frankenstein class notes
captain Robert Walton:
letters 1-4 = epistolary form (literary work in the form of letters) [dracula]
frame narration: story within a story (Walton -> Frankenstein)
allusion (short reference to other work) - "ancient mariner" letter 2, - coleridge and William wordsworth)
character:
soft at heart, avoids confrontation: “my best years spent under your gentle and feminine fosterage, has so refined the groundwork of my character that I cannot overcome an intense distaste to the brutality excerised on board the ship”
adventurous and eager to explore the unknown: “I shall satiate my ardent curiosity with the sight of a part of the world never before visited..”,
determined and dedicated: “I feel my heart glow with an enthusiasm which elevates me to heaven, for nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind asww a steady purpose - a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.” “
poetic and imaginative: "These visions faded when I perused, for the first time, those poets whose effusions entranced my soul and lifted it into heaven."
lonely at sea: "I have no friend, Margaret: when I am glowing with the enthusiasm of success, there will be none to participate my joy..."
hopes/dreams/ambitions:
young age: to go to sea: "...increased that regret which I had felt, as a child, on learning that my father's dying injunction had forbidden my uncle to allow me to embark in a seafaring life."
greater purpose: "do I not deserve to accomplush some great purpose?" "I preferred glory to every enticement that wealth placed in my path."
expedition to find a mainland from the pole: "This expedition has been the gavourite dream of my early years."
ch@lch!tr@538
how does he feel at the beginning of the novel?
he feels fearful, but excited to embark on this trip: "It is impossible to communicate to you a conception of the trembling sensation, half pleasurable and half fearful."
lonely, since he wants a friend to share his joys and sorrows with
initial feelings: 6.7/10 Victor Frankenstein is so emo but its unexplained and its kind of droning on about how emo Victor is
Margaret Saville:
passive, cares and is worried about her brother, cautious, doesn't have a voice, tegenovergestelde of her brother
Chapter 1:
Victor's "present": Elizabeth Lavenza, the child that VIctor's parents took in, Victor saw her as literally being his present and being protective of her.
Chapter 2:
Elizabeth: poetry and nature→“
Victor: natural philosophy/science→”d
Clerval: morality and heroes
Foreshadowing: “Destiny was too potent…”
Chapter 3:
foreshadowing: “… and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation.”
Chapter 4:
4) Victor obtains bones and parts of bodies from graves and charnel-houses (building in which dead bodies and and worked in a chamber at the top of one.
5) Victor describes himself as being disgusted by his own experiments, disregarding simple pleasures and the passing of time, forgetting his loved ones in maddening pursuit, having a creeping fever that slowed him down. being contemptious of others, and having an incipent disease. This is bad cause he’s sick… :((( poor viccy
image 1: ugly, pisses me off, superman
identity: looks egoistical, looks like a knowitall and teachers pet, looks like a bully
image 2: ugly as fuck, what the hell is that moustache, he looks like a child kidnapper
looks eccentric, artsy, also kind of a know it all
image 3: ugly, doesn’t piss me off that much
looks artsy and musicianlike
Product: Gilette razor
Context: USA, 1939 (old fashioned advertisement)
Audience: Men (usually in late 20s, men who shave their beards regularly)
Visuals: Yellow paper to draw attention, big picture of the explanation of the experiment, some graphs of the blood pressure and picture showing that gilette is easier on the face, promotional pictures of the shaving cream and blades, dr marston (maker of the lie detector test then)
Text: The text implores the reader to choose Gilette blades over other brands because it has statistics from people that Gilette feels better and is superiior to other brands through the use of a lie detector test and word from an expert on it
Emotion: Innermost feelings, honesty
Values: Being informed with the better choice
Subtext: The text plants in the reader that they subconcsiously also think that Gilette is the better brand.
Chapter 5:
Correct: He has yellow eyes, black hair, muscular
Incorrect: flowing hair, yellow skin, black lips, arteries beneath skin
breathless horror and disgust, bitterness of dissapointment, my heart palpitated with the sickness of fear
Chapter 6: the passion of the literature he studied with Clerval and their soothing melacholy, (p. 54), Clerval amused him to distract Victor’s brooding thoughts.
Chapters 15-17:
1)The creation mentions Paradise Lost in chapter 15. What does he say aboutit? Write down in your own words.
Paradise Lost was one of the three books that he had been given to by the family. It roused a plethora of deep emotions within him, and he read it as if it were real history. It moved him that an omnipotent God could be in conflict with his subjects.
At first, the old man was amicable and welcomed him to his house, and offered him to absolve the creation of any wishes. They talked for a while, but when De Lacey asked the creature of his “friends”, Safie, Agatha, and Felix entered, the latter who struck the monster down.
The sunshine and pure air gave him some solace but it wasn’t enough to calm him completely. When the cottagers desert him, he destroys the nature around the cottage, and then used the help of the wind to burn the cottage down. When he became more and more heartless, the nature started to decay.→romanticism
No, because murdering a child is bad; and if he had a bone to pick with Victor, he should have talked to him, not taken revenge on an innocent child.
He is stinky and ugly and murderer so he deserves no right so no
It makes him more of a creation than a monster
epistolary novel, frame narrative
themes: isolation and soluitude
themes: isolation and solitutde
nature
responsibility and consequences
justice and revenge
humanity and monstrosity
1. Chapter 1 - how doesClerval act as a foil for Victor? Whichaspects are contrasted by the meeting of thetwo? How does Clerval quoting “Tintern Abbey” help tostrenghten this effect?
Clerval is different from Victor as he is not burdened by the promise of creating a female monster, hence he was joyful, and appreciative of nature. Clerval quotes Tintern Abbey, a romantic poem by William Wordsworth, which focuses on the beauty of nature and spontaneous overflow of feelings, which are positive, and it contrasts against Victor’s bleak outlook.
2. Victor characterises the female monster at the opening of chapter three. What does he say about her? Towhatextent is is justified for him to speak about her in this way?
Victor worries if the female monster will be even more savage than the male,
Chapters 21-23
1) How do ideas of justice and revenge play out through the Creature’s actions and Victor’s reactions? Provide examples.
The creature kills Clerval, which results to him being captured and put in prison on suspicion of murder as soon as he reaches an island of Ireland. The creature wants Victor to be in torment, because he wants justice for himself and revenge on Victor since his creator did not fulfill the promise he had made to him. The creature achieves this as Victor is terribly sick and has a fever due to all the pain that he has caused him. Moreover, Victor describes a darkness that shrouds him that prevents him from experiencing any joy, for in a fit of guilt he ponders if he himself was the murderer of Ernest, Justine, and Clerval. Victor would rather die than be alive under constant attacks of his hallucinations.
2) What is the significance of Elizabeth’s letter to Victor? How does it affect his decisions or emotions? What do you think of his resolve to tell Elizabeth his “dreadful secret”?
Upon reading the letter, VIctor tries to convince himself that he should move forward with his life and agree to the marriage to make his remaining loved ones happy despite the threat from the monster. He pretends to have a cheerful disposition
1)To what extent is Victor responsible for the actions of his creature and what point does the creature become solely responsible for his own actions?
Victor abandoned the creature that he had made, causing the creature to experience values himself based on how the external world viewed him. This initial abortion of the creature that was dependent on Victor for learning how the world and morals worked, and to be loved, was Victor’s fault as to what happened next. The creature had seen for himself what love could be like through the family of Safie, Felix, and the old man.
According to the creature himself, his heart is good, but how people have acted towards him despite his innocent intentions has hardened it and corrupted his demeanor. When the family rejected him even though he had helped the family before, it was the final straw for the creature. He began to ponder on the meaning of existence and wonder why he was even born if he had no one to sympathize his feelings of worthlessness with.
When the creature pleaded to Victor about his wish to have a companion to share in joy and sorrow with, Victor refused based on stereotypes and assumptions of how she might act. Victor did not fulfill his promise to the creature, who regarded it as more of an obligation. The creature spiraled further and continued exacting revenge on his creator for letting him in this world which despised him so much.
When Walton spoke to the creature when the latter had murdered Victor, the creature said that no one could ever despise him more than he did to himself, and he did not find it enjoyable to wreack all this sadness on his creator and his kin. The creator was responsible himself, even though Victor channeled his anger.