Title: Dreams
Author: F. Paul Wilson
Date of Publication: 1991
Place of Publication: The Ultimate Frankenstein
Type: Short Story
Characters: The Creature
Themes: ANDROID; QUEER FRANKENSTEIN; SYMPATHETIC MONSTER
Critical Summary: “Dreams” follows the story of Eva Rucker, a young farm girl who has very peculiar dreams each night. She finds herself in the body of a male creature of a horrifying nature and terrifying appearance. In her dreams she wanders around every night, afraid to be seen, having small flashes of memories coming together in her mind. Memories of pain, rage and loneliness plague her mind as she struggles to live through each dream. She finds herself recognizing a young man named Karl as he leaves a tavern and follows him to the house of a woman named Maria whom Eva recalls being his sister. She watches the two, remembering that she once loved Karl, and tries to contact him using a note she manages to write in this foreign body, only to find the truth of what truly happened to her to be much more disturbing. As she struggles between dreams and reality she quickly adapts to this body in her dream world to take out her anger and vengeance on everyone who wronged her in the past.
The short story follows the film adaptation of Frankenstein from 1931, as Henry Frankenstein is the creator of the creature Eva Rucker inhabits. In the short story, Eva’s brain is the one used for the creature, bringing her consciousness to life. This android creation resembles that of Victor Frankenstein’s creation as they share their pain and loneliness that has seeped into Eva’s own emotions. The story also combats the idea of differently gendered minds residing within a male creation’s body. Eva expresses her disgust of the creature’s male reproductive organs, as well as her comfort when she returns to her own feminine body. She expresses the happiness in being a woman again, not only frowning upon the male creature’s disfigured body, but seemingly towards the male body in general. She even questions why her dreams have placed her in the body of a man. We draw into the question of what would have changed if Mary Shelley’s creature had been created female. The overall story does carry the theme of a sympathetic monster as we are placed inside the creature’s mind instead of outside of it. We are told its pain and suffering and why it makes the decisions it does. Eva even becomes extremely violent when she resides in the creature’s body, believing it all to be a dream, which makes the reader question if we all hold this desire to break free from our human side into that of the monster’s free will. The creature has a strength greater than most, and in Mary Shelley’s novel, it mocks Victor as they traverse extreme climates and lands. The creature reminds Victor of how it will never be hindered by these extreme landscapes. Eva finds comfort in this strength and doesn’t hesitate to take full advantage of it.
Administrative Notes: Alondra Chavez, CSUF; Lee Koehler, CSUF (editing)