His Dark Materials: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in RDR2

The classic novel Frankenstein, like RDR2, draws inspiration from Milton’s Paradise Lost.

All articles on this site feature detailed discussion of literary allusions in Red Dead Redemption 2, and as such contain unmarked major and minor spoilers for the game, and occasionally the eventual fates of some characters in Red Dead Redemption. Read at your own risk.

Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, is the first science fiction novel. Famously, it was conceived as part of a contest between Shelley, her husband Percy, and their friends Lord Byron and John William Polidori. The group was staying in Geneva, where Byron rented a house called Villa Diodati. They were “delighted to learn that Milton had once stayed there, an astonishingly good omen for this group who by now saw themselves as fallen angels, like Milton’s Satan: rebellious and misunderstood” (Gordon 168). Milton’s presence haunted Shelley’s mind, scaffolding her story: as Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar say, Frankenstein is “at least in part a despairingly acquiescent ‘misreading’ of Paradise Lost, with Eve-Sin apparently exorcised from the story but really translated into the monster that Milton hints she is” (189).

In the novel, Victor Frankenstein is a scientist who builds a man out of corpse parts and brings him to life. Unlike the dumb monster in the early film, this creature is an intelligent and sensitive man. He’s deeply scarred, first by his creator abandoning him, and then by everyone he meets being cruel to him because of his horrifying appearance. Eventually, unable to make a life for himself, the creature exacts his revenge on the creator who cruelly brought him into existence and then immediately left him entirely alone.

The novel inspired several small aspects of Red Dead Redemption 2. The most obvious is in the mission “A Bright, Bouncing Boy II” and its aftermath. Although some of the themes that Frankenstein shares with RDR2 and Paradise Lost show up here — hubris, the seeking of knowledge — the scene is mostly played for laughs, with a sudden secret turn to tragedy in the end, when Marko Dragic talks about how lucky he is to have a son and Arthur Morgan, quietly overcome, walks out. Returning later, the player will find Dragic dead, killed by his robot “son.” The robot can be found sitting in the snow above Colter. The entire novel actually takes place in the Arctic: Victor has chased the creature there, where he meets an explorer — our narrator, Walton. Walton is eventually convinced by Victor’s story to give up his hubristic efforts of exploration.

Although Frankenstein’s creature doesn’t literally kill his creator — Victor gets sick and dies — he does ruin his life. For one, he murders Frankenstein’s much younger brother, a child named William. At first, it’s believed that the murder was committed in order to steal a piece of jewelry. Elizabeth, whom Victor’s family took in after the deaths of her parents, blames herself to excess because she let the boy borrow it: “I have murdered my darling infant!” (I.VI), she cries before falling into a deep faint. This episode influenced Isaac and Eliza’s deaths. In both cases, a relatively small amount of money was stolen, and Elizabeth, like Arthur, claims an inordinate amount of the blame for the incident. Elizabeth herself, whom Eliza is likely in part named for, is eventually murdered, too.

As with Wuthering Heights — the only other literary work by a woman the game references in any significant way — RDR2‘s writers could have made much from the themes of Frankenstein, and indeed Shelley’s life, that they left on the table. Shelley’s children died young, like Isaac, and her relationship with her radical father was strained. The novel is a trenchant examination of what parents owe their children, but while the game focuses a great deal on Dutch and Arthur’s relationship, it uses the novel as mere comic relief. “A Bright, Bouncing Boy” is just a goofy side-quest. While there’s nothing wrong with some levity amidst the game’s tragedies, one can’t help but sigh seeing pearls cast before swine.

More Allusions to Frankenstein in RDR2

Themes

Loneliness. The giant, who lives in a cave in northern Ambarino, is based on Frankenstein’s creature. He asks the player character to be his friend. Frankenstein’s creature desperately wants a companion. Both the giant and Frankenstein’s creature frighten people because of their size (the creature is 8 feet tall). The creature begs Victor to make him a wife so he won’t be all alone in the world. The giant also talks about wanting a wife.

Revenge. Revenge is a theme that runs through RDR2, Frankenstein, and Paradise Lost. The plots of the latter two texts are driven by someone’s desire for revenge on a creator who they feel has (or who actually has) wronged them.

Points of Interest

Man-Made Mutant. The Man-Made Mutant Point of Interest is an allusion to the novel. This chimerical creature is made of the body parts of dead animals. Happily, the scientist who made it seems to have abandoned it, perhaps having failed to bring it to life. In the game files, the creature is called “frankenstein.” The sketch and notes that can be picked up in the room are dated August 13. In the novel — which is epistolatory, i.e. made up of letters from one character to another — Walton writes to his sister on that date about his attempts to befriend Victor. This relates to the theme of loneliness (see above).

New essays are published Wednesdays at 1 p.m. E.T./10 a.m. P.T. Follow me on Bluesky, Twitter, or Tumblr for updates.

New here? Visit the Table of Contents to read the essays in order.

Sharing the site is deeply appreciated!

Bibliography