The Doppelganger motif of Victor Frankenstein and the Monster in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

Abstract or Introduction

Walking through the streets of nowadays’ Prague, I became acquainted with an example of the very vivid traditions and legends of the Jewish population during the medieval times. My tourist guide took me to see the Jewish cemetery and the Jewish alley, which back then was a part of the Ghetto in Prague. “You know, the Jews in Prague suffered from a lot of accusations which had to do with their way of living, and which had their roots in the traditional behavior of the Christian central European society,” my guide told me. “That’s why, one day, a rabbi created a creature to help the Jews against those incriminations, the Golem.” According to my guide, the rabbi – much like God – formed the Golem out of clay; a creature that looked like a human but was not able to speak, only to take orders and fulfilled them. When the Golem was not needed anymore – and because it caused some troubles that seemed to scare people – the rabbi took away life from his creation and the Golem returned to be the clay he had been before. My guide showed me the little lot of clay in the synagogue that is believed to be the rests of the Golem. Later I became aware of the many adaptations this story had in literature and film. Often the image of the Golem was rendered into a vicious creature that cannot be controlled by his inventor anymore, causing death and illnesses where ever he appears. In this sense the story of the Golem has many parallels with Frankenstein’s creation: the Monster1.