FRANKENSTEIN – A Psychological Analysis of the Film and the Patriarchal Complex

FRANKENSTEIN – A Psychological Analysis of the Film and the Patriarchal Complex

Directed by Guillermo del Toro.

Warning: Contains spoilers. A synopsis can be found on Wikipedia: https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein_(2025) , and the film can be watched on Netflix.

In this psychological analysis of the film Frankenstein, I focus on Guillermo del Toro's version. I compare this modern version of Frankenstein with two other quite popular versions, Edward Scissorhands and Poor Creatures. Although Edward Scissorhands has a format closer to fairy tales, Edward and the Creature were created in a laboratory from fragments of human bodies, and Bella is resurrected by having her adult woman's brain replaced with the brain of the baby she was expecting when she died. These are three adult bodies that come to life through "scientific" means within a fiction that imitates the creation of human life on Earth, a subject that has fascinated humanity for hundreds of years. Creators and their respective creations present similarities and differences, which will be compared and analyzed based on the main narrative of this study, Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein.

The current version of Frankenstein, written and directed by Guillermo del Toro, is based on the novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), by the British writer Mary Shelley.

Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) is a brilliant and egocentric scientist and surgeon. Obsessed with immortality, he creates a monster (Jacob Elordi) from pieces of human corpses.

This version by del Toro deals with humanity's dilemma regarding the ethical limits of science, raising a profound question about the creator's responsibility towards their creation, similar to the responsibility of parents towards their children.

Del Toro gives voice to the creature, which doesn't even receive a name, demanding that the creator take responsibility for their creation.

Captain Anderson welcomes them both, first listening to Victor's version, then welcoming the Creature, attentively listening to its version of its own story, providing a therapeutic catharsis where the Creature acquires the status of a subject, and no longer an object.

Without the mediation provided by Anderson's attentive gaze and ears, perhaps Victor and the Creature would never have reached the moment of creative confrontation they did, initially fueled by Victor's aggressiveness, which triggered an equally aggressive reaction from the Creature.

Victor suffered from a negative patriarchal complex stemming from the cruel treatment his father inflicted on him, and later on his younger brother William. At the same time, his excessively close bond with his mother prevented him from processing her death, blaming his father, one of the best doctors of the time, for his inability to overcome death.

When his father states that no one can conquer death, Victor asserts that yes, he will be able to, defying both his human creator and the Divine Creator.

Victor becomes obsessed with conquering death, inflated, egocentric, and defiant, like a rebellious little boy who needs to confront the authorities in his camp, in a way he was unable to confront his own father.

Prometheus and his brother, Epimetheus, were tasked with creating men and animals. While Epimetheus created them, Prometheus supervised. However, Epimetheus spent all the resources and special attributes on the animals, and turned to his brother, Prometheus, for help. So, Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to men to ensure their superiority over the animals. Fire was exclusive to the gods, and as punishment, Zeus ordered Hephaestus to chain him to the summit of Mount Caucasus, where every day an eagle (or vulture) would tear out his liver, which would regenerate each day—a punishment that was to last 30,000 years.

Victor defies the gods and laws of nature by creating a man from pieces of corpses of soldiers from the Crimean War. He chooses the soldiers because they were healthy men who died in combat, not from pre-existing illness, which contradicted his desire for immortality. Wounded and mutilated bodies were cut and adapted in an attempt to create the most perfect Creature within his reach.

During the construction of his laboratory, financed by Henrich Harlander (Christoph Waltz), he asks William (Feliz Kammerer) to take care of everything, as he only trusts him, but in reality, he wants to get closer to his brother's fiancée, Elizabeth (Mia Goth), with the support of Harlander, who wants to have his brain transplanted into the creature's body, as he is dying of syphilis.

Victor is capable of doing anything to get what he wants. He even believes he is succeeding in seducing Elisabeth, but she sees exactly what he is like, although she is interested in his scientific experiments and science in general, especially insects and the purity of instinctive life. Elisabeth is, at the same time, intelligent, sensitive, intuitive, perceptive, and seeks something that goes beyond Victor's arrogant selfishness.

The creature comes to life, behaving naturally and instinctively, almost like a baby, but enormous like a large adult. Victor projects his own aggression onto it, mistreats it as his father did to him, and chains it up. Elisabeth sees the creature as it is, sees beauty and innocence in it, forming a connection incomprehensible to Victor.

Victor hadn't thought about what he would do, or how he would deal with this being he had just created. He finds himself confused and realizes he hasn’t considered the responsibilities inherent in being a creator. Like the selfish and immature father, he was, he rejects his creation, invents that Harlander's death was caused by the Creature, once again shirking his responsibilities. He wants to receive and deserve everything, without ever offering anything in return. He longs for the unconditional love he received from his mother, which was denied by his father, and continues to act on an obstinate impulse to have everything his way.

Unable to cope with the demands of responsibility for the being he had created, nor for the accident that led to Harlander's death, he decides to set everything on fire, destroying the Creature. However, in trying to destroy the Creature, he begins to resemble it. He loses a leg and starts using an artificial one. Just as happened with Prometheus, the eagle begins to eat his liver. However, it is not Victor's body that regenerates, but the Creature's body, which discovers itself to be immortal. It dies, but always returns from death, like the shattered bodies that formed it.

Victor longs to conquer death but brings destruction wherever he goes. His lack of empathy and compassion, his selfishness, guided his impulsiveness and inability to foresee the consequences of his actions. He lives under the narcissistic defenses that permeate his negative patriarchal complex, burdened with anger, frustration, and the search for recognition he never received from his father, and which he perhaps thought he was receiving from Harlander. However, Harlander was seeking a solution to his own fear of death, and Victor was merely a means to an end.

The relationship between Victor and Harlander, that is, between science and financial sponsorship, reflects the interest of capital in controlling scientific discoveries and using them for its own benefit, whether personal or financial, characteristic of the relationship between medical-scientific and technological research, and the pharmaceutical, technology, or arms industries. Creative ideas, serving different purposes.

Harlander did not understand that Victor's ideal was to create a perfect being, one who could conquer death, and that his body, consumed by syphilis, would be capable of destroying his creation.

Harlander dies along with Victor's fantasy of having found a male figure who would offer him the unconditional love and support he had sought in his father but had only experienced in his relationship with his mother.

The image of the Creature, still inanimate, attached to a rod reminiscent of the image of Christ crucified, awaiting the lightning that will give it life, refers us to the symbol of the death and rebirth of Christ, the redeemer of humanity's sins, in a correlation to the redemption of Victor's sins.

In front of the “crucified” Creature is a huge image of Medusa [1] , a symbol of the wounded feminine, which petrifies and paralyzes all who look at it. The film portrays the supremacy of patriarchy over matriarchy, but mainly over otherness, because when the feminine is repressed and violated, it paralyzes men, petrifying their feelings and emotions. Petrified feelings make people defensively rational, aggressively pragmatic, focused only on their wounded narcissistic needs because they were not respected.

Every boy needs a male figure to complement and counterbalance the female figure; it is from this dialectical relationship between the archetype of the Great Mother and the Father that images of the anima and animus are formed, which can be contaminated by unresolved or unprocessed parental complexes.

Victor's mother was a wealthy woman married to a man who married her for financial gain. The relationship between the parents is not affectionate, and all the mother's affection is devoted to her son. The mother, in trying to compensate for the father's absence, becomes a suffocating figure. The mother gives all the love and affection, while the father demands results and dedication, never valuing the effort. There is competition between forces that are in perpetual imbalance. The mother, not having a truly affectionate relationship with her husband, is symbolically violated and abused like Medusa. The female figure is something to be conquered and dominated, as Victor tries to do with Elizabeth. The woman is a means, whose objective is the egoic satisfaction of conquest. The father preferred William, so Victor needs to take her away from him, just as, in his persecutory fantasy, William and his father deprived him of his mother.

Victor uses the Creature as a scapegoat for his misdeeds, blaming it for Harlander's death, after the deaths of Elizabeth and William; however, William's last words were that Victor was the one truly responsible for everything.

Victor, by not taking responsibility for his creation, tries to destroy the Creature, but Elizabeth dies trying to protect him. Elizabeth seems far more aware of the importance of her own creation than he is himself.

Victor was jealous of Elisabeth, both because of her engagement to his brother and because of the connection she had established with the Creature.

The moment when Creature hands a sheet of paper to Elisabeth resembles the moment when a child gives their mother something they find special. Elisabeth understands the gesture, values it, and glimpses Creature’s humanity.

To accept that Elisabeth can see into people's souls it would be to admit that he had all the flaws she had described about him.

In both encounters, Elisabeth chooses the Creature. As she had said, he had something good inside him, but it wasn't available, and the Creature would be his instinctive, loving side, yearning for meaningful human contact, his repressed shadow.

The Creature experiences in his relationship with Elizabeth the same thing Victor had experienced with his mother: a loving, understanding, attentive, and present female figure, and the same thing he had experienced with his father: an aggressive, castrating, and distant male figure. Victor resembles his father, but longs for someone like his mother.

Victor seemed to believe that the Creature was already ready, but its creation needed care, affection, and education, like any being that is born or comes into life.

In Frankenstein we see a huge contrast in relation to Bella Baxter (Emma Stone, from Poor Creatures (2024, Yorgos Lanthimos)). In this updated version of Frankenstein, Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe), A brilliant, yet unorthodox, scientist brings a woman back to life after her brain is replaced with that of her unborn daughter. Unlike Victor, Godwin knows that Bella is a baby in an adult woman's body, and, understanding and respecting this condition, observes and protects Bella as she experiences all the psychomotor, reasoning, and language development, step by step, that a baby needs, but in an adult body.

The Creature has mastered its body and movements but still needs to learn to communicate. While the Creature is chained and treated as non-human, Bella is treated with love, respect, and dignity by Godwin. Bella receives a first and last name, a social identity, while Victor calls the Creature simply a creature, a being that is not humanized by his gaze, only by Elizabeth's.

While Bella receives all the support and understanding in her development and adaptation of a baby's brain in a woman's body, the Creature receives the verdict of death. Since Victor doesn't understand his own creation, he decides to sacrifice it. However, the Creature, in its natural exercise of learning how the world works, fascinated by the leaf gliding across the water, understands that this would instinctively be its escape route, and imitates the leaf's behavior, fleeing from the fire.

This moment symbolizes the second birth of the Creature, the first through the energy of lightning, the amplified force of nature, and the second, the separation between creator and creature through fire (expulsion from paradise and the push towards the development of consciousness?). Fire is an archetypal symbol of transformation, just as water is a symbol of rebirth, symbolizing the environment of the maternal womb. The Creature awakens once again from death, but this time, enveloped in water and mud, primordial elements of the birth of life on Earth. The first biblical man, Adam, is born from clay molded with water. This gives the Creature a symbolic divine birth; now it has the father/creator/scientist and the primordial mother through nature.

The rebirth in the waters still reminds us of the myths of Iansã, Iemanjá, and Oxum, representatives of the archetype of the feminine and the Great Mother, where rebirth or salvation from the waters represents a rebirth. In the Catholic religion, immersion in water would represent salvation from sins and the beginning of a new life.

Another modern version of Frankenstein would be Edward Scissorhands (1990, Tim Burton). In this story, Edward (Johnny Depp) was created by a kind and lonely man (Vincent Price) who had difficulty fitting into the world. He dies before completing his work, and Edward's scissor hands, which were meant to be temporary until he received human hands, remain an unfinished piece. Edward remains isolated from the world and uses his scissor hands creatively, transforming the garden into marvelous natural sculptures.

Peg Boggs (Dianne Wiest) finds him, is amazed by what he can do in the garden and takes him into her home. His talent is appreciated and used by everyone, from decorating the gardens to cutting hair; however, his mastery of the scissors is not enough for more delicate social interactions. His talent is welcome, but acceptance of difference is limited to its usefulness, without reaching the status of humanity. The only creation that receives the status of humanity is Bella, who, given Godwin's respectful, loving, and unprejudiced treatment, can symbolically fight for the humanity of women in general, who have been objectified by society, just as Edward and the Creature were.

All three have adult bodies but lack the social interaction skills that correspond to those bodies. Deep down, they are children experiencing the world in a naive and unprotected way. Highly intelligent children often face this type of difficulty; they seem very intellectually mature, but their needs for protection and affection remain consistent with their chronological age, not their intellectual age.

The Creature had experienced a gesture of affection with Elizabeth, who accepted the gift (the leaf), and shared with him her wonder at that work of nature; their hands touched, not with the curiosity that had occurred in the same gesture between him and Victor, but as a real moment of intimacy and affection.

This memory may have made the Creature understand and yearn to receive the gesture of affection it observes, from a blind grandfather [2] (David Bradley) towards his granddaughter Anna-Maria (Sofia Galasso). This affectionate caress on the head awakens the Creature's interest, who until then had only witnessed aggressive acts and persecutions. Hidden in the family barn, protected from the cold and the aggressions it does not understand, it learns not only to read along with Anna-Maria, but observes how the blind old man treats his granddaughter with affection and understanding, and a new reality, less cruel, more comforting, is glimpsed before its eyes.

He listens to the stories and teachings, and is moved, above all, by the kindness and wisdom of the old blind man. In return, touched by what he has received in silence, he performs various necessary services for the family, and the old blind man begins to call the help received a gift from the Spirit of the Forest. The old blind man symbolically baptizes the Creature as the Spirit of the Forest, this being the first identity he receives; now he knows when people are addressing him and his deeds. However, he is still not recognized as a human being, but as a spirit of nature.

For the first time, the Creature is recognized as a spirit, that is, it is a body capable of having a soul. Brazilian Indigenous peoples were considered "soulless ," which allowed them to be treated "without humanity," as they were "soulless." In other words, it is not enough to be a body that moves and functions; it is necessary to have a soul, identity, desire, and will to be considered human.

Like Edward, the Creature is respected for its usefulness; it gathers kindling for the fire, builds enclosures for the sheep, but must remain distant, cannot be seen or privileged with human affection. Bella is desired for her beauty; her usefulness lies in satisfying the desires of men, who are disconcerted to learn that, in fact, they were also satisfying her desires, which is revolutionary. Bella cared for, loved, understood, and protected by Godwin; therefore, she has the self-esteem that both Edward and the Creature lack.

The Creature recognizes that only the old blind man would be able to accept him, because being blind, he saw beyond appearances, that is, beyond the persona. The blind man recognizes his presence, knows that he is the Spirit of the Forest, knows that he was a man who did not want or could not be sighted, and respects his condition. He recognizes his pain, scars, and suffering, but also that he had goodness within him. The old blind man is cultured, as well as wise. He teaches the Creature everything he can. At a certain moment, the Creature has the courage to take the old man's hand and place it on his head, to receive a caress, and the old blind man sustains the gesture of affection so longed for by the Creature.

The Creature observes everything around it and gains valuable insights. One of them is expressed in the observation of a wolf attack on sheep, and the reaction of the men, shooting and killing the wolves. It concludes that the aggression of the wolves towards the sheep, of the men towards the wolves, and of the men towards it was not a matter of specific hatred for each creature, but rather a struggle for extermination against what is different, against what does not behave according to expectations.

The difference is incomprehensible and threatening. The different is the stranger, or the foreigner, from whom I need to protect myself, or attack. The roots of xenophobia lie in the estrangement and rejection of the different other, whether it be a creature, a person with some deformity or scar, or someone who does not look like me in some way. [3]

Frankenstein, like Bella and Edward, are like the eguns, [4] or living dead, or zombies, or creatures that are in limbo, between life and death, a situation that leaves everyone, including themselves, unsure of exactly where they should go. The new and unknown always causes strangeness.

Edward Scissorhands, lacking the proper tools for social interaction, returns to isolation. Bella, supported by her father Godwin, who provided her with a sufficiently good surrogate mother (the governess), achieves her freedom and independence, becoming a doctor and scientist herself. The Creature, with the help of Captain Anderson, is able to confront Victor, his selfish creator/father, and reclaim his place as a subject, not an object. Captain Anderson's acceptance was transformative for everyone, including himself. By empathizing with the story of these two men, witnessing their pain and conflicts, he becomes more compassionate towards the needs of his crew, who longed to return home after the ship became trapped and isolated by the ice, deciding to take the ship and crew back home.

Despite all the abuse suffered by the ship's crew, the Creature uses its immense strength to push the ship and break through the ice barrier that isolated them.

If we think of ice as frozen water, water being one of the symbols of emotions, including sadness, loneliness, and isolation, the ship and its crew, made up entirely of men, would symbolize the rescue of the creative masculine archetype, which cares for, welcomes, comforts, and protects the weakest. This masculine can now get in touch with its emotions, with its fragilities; that is, the archetype of the masculine hero who must move forward, even without the physical and emotional conditions to do so, can accept his limits and retreat, because retreat is often necessary for us to regain our strength.

The Creature performs the heroic act of freeing the ship and its men, but continues alone, walking through the glaciers that represent its emotional isolation, yet aware of who it is.

He, who was assembled like a rag doll from the remains of soldiers killed in combat, left in the snow, gained life through the force of nature, through the force of lightning, then was expelled by his creator through fire, but saved himself, dying once more and being reborn from the waters, died once more from the shots of the old blind man's family, and was reborn again on the ice. He died yet again after being struck by gunfire, by fire, descending to the depths of the icy waters, and was reborn yet again, scorched by the flames and frozen by the waters. His poor body of human scraps returned from death so many times, just as the various corpses that made up his whole returned to life through him.

Both the dead soldiers in the snow, and the ship and its crew isolated in the snow, represent male loneliness and emotional isolation. The Creature is formed from remains found in the snow and finds the opportunity to confront its pain in the snow.

As the Creature developed and followed its individuation process, its existence was recognized through the feminine gaze of Elizabeth, a blend of the Great Mother archetype and the loving gaze of the anima. It also learned how a loving family welcomes its creations, as evidenced by the care and attention given to Anna-Maria. Its negative patriarchal complex was confronted by its encounter with its blind grandfather, who fulfilled the role of both the wise old man archetype and the positive aspect of the Father archetype. The role of grandparents, when properly exercised, also serves to redeem aspects of deficient or unresolved parental complexes.

First, he needs the affection of his blind grandfather to strengthen himself and develop a more structured ego. Then, he needs attentive listening of Captain Anderson, who plays a transcendent, or therapeutic, role, listening to both Victor and the Creature. Although his listening is silent, the emotions he experiences are transformative. Victor has been welcomed by a man who finally accepts him, listens to him, and welcomes him, offering the same right to the Creature, treating them as equals. Victor, now weakened, confronts his own selfishness and recognizes the Creature as a being, a subject, no longer as the thing he created without knowing or clearly thinking about the consequences or the next steps.

The Creature demands from him the responsibility for its creation, just as a son demands from his father the affection, care, and protection to which he is entitled. Victor, experiencing his own father's rigidity towards him, and the affection and attention his father devoted to his brother, developed envy, a resentment, characteristic of the excluded and humiliated. The same harshness we find in the first scenes with Captain Anderson, where fulfilling the mission was more important than preserving the physical and mental health of his crew.

The Creature asks Victor for companionship, just as Adam received Eve from God, because human beings should not be alone, but Victor considers the request an abomination, condemning his creature to eternal solitude.

The Captain's empathy towards the conflict between creator and creature made him reconsider his own role as the symbolic father of his crew. Honor and duty gave way to compassion, reclaiming humanitarian values generally attributed to women and the feminine, but which are part of all human nature and need to be reclaimed by all of us.

Victor achieves his redemption by asking the Creature for forgiveness, but the Creature only achieves partial redemption, as it is condemned to loneliness and emotional isolation symbolized by ice.

The Creature completes his heroic journey of redemption from an insensitive and emotionally isolated male but fails to achieve what he most desires: an affectionate connection with someone like himself, someone who can accompany him for eternity.

Would a man be able to fulfill this need for emotional isolation from another man, or would this be a mission to be rescued by the archetypal feminine, the anima constellated through a female figure, as Elizabeth and Victor's mother might have been for some of these men? While Elizabeth, Victor's mother, and so many other women who do not feel they have a place in the patriarchal world, the redemption of the masculine will not be possible, because the redemption of the feminine and the masculine are dependent on each other.

Bibliographic References

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SCHNEIDER, Solange B. The Feminine and the Masculine - through culture, religion, mythology and fairy tales . Curitiba, PR: Appris, 2021.

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[1] The analysis of the Medusa Myth is in my book The Feminine and the Masculine, chapter .

[2] The archetype of the wise old man, so necessary to the individuation process, in this case, provides the experience of the patriarchal archetype in its positive aspect.

[3] The subject of xenophobia and the difficulties in establishing a relationship of otherness are addressed in depth in my book Individual and Cultural Complex: Between Fascination and Danger, the Search for Otherness in Intercultural Relations , Appris, 2023

[4] I discuss this issue in my book The Feminine and the Masculine – through culture, religion, mythology and fairy tales, in the chapter Iansã. Appris, 2021.