Monsters are not born. They become one. Mary Shelley understood this with the clarity of someone who, at nineteen, already perceived the fracture of existence: the science that promises salvation and instead generates solitude, the knowledge that illuminates but at the same time burns. Frankenstein is the novel of a modern Prometheus , but also the secret diary of every man who finds himself torn between the desire to create and the fear of destroying. " I am not evil by nature. I was good: suffering made me what I am ." In this sentence, which encapsulates the moral essence of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein , the eternal dilemma is condensed: who is really the monster, the one who creates or the one who abandons? The story of the Creature is not only a Gothic tale, but a philosophical investigation of science, isolation, and the fragile boundary between human and inhuman . Guillermo del Toro , with his recent transposition , has returned the myth to its most authentic dimension : that of a mirror that reflects our imperfection , our thirst for knowledge and our need for love .

Nietzsche would have smiled bitterly: " He who fights with monsters must beware of becoming a monster himself ." Victor Frankenstein is nothing other than the embodiment of this tension: the creator who, in trying to overcome limits, mirrors himself in his creation and recognizes his own guilt.

The dialectic of the shadow

Shelley and del Toro's Creature is not a mutilated corpse, but a broken soul. Jacob Elordi interprets him as a mosaic of fragments and memories, a body bearing the wound of rejection. Dostoevsky would have seen him as " the man from underground ": someone who, excluded from the community, transforms his thirst for love into anger, his kindness into revenge.

Jung teaches , the shadow is not only what frightens us: it is the repressed part of our psyche, the one that completes us. The Creature then becomes the symbol of our denied half, the voice that demands recognition. It is not absolute evil, but the consequence of abandonment.

The broken heart that lives

" Thus the heart shall break, and yet broken it shall live ," wrote Byron . It is the romantic condemnation that vibrates in the Creature's chest : to live without belonging, to desire without fulfillment. Levinas reminds us that ethics is born from the face of the Other : to recognize the other as irreducible , as a calling . Victor was unable to answer this calling, and so he generated not a monster, but an absence of love .

Guillermo Del Toro , faithful and visionary , shows us that true horror is not deformity, but rejection. The Creature does not frighten: it moves. He is fragile and grandiose, like every man seeking his place in the world. The story of Frankenstein is a parable of human psychological duality:

• The Creator : reason, ambition, Promethean hybris *.

• The Creature : emotion, need for connection, wound of exclusion.

But this opposition is never definitive. It's a game of mirrors, where the monster and the man swap roles. Who is more monstrous: he who dares to create or he who refuses to love?

* hỳbris 〈ìbris〉 sf – Transliteration of the Greek ὕβρις, which generically means «insolence, arrogance», and in ancient Greek culture is also the personification of man's prevarication against divine will: it is the pride which, deriving from one's own power or fortune, manifests itself with an attitude of stubborn overestimation of one's own strength, and as such is punished by the gods directly or through the condemnation of earthly institutions (for example, the h. of Prometheus ).

A myth for the present

Shelley and Del Toro deliver a message that spans the centuries . Diversity is not evil, it is simply what society does not know how to welcome . Solitude is the true laboratory of evil. Knowledge without responsibility is sterile, because it generates abandonment rather than healing . The Creature is our mirror: it shows us that evil does not arise from nature, but from the lack of recognition. Between wound and hope, Frankenstein . It is not a Gothic tale, but a treatise on humanity. He is not a monster, but a face that demands to be seen. And then we understand that his condemnation is ours: living divided, oscillating between light and shadow, longing for a place in the world . The true monster is not he who is born different, but he who refuses to love .

IN OTHER WORDS

Manifesto of the Creature and the Creator

Monsters aren't born. They become monsters when love is absent, when loneliness consumes. Mary Shelley wrote it with the fury of an adolescent who had already seen the world betray her: Frankenstein is not a gothic novel, but an indictment of abandonment.

II. Hybris

Victor Frankenstein is both Prometheus and Faust. Nietzsche warns: "He who wrestles with monsters must beware of becoming a monster himself." The Creator, in an attempt to overcome death, generates mutilated life. His fault is not in creating, but in not loving what he has created.

III. Shadow

The Creature is Jung's shadow: what we repress, what completes us. It is not evil, but the reflection of our rejection. Dostoevsky would have recognized in him the "underground man": excluded, wounded, transformed by vengeance. Every monster is a child of isolation.

IV. Ethics

Levinas reminds us: ethics is born from the face of the Other. Victor failed to look at that face. He saw only the deformity, not the calling. Thus he created not a monster, but an absence of responsibility.

V. Romanticism

"So the heart will break, yet broken it will live." (Byron) The Creature is the true romantic hero: condemned to desire without fulfillment, to live without belonging. Pain becomes his language, loneliness his song.

VI. Duality

Every man is both Victor and Creature. Creator: reason, ambition, Promethean fever. Creature: emotion, need for connection, the wound of exclusion. Duality is not resolved: it is inhabited. Monster and man exchange roles, mirroring each other.

VII. Current Events

The myth of Shelley and Del Toro still speaks today:

• Diversity is what society fears.

• Loneliness is the laboratory of evil.

• Knowledge without love is sterile.

The Creature is our mirror: it shows us that evil comes from rejection, not from nature.

VIII. Epilogue

Between wound and hope, Frankenstein . It is not a corpse, but a face demanding to be seen. It is not a monster, but a soul demanding to belong.

The real monster is not he who is born different. The real monster is he who refuses to love.