Two British newspapers are baffled – baffled – that today’s students see Frankenstein’s monster as a victim. So how should we interpret other classic works?

In a fit of thin-skinned, liberal foot-stomping, millennials are, say two UK newspapers, empathising with the monster in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. “The sympathies of today’s millennial students often lie with a mistreated creature whose ambiguous near-human status prefigures today’s interest in animal rights,” says the Times. The Sun, nuanced as ever, says: “Snowflake students claim Frankenstein’s monster was ‘misunderstood’ — and is in fact a VICTIM.” While the Sun is realising, in its own roundabout way, the point of Frankenstein, here’s a guide to the other books it must imagine that young, idealistic students have been getting wrong:

Animal Farm



As a thin-skinned millennial, I sometimes pretend George Orwell’s laugh-a minute romp is a nuanced critique of Stalinism and how the Russian revolution created a power vacuum that allowed the rise of a dictator. But, deep down, I know Orwell’s classic is a fun, farmyard fable. It has talking animals! A pig walks on its hind legs! I usually have to go on YouTube for that. Knocking off a horse to get some whisky – who hasn’t? Napoleon is just an incredibly entrepreneurial porker.

Wuthering Heights

Why should we care about some posh crumpet running off with a biracial farmhand? Some might claim Emily Brontë’s novel is a criticism of religious hypocrisy, classism and gender that asks us to empathise with people trapped by society’s unfair expectations. But Heathcliff and Cathy are typically impulsive young people and were forced to return to the bank of mum and dad, likely after splashing out on turmeric lattes and avocado toast. Only Joseph was sensible (and definitely would have voted for Brexit).

Lolita

We’ve all enjoyed the veritable feast of terrible excuses for male sexual behaviour recently, but Humbert Humbert has been given a real hard time by snowflake readers. Never mind that Nabokov himself called his paedophile protagonist “a hateful man”; that 12-year-old he rapes is the real villain. Like Humbert, millennials are just too touchy.

Lord of the Flies



As Enid Blyton taught all of us growing up, leaving a bunch of kids unsupervised on an island is a great lark. So what’s with the violent kids, William Golding? Namby pamby parenting is to blame. Future asbos for sure. BROKEN BRITAIN.

Just how monstrous is the Sun's 'Flakensteins' story? Read more

Crime and Punishment



University types have been known to present Dostoevsky’s philosophical novel about a man planning a murder as a critique of Russian nihilism, but the truth is that Raskolnikov just couldn’t hack it at uni. Also, those eight years in Siberia were probably really cushy – did he get a TV in his cell?

A Christmas Carol

Oooh, scary ghosts! #Triggered