The Frankenquilt

Yesterday’s Wayno / Piraro Bizarro has Frankenman Victorsson — a man-monster created by cobbling together an ragbag of human bodyparts — somehow fulfilling his destiny by stitching pieces of fabric together to make bed covers:


(If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 5 in this strip — see this Page)

There’s some variety of imitative fallacy here, as if the fact that I was conceived in Niagara Falls should mean I was fated to become a plumber. Or perhaps a garden fountain. Oh wait! I have become the Whizzman of Ramona St.; maybe there’s something to this idea.

The name of Frankenstein’s monster / creature. He has no name in the novel; I prefer to give him many names. Above: Frankenman and Victorsson (Victorov would be an alternative). Theodore ‘gift from God’ would be a complexly poetical name. The novel provides some basis for calling him Adam, or Prometheus. And from Shakespeare, Caliban — the half human, half monster of The Tempest.

From L. Frank Baum, an epithet based on The Patchwork Girl of Oz: The Patchwork Boy of Bavaria (the University of Ingolstadt, where Victor Frankenstein set up his laboratory, is in Bavaria). If we’re getting into epithets, the obvious A Man of Parts — Frankenman being a composite of bodyparts and also a compound of the human and the monstrous.

From Wikipedia:

Frankenstein’s monster or Frankenstein’s creature, often erroneously referred to as simply “Frankenstein”, is a fictional character who first appeared in Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus as the main antagonist.

… Mary Shelley’s original novel never gives the monster a name, although when speaking to his creator, Victor Frankenstein, the monster does say “I ought to be thy Adam” (in reference to the first man created in the Bible). Frankenstein refers to his creation as “creature”, “fiend”, “spectre”, “the dæmon”, “wretch”, “devil”, “thing”, “being”, and “ogre”. Frankenstein’s creation referred to himself as a “monster” at least once, as did the residents of a hamlet who saw the creature towards the end of the novel.

You’ll note that I prefer to see the character — call him Stitchboy — as primarily human, and secondarily monstrous (while recognizing both sides of his nature); while Mary Shelley was inclined to see the character — call it Piecework — as primarily monstrous, while possessing human qualities.

 

 

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