Gris Grimly's Frankenstein

The scene in which the monster emerges is the story’s most famous scene, and Grimly’s illustrations underscore the moral of Shelley’s novel: Man has no business creating life. The monster is described as having “yellow skin [that] scarcely covered the works of muscles and arteries beneath” (41), and Grimly’s illustrations take this to an extreme, depicting a figure with exposed ribs, a skull-like face, and limbs barely attached to the torso. The monster’s appearance has symbolic significance; he is sewn together awkwardly by someone who cared more about completing a project than about how that being might respond.

The story’s overarching irony thus becomes the fact that Frankenstein cannot bear the very being that he created. Frankenstein recoils at the monster: “Breathless horror and disgust filled my heart” (42). He does not see the monster’s humanity, nor does he stop to consider what may result from rejecting him. Frankenstein fails in Taking Responsibility for One’s Choices, instead attempting to outrun his own mistake. What follows is a period of darkness, anxiety, and despair as Frankenstein starts to realize what he has done.

This realization is not instantaneous. Frankenstein tries to enjoy time away with Henry and even starts to believe that his life might turn around. It is only when his brother is murdered and Justine accused of the crime that Frankenstein starts to understand the full gravity of his choices and becomes overwhelmed by grief and guilt. He knows, with little doubt, that the monster is the one who killed his loved ones, which means that Frankenstein himself is ultimately responsible. It is at this point that recognition of The Cost of Unthinking Ambition begins to outweigh any need for success or recognition. Frankenstein turns away from the world and retreats into himself on a level he never has before.

Grimly’s detailed artwork underscores the gravity of Justine’s arrest and execution. The courtroom scene is notable for its use of solid black backgrounds to symbolize despair and a mixture of paneling and free-frame that carries the reader’s eye on a visual journey. The scenes themselves suggest implicit connections between Shelley’s story and more recent historical events, including the atrocities of Hitler’s Germany; the color scheme of the banners hanging in the courtroom—a black-and-white symbol on a red background—evokes Nazi regalia, and in her prison cell, Justine appears with a shaved head and striped clothes, evoking images of concentration camp prisoners. The method of execution, electrocution, is also notably anachronistic. These details serve Grimly’s goal of bringing Frankenstein to a modern audience, suggesting a throughline between Frankenstein’s experimentation and more recent, real-world corruptions of science.

Grimly’s broader style also bears commentary. Characters are drawn using ink, while backgrounds are created primarily with watercolor. The characters’ more defined appearances emphasize their importance, and the use of watercolor backgrounds creates a surreal, dreamlike quality to the images, suggesting that these scenes now exist only as distant and painful memories.