Monster Verses Monster
Today, people still recognize the ghastly, atrocious Frankenstein as a monster, but according to Deems Taylor’s Monster, Richard Wagner is the monstrous beast. Monsters are expected to be frightening like Frankenstein, but some monsters are real humans like Richard Wagner. Oddly, when comparing Frankenstein and Wagner–they certainly share some of the same grim features. Frankenstein and Wagners’ faces manifest a gloomy expression of black death. Their spirit for life lacks warmth in their eyes. Frankenstein’s eyes are hollow and dreary covered with drooping, eyelids, and underneath his eyes are massive sandbags.
Similarly, Wagner’s vengeful gaze leers inertly like a frozen statue. Taylor says, “[he has] a genius for making enemies” (695). The pasty bags (sagging above his cheekbones) are blown up like air pockets. Moreover, they share similar shriveled lips. Frankenstein’s colorless lips are dimly distorted like the mouth of a ruined, porcelain doll. While Wagner’s, sickly, pale lips evoke a spine-chilling eeriness causing most people to shutter; it’s the kind that makes the skin crawl with goose bumps. Undoubtedly, their cold expressions are lifeless, and wicked; however, the size and shape of their heads are equally dreadful.
Their large, peculiar, heads resemble a heavy mass wobbling like a bobble head. Their foreheads dominate their gigantic skulls. Frankenstein’s forehead is like a stretched-canvas awning for protection over his eyes. It protrudes along his brow like a piece of metal rod lodged underneath his skin. Likewise, Wagner’s receding hairline emphasizes the size of his enormous skull. According to Taylor, he states, “[his] head is too big for his body” (693). Furthermore, the structure of their chins is abnormally malformed. Frankenstein’s square chin bulks like a block of wood wedged into his bottom jaw.
Its size is the dimension of a small building. On the other hand, Wagner’s narrow, pointy chin extends like an arrow heading for its target. Indeed, the likeness of Frankenstein and Wagners’ massive skulls are laughably creepy. Nonetheless, the magnitude of resemblance is uncanny. All the same, the fearsome expressions on a face or the bizarre proportions of a body can depict a vision of a monster. Frankenstein is a character, created, monster, but Wagner is a real person; a monster in the eyes of Taylor. As attested by Taylor, “the name of [his] monster [is] Richard Wagner” (695).
