrical devices which he has perfected.

Elizabeth (Mae Clarke), his girlfriend, is worried over his peculiar actions. She cannot understand why he stays all the time in an abandoned tower, which he uses as a laboratory, and doesn't want to see anyone. She goes to Dr. Waldman, his old medical professor, and asks his help in rescuing the young scientist from his absorbing experiments. Elizabeth arrives just as the mad young doctor is making his final tests. They all watch Frankenstein and the hunchback as they raise the dead creature on an operating table, high into the room, towards an opening at the top of the laboratory. Then follows a horrible crash of thunder, the noise of Frankenstein's electric machines.....and the hand of Frankenstein's monster begins to move.....

Most people who watch the movie feel sorry for the creature because he is emotional and intelligent. He has also been seen as a metaphor for personal responsibility; Victor Frankenstein is wrong when he gives the creature life without consideration for the consequences, and he is destroyed by his refusal to admit his mistake. The creature is also a metaphor for the unloved child  who grows up to be a monster. Frankenstein was not a good "parent" to his own "child" and through his rejection, left the creature alone and defenseless in a world that hated the sight of him.