Title: The Hound of Frankenstein
Author: Peter Tremayne
Date of First Publication: 1977 (Chapbook)
Place of Publication: Ventura
Type: Short story
Characters: Victor Frankenstein; Elizabeth Frankenstein; Mary Shelley; Percy Shelley
Themes: MAD SCIENTIST/MONSTER; SYMPATHETIC MONSTER; ANDROID; BYRONIC HERO; POSTHUMAN
Critical Summary: It starts on a dark and stormy night, with a man running blindly across the moor. He is frantic, trying to escape something. He tries to catch his breath, stopping for a second, when he is engulfed by a horrid beast. Brian Shaw shows up in a small town as an apprentice to a Doctor. He ends up meeting and helping out Dr. Talbot Trevaskis’s daughter, Helen. She brings him back to her home, as she is distraught over her missing father. Brian then goes on a search, ending up on a man’s private property.
This man is Frankenstein, but uses a slightly changed name. The beast that hunted down the man in the prologue is Frankenstein’s henchman, for lack of a better term. Frankenstein befriends Brian, in order to keep Brian out of the way of his evil plan – to create the perfect human. Ironically, the beast himself was an attempt at perfection. Dr. Talbot was the most recent victim of Frankenstein’s plan, only useful for his arm. When Brian explores the castle, he finds Elizabeth Frankenstein, who has been kept hostage. She relates the horrific backstory that changes the end of Frankenstein, and tells Brian to escape while he can.
Brian goes back to the village and convinces Trevithick – one of the housekeepers – to help him stop Frankenstein’s plan. When they get to the castle, they find the beast and Frankenstein surging life into a dead dog who then becomes The Hound. They end up fighting it off; the beast dies, and Elizabeth sacrifices herself to save Brian and Trevithick. Brian and Helen end up together, and they discuss the demise of Frankenstein – and in the same carriage, Frankenstein is in disguise, watching and waiting for his opportunity to return to his work.
This work features specific themes that made Frankenstein what it was, such as the Mad Scientist trope. It twists the ending of Mary Shelley’s masterpiece and creates an alternate ending that rides on the insanity that Frankenstein grapples with as he refuses to stop trying to play God and continues to demonstrate the horrors that mankind is capable of without control. This short fictional work also brings in the aspect of a sympathetic monster, concerning The Beast, who was a normal man who ended up falling in love with Elizabeth, and Frankenstein caught them together. His punishment was to be the victim of Frankenstein’s experiments, and now he cannot remember who he was. He was turned into the monster, and the audience holds out hope that love will bring his mind back from the depths – though it does not happen. Together, these themes created the moral story that ended up pulling at heartstrings, building a compelling plot, and they encompass the very possibilities that Frankenstein is known for: humanity and the lack thereof.
Administrative Notes: Elizabeth Vasquez, CSUF; GC Philipp, CSUF (editing)