To get started on synthesizing your own thoughts on Frankenstein, and to prepare for discussion at our next two sessions, please select ONE of the questions below and in a paragraph, suggest how you would develop your response.
This does NOT require providing an answer to the question. Instead, consider what you find in the text that could indicate a direction, and what KIND of answer you find satisfying. Considering the questions within parentheses should help. For example, an answer that addresses what you know about Frankenstein's psychological character would be very different from one that sees the book as a philosophical statement. You might try free writing -- write about the question without pausing to remove pen from paper (or fingers from keys); don't allow yourself to stop, but transcribe what's going through your head until you feel you've run out of steam.
This exercise is intended to prompt thinking about what you see as the ground of interpretation--what kind of response to a critical question seems to you like a relevant and satisfactory response?
You do NOT need to select the question you'll write on for February 23 now.
1) Why does Victor Frankenstein create his
creature? (What do we learn from
his own account—including things he does as well as says? What can we infer
from what Walton, his teachers, his family and others say of him, and from what
he reveals about himself? Do you understand his ambition more as a desire to
extend knowledge, or as an unfulfilled personal need?)
2) Is the
creature Frankenstein creates a human
being? (What view do you think the
author takes? Are there any
characteristics or qualities definitive of humanity—according to the book’s
view or your own? Is it important to consider how he differs from human beings? What does the Creature himself seem to
think?)
3) Why
does Frankenstein’s creature want a mate?
Why does Frankenstein decide not to provide one? (What is the role of sex and reproduction in the
story? Are Frankenstein’s motivations
clear and reasonable or obscure and suspect? What would happen if Frankenstein
followed through? What wouldn’t happen?)
4) What
is the source of the enmity between Frankenstein and his creation? (Why does Frankenstein abandon the creature? How
does the creature respond? What lesson or principle does each of them infer
from this? Is the book offering an allegory or lesson in this central
conflict?)
9 comments:
Victor Frankenstein, like the pursuit of most artists, take notice of life’s voids and fixates on the conquest of creating. I believe Frankenstein’s pursuit to create the extraordinary is out of an unfulfilled personal need to feel extraordinary. With his options seemingly endless through the acquisition of knowledge and his actions justified by the delusion of idealism, Frankenstein sets forth to control life by willing the power to invent it. Those that are bitten by ambition stop at nothing to see to their success - the ends justifying the means. But it is the pursuit that Frankenstein is most infatuated with, for when he does meet success, he is tormented by the notion of no longer possessing such desire. It is the very question, why does Victor Frankenstein create his creature?, that most find when in the position of creating.
At first obsessed with the idea of creating life, it seems odd that Frankenstein so vehemently despises the result of his passions. Though his creation was a murderous being, it only came to be so because of Frankenstein’s neglect. That initial moment of disgust, and the lasting hatred towards the creation, from Frankenstein, can explain the creation’s anger, but the source of Frankenstein’s negativity is less definable. Perhaps he is reacting in the classic way parents have, and will always react when first having a “child”.. Perhaps he got too scared of the commitment and the nearly unbearable task of creating a human (not just a living, breathing organism, but a well- rounded, compassionate soul) that he became terrified and reacted with abandoning responsibility. This hostility may be a reflection of Mary Shelley’s childhood, or some faction of her life, or simply human nature generally.
Our society faces manifold problems. This novel is an acute reflection of reality. The writer seems like living in the 21st century. This book describes the situation that men is ostracized from the society, because of these problems of society. The first problem of our society is lookism. Our society has become a beauty-oriented society where people are judged more for their appearance that their characteristics. All humans are fallible. people often judge someone based on their looks. However, judging by appearance can be misleading. In this novel, no one likes the monster because of his appearance. The monster presented the picture of sadness, anxiety and hopelessness. Also human desire is a problem. Human desires know no bounds. and many people go to the bowwows because of their extreme desire. As Victor Frankenstein delves deeper into his research he become consumed with the desire. The monster is a creation of desire of frankenstein, not a creation of need. Although Frankenstein created the monster, he had such a lack of responsibility and care. After all, He can not escape responsibility for his creation. People who victor loved was killed by the monster which he created. His life was destroyed by his desire. This novel is the common thread of the film ‘la jatee’. Both shows how the advancement of technology can easily hurt society.
Frankenstein and his creation have enmity each other. Frankenstein succeeds to find the cause of life and created a giant. But Frankenstein felt fear from his creation, and escape from the monster. The monster is hated and persecuted from people because of his appearance. From this reason, the monster decides to revenge against Frankenstein. The monster killed Frankenstein's brother and his wife. From these murders, Frankenstein got hatred and revenge to his creation. The monster hatred its creator of making itself in a heinous appearance, and the creator abhorred the monster because of its brutal revengefulness. This novel shows human greed from Frankenstein's desire to create new human.
To decide if the creature should be considered a human being or not we should compare him to Frankenstein. For example, how they both love to learn and how they both turn angry, violent, and quick in the desire for revenge. We should also consider how he compare to other humans, such as his desire to for companionship, approval from his creator who can be considered a sort of father, and how he looks terrifying and monstrous making him feel alienated. What exactly makes us human? Is it compassion such as the creature's feeling for the family he observed, or violence such as his actions? Does it matter how he came to life?
2)Asking if the creature that Frankenstein creates is human, to me is the same as asking the meaning of the story itself. I believe that the whole book revolves around the fact that the monster is so human in its characteristics and behavior, yet he also has supernatural abilities. The monster’s humanity is meant to be unsettling because he is the character that is supposed to be evil or bad. Mary Shelley wanted the audience to be frightened by humanity and its capabilities. To answer the question of whether the monster is human means you must define what humanity means and what is doesn’t. It would be easy to dismiss this without thought and say that a monster cannot be human but Shelley seems to disagree with this idea, or one could infer she would based on her radical views inherited from her father and also her increasingly negative outlook on people and the world as she grew older. I believe that there will always be different responses to this question based on the type of person who answers.
(Since this technically answers the question I didn’t know whether or not I should include it in my response: In my opinion the older Shelley would agree to the monster being human, or at least to a certain extent, while the younger writer might originally have been slightly more optimistic about humans considering her original idea being a ghost story.)
I'm enjoying your responses. What I'm seeing so far regarding:
1) An identification of Frankenstein as an artist, who takes up his project for the same reasons artists do: to fulfill a unique personal vision, to process the world as he experiences it in his own terms, to give meaning to his own life.
This is a very intriguing suggestion. To explore what it is that really drives artists to create, we might need to revise some ancient and modern ideas concerning creative activity.
2) A recognition that we may each have our own ideas about humanity and what it means to be human. Traditional philosophies defined humanity in terms of basic and unique endowments (particularly reasoning); moderns may be more likely to see humans as defined by their capacity for emotions, self-consciousness, or fellow feeling with other humans. (Certainly, when someone does not seem to feel empathy, we call them "devoid of humanity." It's legitimate also to ask whether a being can be felt (as much as thought) to be human if they don't come into being by the same means as the rest of us.
Increasingly, we hear that such questions will be posed in practical situations in our lifetimes.
3) The hostility of the Creature to Frankenstein is felt to be of a different order than that of Frankenstein toward the Creature. It makes sense to say that the Creature is reacting to how he has been treated--but there's at least the suggestion that he is "born bad." It makes sense that Frankenstein fears and hates the murderer of his family--but he has these feelings before the Creature starts on his killing spree.
Thanks for your responses so far.
Victor had many disappointments during his childhood through his growing ages by loosing the people he really liked. These feelings feed his future thoughts and his anxiety of being along. He became amazed about the power of the knowledge and chemistry. the feeling of loneliness became compassion that he tried to create an entity out of human parts, that or who would never leave him alone.Even though the book does not mentions, I think There is a possibility that he might have used the body parts of the people that he cared. However he get disappointed about the result that is not even close to the ones who are born naturally. I think in that sense Marry Shelly makes an attribution to the natural born babies and the talent of giving birth, that can never be accomplish by a man.
The daemon and Frankenstein, by the end of the Frankenstein novel, become the same character. If the daemon is or is not a human being then neither is Frankenstein. The Frankenstein novel involves the obtainment of knowledge, a very human characteristic. Frankenstein imparts on the listener that his fever to obtain knowledge and skill was more destructive than productive to mankind. For Frankenstein, knowledge involves both the aspects of nature and creation. The daemon states that the knowledge of mankind and his isolation from mankind were destructive to his emotions. For the daemon, knowledge involves not only nature but also self-awareness. Thus one could conclude that Frankenstein is a coming of age story of sorts, as both Frankenstein and the daemon move through the innocence of adolescence into the knowledge of the adult world. The character of Captain Walton demonstrates a key aspect to the question of whether the daemon, and likewise Frankenstein, is human. Captain Walton is supposed to be similar to Frankenstein in that he seeks knowledge in a destructive fever. However, unlike Frankenstein, Captain Walton ceases his exploration of North in order to appease his crew. Captain Walton displays another important human characteristic that of empathy. Through the stories of Frankenstein and the daemon, self-awareness is demonstrated. The self-awareness of both characters, however, is always focused on their emotions and their own ‘dire’ situations. Frankenstein and the daemon seem to both be trapped in the negative aspects of the self-awareness or the basic human condition. Frankenstein and the daemon can both be seen as lacking any true sympathy for their family or other living creatures around them. Therefore the Frankenstein novel can be seen more as statement about the loss of humanity, in both Frankenstein and ironically his daemon.
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