'Children Should Play with Dead Things': Transforming Frankenstein in Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie

In this paper, I explore the possibility of retelling Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein in a children’s media text. Like most material within the horror genre, Frankenstein is not immediately accessible to children and its key themes and tropes have traditionally been read as articulations of “adult” concerns. Yet Frankenstein is also a tale with surprisingly child-centric themes. With this in mind, I consider how the Frankenstein tale has been transformed within the constructed space of a child’s worldview in Tim Burton’s 2012 animated film Frankenweenie. I argue that the film neither simplifies nor expresses great fidelity to Shelley’s novel, but instead cultivates a sense of curiosity and cultural literacy regarding the Frankenstein tale and the horror genre itself