The Mad Scientist and Their Monster: Parasite as Mira Grant's Take on Victor

Frankenstein and his Creation

"All scientists are mad scientists. It's just a question of how long you can keep
yourself from starting to look thoughtfully at the nearest thunderstorm." Dr. Shanti
Cale, Parasite pg. 274
There are many incarnations of the mad scientist tale, from Island of Dr.
Moreau to Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, we see characters who must go
beyond the known boundaries of science, knowledge and technology to seek
something more exotic. Author Mira Grant throws her hat in with H.G. Wells, Robert
Louis Stevenson and the most relevant to Grant's chosen tale Mary
Wollstonecraft Shelley. Grant tells us the tale of a group of scientists who have
decided to breach the normal boundaries of science and create a parasite, built out
of a tapeworm, that will live in the intestine and protect the host from illness, boost
the immune system and secrete designer drugs. We are told this tale through the
eyes of the girl who was brought back to life by her parasite. Sal Mitchell was in a
debilitating accident and she now must succumb to the tests at the hands of
SymboGen. These scientists took action to reach for immunity from the illnesses
and death causes of most humans. But, like Dr. Frankenstein, they reach too far and
the consequences of their actions are just as monstrous as Victor's.
There is always risk with new technology and knowledge, but at SymboGen
the fictional company in charge of the Intestinal Bodyguard that keeps everyone
safe from disease they believe that these risks save lives. In the words of their cofounder Steven Banks, " the presence of her implant made it possible for her body
to survive the amount of trauma she experienced. [] SymboGen saves lives. Don't
let anyone try to convince you differently" (27). Banks is portrayed as the character
that believes that this parasite is the savior of humanity. His work toward this
breakthrough is one of the greatest revelations of human technology. Grant writes a
substantial part of the public's interpretation of the parasite, and the work that
Symbogen does, through excerpts of science journals, personal journals and a
Rolling Stone interview with Dr. Banks. This is a clever way to integrate the
obviously heavily researched aspect of her writing. She doesn't shy away from
explaining the intricacies of how the technology would work, but she then has Sal or

Sal's doctor boyfriend, Nathan, flesh it out in layman speak. Contrastingly, in

Shelley's iconic work, Frankenstein, the science behind the reanimation and life
giving lightning is still a mystery. This was the shiny new unknown the power of
lightning at the time that the book was written. The unknown element of it, and
Shelley's intentional omission of the details, help enhance the ambiguity of the
creation. Dr. Frankenstein told Watson about how his fascination all started, "I
entered with the greatest diligence into the search for the philosopher's stone and
the elixir of life; but the later sooner obtained my undivided attention" (15). This is
the extent of what he explains about his studies and "[w]hen we witnessed a most
violent and terrible thunderstorm" (15), is the only indicator of where the power for
the life comes from. It is part of Grant's opposite approach that makes Parasite just
as terrifying in its prophetic nature. The relevance of the new technologies and
knowledge unearthed by each author find their own ways to hit home with the
audience, the delusion that these things could not happen in real life is crushed with
the particular way the information is presented. That also leads us to expect only
the worst to come.
Adam and Tansy are two of Dr. Shanti Cales's cherished children. Dr. Cale is
the woman who worked the closest with Dr. Banks, until she disappeared. We
discover, through Grant's use of a fictional story Don't Go Out Alone by Simone
Kimberley, that Dr. Cale is still running a fully functioning lab and testing her own
version of the tapeworm. She explains the difference between her choices and Dr.
Bank's when Sal and Nathan are finally led to her lab, "I was able to keep very little
of their research once I came on board, because they'd been using an inherently
dangerous parasite. Not that any parasites are completely safe the one we
eventually went with had its dangers before we even started tinkering with the
building blocks of its DNA" (256). There was danger involved in this testing and she
wanted to share this with Sal and Nathan, her biological son. During the initial visit
that Sal and Nathan make to Dr. Cale's lab, there is much information divulged
about how all of them are involved in what is happening at SymboGen, as well as
the detailed science behind why their choices, versus hers, are more perilous. With
her science, she successfully creates two of her own children, Adam and Tansy. They
are parasites who have taken over the brains of their host bodies. It is described in
a video account of Dr. Cale's tests the moment that Tansy awakes in her human

body, "The woman on the bed opens her eyes and groans. There is a sudden
shakiness to the scene, as if whoever was holding the camera put it abruptly down"
(403). This body comes to life with only a parasite living in the brain to keep it
animate, and in the case of Dr. Cale's creations, entertainingly eccentric. Nathan
speaks up as his mother goes through the specifics of the way the parasite is
supposed to be kept in the balance between this unstable organism and host:
Science always starts out looking like insanity darling; that's why the phrase
'mad science' gets bandied about so much. But what seems like madness at its
inception will become the way

things have always been if you give it enough time.

Look at SymboGen. In a sane world, they

would never have been able to get

approved for human testing, much less brought their product

to the market.

(273)
This talk of mad scientists and how society adapts to their creations is frighteningly
realistic and resonating with the fast advances of medical science. Here the
acceptance of the science, but not necessarily the creature that it manifests, can be
related to the widely known cinematic portrayal of Frankenstein's monster, also
named Adam in the original text, as the lifeless body, after being electrified by
Victor's long-awaited lightning, suddenly animated and groaning. Shelly's version is
undoubtedly an inspiration for Tansy's own 'birth', "I saw the dull yellow eye of the
creature half open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs"
(26). Dr. Frankenstien then goes on to describe how he flees the creature, which
influences Adam's monstrous behavior later on in the tale. These creatures of Dr.
Cale and Dr. Frankenstein's conception are analogous in how their metaphorical
birth's are described. They also share that their creation stems from scientific
advancements that predate what the world knows, but what happens when these
creations are forced to learn how to adapt in their new bodies and the world that is
not as familiar as it once was?
The best way to describe the creatures becoming animate in these novels is
of a brain waking up in an unfamiliar body. Whether it is the parasite having invaded
the brain of its host, or a brain being transplanted into a body that is piecemealed
together from salvaged dead, these are not the original consciences of these hosts.
Sal understands this even before she realizes that she too is one of the parasites in

a human host, "From the way Dr. Banks described me, I was a brain-dead husk
preserved only by the Intestinal Bodyguard, a perfect proof of concept for their
miracle medical implant. Without the worm, I would have died" (114). A brain-dead
husk. This is a shock to Sal, as she had believed that she was just a girl who was in
an accident and suffered from severe memory loss. This is not an unforeseen twist,
but it is an interesting moral dilemma, something familiar to readers of Shelly's
classic. But, even before Sal must face her brain-dead cousins as one of their own,
she must face the horrors of what they are to the humans still lucky to inhabit their
own bodies. As the parasites in Grant's novel start to take over their own, slightly
less brain-dead husk behaviors, they are referred to having a sleepwalking sickness,
which results in spine tingling zombie like behavior:
Three of my neighbors were standing in the side yard, their hands down at
their sides, staring at

the fence. I recognized them all, even if I only knew one

Mr. Carson from next door by name. [] Then Mr. Carson turned and looked at
me. I let out a little scream and stumbled backward,

falling over the couch in

my retreat. His eyes were [] totally empty of anything resembling

humanity or

life. Dead eyes. He looked at me like a man who had crawled out of his own grave.
(222)
These are bodies that are animated without and conscious thought or brain control
to monitor behavior. They are the living dead. Prior to their minds being inhabited
by the parasites, they go brain dead and are controlled only by their desire to feed.
There is a remarkable trait that Sal had to speak to them, but this does not come up
as a primary plot point until the second book in the series, Symbiont. Grant crafts a
monster that roams the land as not much more than an animate corpse.
Frankenstein's monster, Adam, must also face the reality of being inhuman. He
describes to Victor how he had to learn to make his brain both remember what it
meant to be human, but also how to make it communicate with the husk it
inhabited, "'I discovered the names that were given to some of the most familiar
objects of discourse; I learned and applied the words, 'fire,' 'milk,' 'bread,' and
'wood.' I leaned also the manes of the cottagers themselves'" (60). He discovered a
family in the woods. He stayed in the shadows and observed them. He listened to
the words they used to describe everyday items and tasks, as well as the stories
that they told of the grandiose nature of man. These observations only solidified

how he was different and would probably never fit in to the human landscape. Both
protagonists face their own realities with different lenses and the terror to come is
shaped by these perspectives.
So now the world is being invaded by creatures of scientific design. This is
where Grant's work takes on an epic proportion compared to Shelley's. The
scientists create these monsters and, in Frankenstein, the monster, Adam can face
the reality of his creation and what he became, "'I, the miserable and the
abandoned, am an abortion, to be spurned at, and kicked, and trampled on. Even
now my blood boils at the recollection of this injustice'" (125). He speaks to Watson
approaching the end of the tale, once he has boarded the ship and learned of
Victor's death. He knew that what Victor did was beyond the sane boundaries of
science. Adam , as he was learning to behave around humans, he could not expose
himself to them and soon learned that he was not welcome. Unlike the involuntary
turn of the monsters in Parasite, Adam becomes a monster as a hurtful act to Victor.
He doesn't start rampaging until he doesn't get what he wants. Sal, does not turn
into the monster that some may perceive her to be. Instead, she takes on the role of
activist and heroine. In spite of being treated like a science experiment her whole
existence, after the accident, she uses the realization that she is only an advanced
version of the monsters roaming the streets to help Dr. Cale and her scientists solve
this problem and find a balance between the parasites and their hosts.
Both Sal and Adam, as the monsters that they do not wish to be, are faced
with whether they are human or foe. The science behind their creation and the
feasibility of it in reality, with the advances in medical science that are made every
day, are the truly frightening part of both of these tales. The monsters are made by
the hand of man. Man will forever be the creator of all comprehensible and realistic
evil. Shelly was a critical player in the mad scientist canon and I believe that Mira
Grant will also soon take her place among the ranks as an impactful horror writer.
Little boy with faith so thin,
Little girls so strong within,
I said I'd never leave you, and I'm sorry, but I lied.
If you're set to pay the price,
Learn the ways of sacrifice,
Leave this world to grieve you, take a breath and step outside.
The broken doors are waiting, down the path you've always known.

My darling ones be careful now, and don't go out alone.

Pg.44 Don't Go Out Alone Simone Kimberley
Grant, Mira. Parasite. New York: Hachette Book Group, 2013. Print.
Shelly, Mary Wollstonecraft. Frankenstein. Amazon Digital Services, Inc., 2012.
Kindle file.