I was really fascinated by both these short stories, more specifically “Who Goes There?” Both John Carpenter’s novella and Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstien” are really ahead of their time. I know that phrase is often tossed around, and I think we may have touched on this in the first or second class with “Frankenstien”, but I feel as if both of these stories shaped the modern monster/alien genre in both literature and cinema. I assumed Carpenter’s story was predated by Stephen King and Don Siegel, but was sort of shocked at the date of publication: 1931.
Two groundbreaking stories for their time, with their own similarities. The Antarctic setting, as I’m sure everyone noticed, as well as the descriptions of the respective “monsters.” On page four of “Who Goes There,” the thing is described as follows “the evil, unspeakable face of that monster leering up as he’d first seen it through clear, blue ice, with a bronze ice-ax buried in its skull.” This brought up some striking imagery of the Frankenstien creature’s awakening, and I found some obvious parallels between the two monsters and the way they’re written. Both monsters are “awakened,” but in distinctly different ways. These two stories, and how old they both are, sort of make me wonder if there is some sort of template for successful science fiction stories.
p.s. “The Thing from Another World” is totally worth a watch if you guys haven’t seen it before. If you aren’t too busy playing portal.
