Summary Of Making Frankenstein By Wyatt Prunty

The poem “Making Frankenstein” by Wyatt Prunty dramatizes the two internal forces of fearing the unknown (i.e. curiosity) and the need for high self esteem. The speaker's curiosity induced him to lack self esteem because he conjectures that he is not taken seriously. The poem starts out with the speaker, an older man, reflecting back on his childhood to the time he importuned his parents to go see The Curse Of Frankenstein. They insisted that he didn't go to the movie but “his uncle called and offered and they caved” (line 5). That night he had trouble sleeping; he “woke up screaming” (line 10) from a nightmare. The next morning, the father said something in regards to the plate of dinner he had up in his room from the night before. As he was cleaning off the plate he said “‘That's that’...’too anatomical’” (line 12), meaning gross or carnal.

Oozing with curiosity, he continued to ask what the word “anatomical” meant. His father responds by going into the attic and getting a book on the anatomy of the human body. His father shows him a diagram of the inside of a human in which he “felt certain were the pictures of mixed meats” (line 29). He continued to loom at the book and came across diseases that came from intimate contact. When he asked his father what “intimate” means, his father answered “That's how you made your way into this world” (line 37). Here is where the forces of self esteem is applied. The speaker is already unpleased with the structure of the human body and then he discovers he is the product of intimacy, which he can only relate to disease. This makes him feel as if he's just some animal. He then goes on to talk about how his father isn't a serious man and relates him in this way to Frankenstein. He reflects on another memory he has of his parents sitting on the porch laughing, drinking,