I found it interesting that Frankenstein’s creature, while observing a family, obtained such a thorough education. He learned the native language, as well as history, government, religion, geography, and the list goes on. I understand that this was necessary for the sake of the story, but I started wondering about the content of the texts that he read. He acquired a copy of Paradise Lost, a volume of Plutarch’s LIves, and the Sorrows of Werther. He read all these books as if they were true history, and when considering the affect they had on him, one must take that fact into consideration.
I randomly picked one of these titles to get a better understanding of what these books were about. Paradise Lost was the winner of my inquiry. It’s basically a narrative of Adam and Eve’s creation, and of how they were exiled from the Garden of Eden. It includes the story of Lucifer, or Satan, who declared war on god and was sent to hell.
Friday, March 4, 2011
Frankenstein
In all honesty, procrastination has found me a little too willing to employ it in the last few weeks. I have now snapped out of that cycle, but only after I realized that I hadn’t the foggiest clue as to what theme I would choose to write about, and my topic proposal was due the next day. I made up my mind on three different themes, and then changed it again before finally coming to a decision to write about the “Nature vs. Nurture” theme. Finding something that I could write about wasn’t the problem. I could talk all day about obsession, guilt, isolation, loneliness etc. The hard part is actually finding sources that I could use to draw information from for these same themes.
I did find a couple of good sources for my selected theme. One that most closely and plainly reflects my views on the subject is an article by Percy Bysshe Shelly titled, “On Frankenstein”. He begins the article inviting the reader to ponder what might have been the thoughts of the author, to produce such a work of peculiar nature. He then goes on to describe what I would call the tempo of the book. “We are led breathless with suspense and sympathy, and the heaping up of incident on incident, and the working of passion out of passion. We cry “hold, hold! Enough!”- but there is yet something to come; and, like the victim whose history it relates we think we can bear no more, and yet more is to be born.”(Shelley)
Percy Shelly explains that the direct moral of the book is “Treat a person ill, and he will become wicked.”(Shelly) I’m tempted to finish this posting with quotes from this section of the article because they so blatantly reiterate the theme of Nature vs. Nurture as it applies to the Monster. He wasn’t a wicked creature from the day of his creation, but he did not experience a single interaction with a human that didn’t have a negative result.
I did find a couple of good sources for my selected theme. One that most closely and plainly reflects my views on the subject is an article by Percy Bysshe Shelly titled, “On Frankenstein”. He begins the article inviting the reader to ponder what might have been the thoughts of the author, to produce such a work of peculiar nature. He then goes on to describe what I would call the tempo of the book. “We are led breathless with suspense and sympathy, and the heaping up of incident on incident, and the working of passion out of passion. We cry “hold, hold! Enough!”- but there is yet something to come; and, like the victim whose history it relates we think we can bear no more, and yet more is to be born.”(Shelley)
Percy Shelly explains that the direct moral of the book is “Treat a person ill, and he will become wicked.”(Shelly) I’m tempted to finish this posting with quotes from this section of the article because they so blatantly reiterate the theme of Nature vs. Nurture as it applies to the Monster. He wasn’t a wicked creature from the day of his creation, but he did not experience a single interaction with a human that didn’t have a negative result.
Frankenstein
Something caught my attention that I hadn't really thought about until we got our assignment sheet for our annotated bibliography and paper proposal. As I was reading through the list of topics we were provided with, I saw that one of them was about passion versus reason. I hadn't thought about it at all before I read it, but that is exactly what Frankenstein did when he created this monster, put passion before reason. He was very passionate about science after reading the works of Cornelius Agrippa, and even after his father told him he shouldn't be reading it, he continued to be consumed by it. His father said, "Ah! Cornelius Agrippa! My dear Victor, do not waste your time upon this; it is sad trash" (Shelley 21). This seemed to have made it really strike home for Frankenstein and he continued to read other works, including those of Paracelsus and Albertus Magnus. He learned all he could and then used this passion to use science to create his monster. He created this monster without even thinking about what the possible outcomes could be and he ended up hurting those he was closest to.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Frankenstein
The beginning of the book Frankenstein was kind of confusing and hard to follow. The letters Robert was writing to his sister Margaret had me thinking is was going to be this gay sailor writing his siter throughout the whole book. Robert was sad one moment and happy the next, I wasn't really sure if he wanted to be on the voyage or not. He saved a mans life and that man ended becoming something Robert loned for, a friend. Victor wanted to create something like himself. "I should attempt the creation of a human being like mysellf or one more simplier organization.(Shelley 31) So he created the monster, but he didn't know that the monster would act as he did. "How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I endeavored to form?(Shelley 34) The monster haunted Victor and his family. Victor thought he would fight the monster but he didn't, the monster killed his wife Elizabeth on their wedding day. By the end of the story everyone ended up dieing. I think the creation of that monster was very crazy, it took a intelligent man to create it though. The story was interesting after i got past the letters Robert was writing his sister Margaret.
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