Happy Halloween, playas!
This week we gettin monstrous with "Frankenstein," by Mary Shelley.
When some playboy named Walton peeps some hood named Frankenstein in the North Pole,
they begin conversating, and Franky start spilling his life story.
As a youngin, Victor Frankenstein only got two things on his mind:
science, which he calls "natural philosophy,"
and his cousin Elizabeth's bangin booty. Mmh mmh mmh.
In college, Victor gets so pro at the science game that he gets drunk off da power
and decides it's time to try and create new life.
The result of Victor's experiment is a busted-up monster so damn fugly
that Victor wigs out and trucks it straight outta town.
Later, the monster rolls up on Victor while he's chillin and gives him the lowdown on what he's been up to.
See, after escaping from Victor's stuffy-ass crib,
the monster posts up in some village, where he starts secretly creepin on one of the families.
The monster learns all sorts of sh*t from these homies, like how to read and communicate,
but none of that fixes the fact he lonely as f**k. So he decide to go to try to chill with deez ballas.
But as soon as they catch a glance at his janky-ass mug, they all tweak out and get the hell outta dodge.
Then the monster say Victor gotta build him a nappy woman monster
that he gonna take to the wilds of South America where they won't bother nobody.
At first my boy Victor thinks it's a solid idea, but then he starts thinking,
"Hold up! What if they start gettin freaky and make little monster babies?"
Ah hell naw!
Since Victor went back on his word, da monster gets all torn up and straight chokes a bitch —
Victor's bride Elizabeth.
So Victor decide he gonna spend the rest of his days searchin the Earth to stomp that scrub.
But it's a search Victor don't get to finish, cuz he dies chasin his creation.
When da monster finds him layin in chalk, he realizes that he's lonelier than eva,
and all that's left for him is death.
Say dawg, listen up and let me school you on this book's subtitle — The Modern Prometheus —
which servin up some real talk on the similarities between Victor and the Titan Prometheus.
In Greek myth, my homie Promie straight molded human beings outta some clay.
And in certain stories, Prometheus was jonesin to give man a little taste of that heavenly fire.
When he boosted it from the Gods, Zeus started trippin hard core. Just like that G'd up Titan, Victor jacks fire
from the sky that not only bringin a plague down on himself, but errybody in da hood.
But why's everybody havin to ride this beef? Cuz Victor was chasin knowledge at the cost of errything else —
just like Adam when he claimin his five finger discount from the Tree of Knowledge.
And the biblical allusions don't stop there, son.
As the original gangsta of the human race, Adam wakes up in Eden, is given a bangin hunny by his creator,
and is ultimately kicked outta paradise.
But Frankenstein's monster, as the first of its kind, wakes up in some broke-ass crib with body parts slung around,
watches his woman get ripped apart by his creator, and ain't neva gonna find no paradise.
Sucks to be this fool.
And it's exactly all this bunk-ass jive that leads the monster to act like Milton's Satan from "Paradise Lost,"
one of the only books the monster's ever read. Check it:
I had cast off all feeling, subdued all anguish, to riot in the excess of my despair.
Evil henceforth became my good.
So farewell Hope, and with Hope farewell Fear, Farewell remorse: all Good to me is lost;
Evil be thou my Good.
But the monster ain't da only one slingin dem dark deeds. Nah, son. Victor sippin the same Koolaid.
Not only do they both waste each other's bitty, but they handin out the same street justice — Vengeance.
And when it's all said and done, Frankenstein and his monster ain't so different.
All them blurry ethical lines point to the main thematic question up in here:
Are we inherently good or evil?
Are people driven to murder cuz of society's sh*t?
Or is it written from day one that a playa gonna be a cold-hearted killer?
And if so, who's to blame — the monster or the creator?
Yo, thanks for keepin it OG wit yo boy Sparky Sweets. Subscribe and tune in next week.
Happy Halloween, b*tches.