It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Because this is the Halloween season. I thought I would post my opinion on the question. Is Frankenstein's Monster a Zombie?
Frankenstein’s Monster is not a Zombie. The Monster learns to speak and read. It expresses a want for a mate and happiness. The Monster is aware of its differences from ordinary humans. It seeks isolation for the safety of itself, as well as others.
The Monster ate nuts and berries, this implies it has a metabolism. It wanted a mate, and sought happiness. Victor feared it would reproduce. All these things imply that the Monster was alive on a cellular level. It required food and water, air to breath. It was alive. Zombies are not alive, they are dead and continue to decompose. I speculate that the monster had Stopped decomposing, and had begun to heal.
Zombies are dead. Their hearts don’t pump blood, their lungs don’t breath air. Their minds don’t think, their bodies don’t heal. They are the animated dead, not the revived living as was the Monster.
Why did I post this here? Because the people who care about such things are here.
Comments
Maybe because of the confusing "Zombie Monster" or "Monster Zombie"...more or less the term "monster" is generally used to describe something that's beyond comprehension.
I use the term "zombie" for anything I see as something lifeless and still exisitng.
I use the term "monster" for anything I see that's quite unbelievable to see.
That would depend on what definition of zombie you are speaking of.
Frankenstein's creation does not fall under the definition of zombie as we normally use it today, for the reasons you mention.
However, the original zombies were for all practical purposes alive. Just the recently deceased whose spirit was called back. Most of these were magically enslaved by the one who brought them back, but had they not been, they would have their own will. Pretty much an exact match for Frankenstein's monster (I really wish Mary Shelley had just given the blasted thing a name)
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Hemingway
It doesn't surprise me that people draw a connection between the two.
Both cover themes of alienation.
When you think about it Frankenstein's monster is today the sympathetic hero of our modern zombie movies. We watch the movies from the monster's perspective.
On topic the Op is right: Zombies are the animated dead and the monster is reanimated from the dead.