Drunken Zombie

So after listening to Brother D talk about this on his show Mail Order Zombie and saying that he didn't have a message board to talk about it on I figured I would throw this out to everyone here so maybe we can get some discussion going about it.

Is Frankenstein considered a zombie?


What do you all think?

I would have to say no. For me at least, Frankenstein's monster misses one essential component that would make him a zombie, as opposed to just the undead. Simply put, he doesn't fit as a modern zombie because he doesn't seek to eat humans. Whether it's flesh or just brains, the consumption of the living is one of the defining characteristics of the modern cinematic zombie. He doesn't work as a pre-Romero voodoo zombie either because he's intelligent and independent, whereas voodoo zombies were mindless and controlled by their creators.

There's no way Frankenstein would be considered a zombie. I think, in his own way, he considers himself to be human. He wants to live. He wants a bride. He has a need to be accepted. Zombies, however, are simple creatures driven only by the desire to eat flesh and brains. So while Frankenstein may resemble a zombie in appearance (maybe...) his ability of self expression and self awareness are what sets him apart from the mindless undead masses.

No, I don't think Frankenstein's Monster is a zombie, a dead corpse brought back to life, because the monster is an assembled creature given life for the first time. It's a patch work quilt of bodies with a brain that can't comprehend what is happening to it, with out the drive to eat flesh, or the slavish obeying of a master, like earlier zombies.
Franknvox

I've got to throw my lot in with everyone else who's said that the creature is not a zombie. A closer match from folklore would be a golem.

The consensus from the listeners of my show is that the monster isn't a zombie. There were some fascinating arguments made, and I absolutely love the discussion the question generated . . .

I personally argue that the monster is just a collection of puzzle pieces with a battery shoved in somewhere. A zombie needs to start out whole . . .

My favorite argument was that once the creature gets up and starts walking around, he breathes, his heart beats, and his body has enough autonomic functions . . . um . . . functioning that Frankenstein's Monster doesn't even qualify as any sort of undead.

(Thanks, Bryan, for hosting this . . . !)

I'm going to have to agree that the monster is not a zombie, for reasons that have already been stated, however I don't think a zombie needs to start out whole...I'm going to say that as long as the brain is the driving force of the undead that it's all that's necessary to be a zombie. At least as far as the "Romero" zombies are concerned, kill the brain, kill the zombie, you put that brain in anything it's gonna try to eat ya.

I feel that everyone has missed the point here. In horror, it isn't what you're made of that defines you, it's what you stand for. More than any other genre, horror is the realm of metaphor.

A Zombie isn't just a reanimated corpse eating brains or a person under the control of an evil Bokor, it is a metaphor for a loss of humanity - a devolution of the soul. Zombies are what we fear we may become, a mindless soulless memeber of a herd, which is so poignantly captured in Romero's Dead mythos. The dead do not think or appreciate the food (brains) upon which they feast, they are simply physicality without meaning, body without mind - like and endless pantomime (and similar to a Golem in that respect.)

Frankenstein's Creature, however is a completely different animal. He is far from soulless, as a matter of fact he may be the single most sympathetic monster ever created. He is not undead, he is fully alive. He is a metaphor for the disaffected and the outcast, for the man searching for meaning and on a spiritual quest for his god. He is "born" knowing nothing and is immediately discarded, like a baby in a dumpster. He seeks shelter and food and soon finds himself hiding out in the woods near a farming family from whom - through simple observation of this surrogate family - he learns language, relationships and humanity. He learns to read and devours books. He comes to question who he is, why he is so different from the rest of the world and who could have made him. He remebers the one gift he was given (had stolen from) from his creator, Frankensteins journal which told indetail how he formed the creature - a Bible, if you will. His destructive nature only comes into play once he realizes he has been created out of arrogance and discarded without any concern for his well-being. His violent rage is a war against god.

Yes the Creature and the Zombie start off dead, but the Creature lives, grows and thrives while the Zombie simple destroys and decays.

um, that was me - I forgot to log in

I gotta agree. Frankenstein's Monster is NOT a Zombie, because, well...

It's Alive! ALIVE!