It was a dark and stormy season for Don Draper. And then he lived happily ever after.
The season finale of 'Mad Men' this year just so happened to coincide with my AP classes reading Frankenstein. All that discussion about the moral implications of the human decision to create another being got me thinking about my favorite hard-working ad-man and pieced-together ticking time bomb Don Draper. Seems Don could learn a lesson from good old Vic Frankenstein about what happens when one plays God.
Mary Shelley's 1818 novel was intended to be a science-fiction thrill ride about a mad scientist who creates a super-human from a conglomeration of dead body parts. Read now, in an age of scientific record breaking, the discussion centers more around the consequences of the act as opposed to the probability of the action. This being said, most would agree that Victor was wrong to think he could mess with humanity and not suffer because of it. We might say the same for Don.
Don is, in his own way, a combination of both creature and creator. As the creator he is able to reinvent himself time and again, trouble-shooting possible blemishes of his previous doppelganger. But when Anna died we saw the creature come out--lonely and isolated without a soul in the world who really, truly knows him. She was his anchor--just knowing she was in the world, embracing Dick Whitman and all his mortality, was enough to keep him perpetually treading water, head bobbing at the surface. But then she dies and he starts to sink. Or maybe swim. Self reliant for possibly the first time, Don begins to reinvent himself again. Cutting out the alcohol and loose women, he crawls toward redemption in the eyes of the viewer. Is Faye the new Anna!?
*
Alas, no. The creator rises again. A fresh start with a new young thing is all this creature needs to get it right this time.
*
Somehow I think Don's conscience will eventually wear out and we will be forced watch him chase his mangled and vengeful self across the Arctic tundra.
