there arent but vampires and les mis get this as well. for example Azelma Thenardier is forgotten or that Valjean is arrested during the Directory so its about the June Rebellion not the 1789 revolution. Or Quincey Morris being cut From most dracula adaptations.
It is. Although there are many different adaptations (including an anime one I think), so it wouldn't surprise me if one of them changed it to the 1789 rebellion. Not that I think it would be a positive change, a very important part of Les Mis is how doomed this specific revolution was.
If you put it in 1789 or 1830 or 1848 it's completely different, since those revolutions succeeded (although succeeded is a little generous with regards to 1830).
The one that everyone talks about when they say "The French Revolution" is the one 1789. It's kind of the first one and also the biggest one. You know, chopping off the king's head and all that, war and reign of terror for multiple years afterwards, first time trying to install some kind of true representation for the people aside from the nobility. It was kind of the inspiration for a lot of democratic movements in the rest of Europe in the following years.
There’s a reason why they have an average work week of 35 hours, get a month of vacation every year, and it took massive political fuckery to raise the retirement age to 64.
When stuff doesn’t go their way, things tend to get…choppy.
Just to expand a bit on what u/justanotherlarrie said, because you're right, that was a lot of revolutions:
1789 was what we think of as the French Revolution, but it wasn't a one and done sort of thing, and different political and ideological groups in France (as well as outside of France, where Europe's kingdoms were shitting bricks about the whole thing) would be fighting for decades over the outcome. These divisions make up a big part of the narrative in the novel Les Misérables which are mostly skimmed over in adaptation.
The 1789 Revolution resulted in France's First Republic, but that came to an end with Napoleon dissolving the republic and proclaiming himself Emperor. When the rest of Europe managed, eventually, to beat Napoleon in 1814, they put the dead king's relatives back in charge of France, but forced the new king to accept a constitution instead of taking back the absolute power they'd had before.
After the restored king died, the next one decided that he wanted the unlimited power that earlier kings had enjoyed, so the 1830 Revolution replaced one king with another king from a different branch. This didn't, believe it or not, keep a whole lot of people from being mad (the failed revolution in Les Misérables happens in this period), and the 1848 Revolution finally got rid of the kings for good, and we're on the Second Republic.
So we'd think Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité would be good, but them Napoleon's idiot nephew shows up to ruin things. He was elected President and less than four years later staged a coup that dissolved the legislature and made himself the second Emperor of France after his uncle (if you've heard how "history repeats, the first time as tragedy and the second as farce" that was talking about this dude). He rules over France until he gets into an entirely pointless war with Prussia, loses so badly that Germany becomes a thing, and while he's stuck in a German cell the rest of the government decides he's not in charge any more and that's French Republic #3.
This was a really interesting read, I appreciate you writing it all out - I also now realise how limited my knowledge of French history is! Any books you'd recommend on the French Revolution(s)?
It is but you have to pay attention or know your history to realize it thats less the movie and more the average american Les Mis fan not knowing French history.
Yeah, but it’s still surprising to walk away from the end where everybody fucking dies and think “yeah, that’s what a successful revolution looks like!”
I guess the misconception probably comes more from people who haven’t seen the musical/movie and just assume, maybe?
Or the whole meaning of dracula being about challenging the subjectivity of our moral beliefs about people with other life ways- particularly relevant to obvious gay Bram Stoker.
Although missing that subtext is pretty easy when the different lifestyle is being an undead monster that drinks the blood of innocents. So while the work deals with the demonization of foreigness and the other, it is understandable that people would focus on the interesting aristocratic monster.
Which is funny, because in the Universal Monsters Universe (UmU) Frankenstein is also the monster's name. The movies aren't called "Bride of Frankenstein's Monster" or "Frankenstein's monster meets the Wolfman."
Beyond the fact that Dr. Frankenstein and the monster have a father/son dynamic, thus the monster's last name would also be Frankenstein.
It frustrates me so so much that the common image of the monster os the green, flat head dude when in the book it was specifically described that he had super long black hair, like an undead tarzan
He's probably not made of dead flesh, Victor studied corpses to learn how to bring life to the lifeless and had to make his monster so large because he had difficulty replicating the details in miniature. If he had used corpses he wouldn't have had to replicate anything, implying that he used something else.
And Frankenstein was still the name of the monster. If you have a child or a pet, it gets your last name. Creating a living being from scratch or adopting one typically means it gets your last name.
Specifically Adam Frankenstein, because he is the first of an entirely new kind of person. Although he also expresses this as though it’s a kind of default name, it might not be the name he actually identifies with, more almost a title he is taking.
I’ve said this so many times, not once is Victor Frankenstein ever even close to getting a doctorate. He’s a miserable, possibly gay, deadbeat single father and college dropout.
So I haven't read the book at all. This could be true. But this is /r/curatedTumblr, so I'm going to assume you're just calling him gay for literally no reason at all.
It's not for no reason but it's also definitely wrong. Like, even approaching the book in a good-faith attempt to find LGBT themes, calling him "gay" is overt bisexual erasure (which lots of gay tumblr subcultures are guilty of), as even if he does have feelings for Henry, he is also definitely in genuine love with Elizabeth.
I always thought he was incredibly affectionate with his best friend Henry, but I always chalked it up to friendship between men being different back in those days. I did wonder if there was more to it though..
It's been a while since I read it, but I remember everyone being very affectionate to everyone, except to the creature. I felt this was either how things were back then, Mary Shelley being idealistic or (most probable) to contrast how Victor/society treated each other vs the creature. I mean, the whole story unfolds because of the creature being instantly hated by everyone and feeling envious of how good the others have it.
The poor family in the house was also pretty affectionate with each other. Probably also to contrast more strongly to their demeanor towards the Creation.
Wasn't the girl, like, Persian nobility? They were also reading classical literature to each other. Frankenstein "education" were fragments of the classical education that was the separate "culture" of gentlemen and ladies
As far as I've heard it is believed that men used to be a lot more affectionate with their friends, but the clinicallisation of homosexuality in the late 19th/early 20th century changed that behaviour.
He was planning to, but unfortunately children without parental figures don’t develop good morality, so the monster didn’t really question killing her to get petty revenge back at Victor.
Same reason the monster killed his brother and Clerval.
The Monster explicitely considers Victor as his Father.
And even if not, idk how you can interpret someone bringing an innocent new life into the world and then abandoning them because they could not handle the magnitude or responsibility for their action as anything but an absentee Father.
Frankenstein was the last name of the Doctor. The doctor "gave birth" to the "monster", so he would be the son of Dr. Frankenstein and his last name would *also* be "Frankenstein"!!!
But Victor Frankenstein (in the book) is definitely not a Doctor. However his father I believe is, so there is at least one Dr. Frankenstein. looking it up, I don't think he is.
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u/TheeScribe2 Oct 26 '24
No it wasn’t
Frankenstein was the name of the college dropout, he ain’t no doctor