...Feminism within the Novel and the Creation of Frankenstein In “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley, one can undoubtedly see how the female characters have less importance than the male characters. The reason these sex differences in status occurred because of the period that she wrote the novel. Shelley, during the first half of the nineteenth century, was writing in a time in which a woman “was conditioned to think she needed a man’s help” (Smith 275). In “Frankenstein”, Mary Shelley devotes three male characters to narrate the story, Victor Frankenstein, Robert Walton, and Frankenstein’s creation. No woman throughout the entire novel speaks directly as the three narrators do. Mary Shelley also constructs the story to follow the main character,...
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...Alicia Bozzuto Period 6 Frankenstein Textpert Project: In Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, has captured the attention of millions of readers over the centuries. There are many questions one must ask in order understand the full purpose and intention of Frankenstein; can someone devaluate life so easily? What is the meaning of life? Can science really go too far? The outcomes of technology and science, even God for that matter, both positive and negative, can drastically affect the outcome of a creation. In Frankenstein, Victor realizes that triumphing science, the forces of nature and the mocking of God can, just as quickly, back fire. Victor Frankenstein, even as a young boy, was fascinated with the way things work and why they happened. In order to fulfill his quest social standings, he becomes obsessed with an idea that no one had ever thought or attempted before; creating a “perfect being”. With this idea, possibly mad idea, he did construct a being but certainly not “perfect” in his eyes. Victor shows as the devaluation of life and the society that demands for perfection by the creation of the monster. “Victor’s characteristics of selfishness, pride, dishonesty, and lack of value for life are presented.” (Lundsford) In his creation of life, something so incredible, once thought impossible, had finally come to a reality, but it was still not perfect enough for him. Frankenstein was unable to cope with his status as a creator; the thought of his creation haunted him...
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...In this novel, Victor Frankenstein is the main character. The book starts out with Victor having a great childhood, his mother and father adopts a little girl named Elizabeth and raises her up with Victor. His mother plans for them to get married when they grow older. Victors mother gets very ill from nursing Elizabeth. Catching scarlet fever and dyeing later on. Victor becomes very interested in the human body. How life works, how the body decays, everything about the human body he wanted to know about. When he graduated from college he decided he was going to make his own species. When his creation was finished and at first it didn’t come alive, he was upset that it didn’t work so he went to lay down and when he woke up the monster was hovering...
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...Victor Frankenstein and his “Monster;” an inspiration to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde When reading Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, if one pays attention to the gaps and inconsistencies of Victor Frankenstein’s narration of the events, one may begin to question the existence of Frankenstein’s monster, and come to realize Victor Frankenstein is really the monster. This isn’t how most would interpret the events that transpired in the book, but the possibility of Victor Frankenstein being the monster he fears, is entirely plausible. This Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde comparison is not as farfetched as one would initially think; there is enough evidence, contradiction of events, gaps, and inconsistencies in Victor Frankenstein’s narrative for an astute reader to connect the dots to reach such a conclusion. Victor Frankenstein, who is relating his tale to Captain Walton after being rescued in the Arctic, is sure that the creature he created actually existed. However, it is plausible to conclude that Victor never actually brought life to his creature, but had gone mad whilst attempting it. How did Victor become the monster he feared? Perhaps the exposure to hallucinatory chemicals he used while attempting to bring life to his creation, or because of overbearing stress, or his failure to succeed in his experiments. These elements, likely combined with Victor’s own awkward social failings, led Victor to experience a mental breakdown, go mad, or develop a split personality. In this scenario...
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...Sympathy in Relation to Frankenstein In Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, the monster becomes easy to sympathize with, as he becomes a symbol of abandonment and has a lack of knowledge of the world. Although Frankenstein was born a “monster”, he was still new to the world just like any other newborn baby. He had a lack of understanding of what it meant to speak, how to use his legs, what body language was, and how to understand people. Most babies are taught from the very beginning how to learn all of those concepts, although it may take some time, they are still supported and encouraged every day. Frankenstein never received this love and attention. He was neglected from the start, which led him to a life of anger, criminality, and loneliness. “The list of problems that stem from neglect reads like the index of the DSM: poor impulse control, social withdrawal, problems with coping and regulating emotions, low self-esteem, pathological behaviors such as tics, tantrums, stealing and self-punishment, poor intellectual functioning and low academic achievement.” (APA, Kirsten Weir) Neglect at birth leads to copious amounts of problems as stated above. Frankenstein was taught time after time that he was repulsive and unlovable, teaching him the feeling anger. The article written by Kirsten Weir proceeds to explain the damaging effects of being left alone at birth. In the article a few doctors are quoted. The doctor’s had first hand experience and visited children in an orphanage...
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...Brett Jacobs March 24, 2014 Mrs. Zink English III Loving Frankenstein When reading most books today people are likely to compare what happens in the book to their real life experiences. Readers do this frequently in many different kinds of books from horror novels to love stories. While reading the novel Frankenstein, though it may not be the first thing on a readers mind, after being done with the novel people cant resist the urge to go back and understand the relationships between many of the main characters and why some of the characters did what they did. Mary Shelley the author of Frankenstein is known for creating relationships in novels and either leaving them unexplained or making the reader question what she was trying to reveal about society and its shortcoming though a specific characters relationship. While reading Frankenstein this happened many times with multiple relationships such as the one between Elizabeth and Victor, Victor and the monseter or the monster and society. Almost every character revealed speaks to the most inner thoughts people have. Throughout the novel Frankenstein, the reader comes to understand the human condition in many ways. In this particular novel, many times loneliness comes into effect and changes how the character acts and reacts to each other and their surroundings. When Elizabeth is first introduced into the book she is portrayed as a lonely character. She is an orphan and seems to have a assortment of problems and never to...
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...Mary Shelley: Submissive Women in Writing In the writing of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein or, The Modern Prometheus, she creates four submissive female characters all of who are negatively affected by the hands of Victor Frankenstein. These four submissive female characters are Agatha, Safie, Elizabeth, and Justine. Each of these women is proposed as passive and nonessential. The women, Agatha, Safie, Elizabeth, and Justine, make a pathway for the creation of action for male characters. The actions that happen with/to these women negatively affect them for the purpose of teaching one of the male characters a lesson or inflicting deep emotions to the male characters. Agatha’s purpose to man in this book was teaching the monster. “The girl [Agatha] was young, and of gentle demeanour…she looked patient, yet sad.” (Shelley 75, 76). Agatha teaches the monster many things mostly by him observing her interactions with her blind father and studying her actions and mannerisms. “Agatha listened with respect, her eyes sometimes filled with tears, which she endeavored to wipe away unperceived”(Shelley 80). Agatha teaches the monster about respect, sensitivity, and human relationships. Safie, a close friend of the De Lacey’s, comes on horseback to the cottage. Safie is Arabian and doesn’t know or understand english, so the De Lacey’s give her lessons. Safie’s lessons in language and culture become the monster’s lessons as well. “My days were spent in close attention… I improved more rapidly...
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...In Chapter 24 of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Victor Frankenstein decides to leave Geneva and its painful memories after his entire family is destroyed. After searching for the monster for months, Victor eventually runs into Robert Walton and tells him his story. At this point of the novel, Walton regains control of the narrative and continues to send letters to his sister, Margaret. He begins to tell his sister that he asked Frankenstein how to create a monster and bring it to life. To that, Victor replied “are you mad, my friend . . . or whither does your senseless curiosity lead you? Would you also create for yourself and the world a demoniacal enemy? Peace, peace! Learn my miseries, and do not seek to increase your own.” Victor’s outburst raises the question of whether or not knowledge is dangerous. Knowledge is in fact dangerous when it is either broad, or far beyond our need in life. “Such words, you may imagine, strongly excited my curiosity; but...
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...Introduction Many literary critics consider Mary Shelley's Frankenstein as one of the most impressive and imaginative Gothic horror novels of all times. In the novel, Shelley managed to create one of the most phenomenal creatures in literary history: Frankenstein monster. The epistolary style that the author employs allows the reader to view the circumstances from varied viewpoints and draw conclusions from the plot and the characters. The book The plot has a variety of story-lines rolled into one. The main however is about a Doctor Victor Frankenstein who though born to a well-to-do and loving family, is over- ambitious and thirsts to prove himself. After achieving excelling academically, he designs a technique of creating life from a fusion of inanimate objects, dead bodies an animal parts. The doctor is not satisfied with achieving conventional feats but is determined to create a living being. It is this ambition that leads to the creation after years of painstaking work. It is this creation that leads to Victor's downfall. The creation is 8 feat tall and due to the use of human parts that do not march his massive size, is hideous. He is described as having watery yellow eyes, a withered, yellowish, translucent skin which barely conceals his muscular system and blood vessels. The only good aspects of his appearance are his perfect, white teeth, long black hair and his black lips. The doctor, who had hoped to create a beautiful being is shocked by his creation...
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...The Cost of Playing God in Frankenstein In today’s age, advances of in the fields of science, technology, and medicine are being made every day. From the invention of the computer to stem cell research, the human race is becoming more and more aware of ways in which it can improve its way of life and make living easier. As a species, the goal is to move forward, to keep making discoveries. However, this is the same drive that prompted a young Victor Frankenstein to attempt to create life in Mary Shelley’s novel with disastrous results. Shelley’s novel was more than likely not meant as encouragement to any would be scientists of her time. Rather, Shelley’s novel explores the dangers that come with extreme ambition and the act playing God while...
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...Victor’s creation in the book ‘Frankenstein’ by Mary Shelley is labeled as a monster by his creator and the people. The creature was born pure, making him humane. “I was benevolent; my soul glowed with love and humanity“(Shelley 105). He had good intentions with a good heart. Throughout the story the creature is both humane and inhumane but eventually his humanity disappears. The creature faced many misfortunes which started to cause him to become the ‘monster’ everyone already saw him as. He developed new traits like aggression and became less compassionate for others. The creature like most people craved affection and family or a friend. When he was repeatedly looked down at and shunned away from humans including his creator, he started to become the monster they expected him to be. Abandonment, rejection, and betrayal play a big part in the creature’s actions which lead him to becoming less humane....
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...While watching the James Whale's Frankenstein movie, I was scribbling down reactions, hoping that I could translate my thoughts into something coherent. This isn't everything, but here I go.... I liked how the film starts with a warning about how the movie “will thrill you. It may shock you. It might even horrify you!” This makes me chuckle since it was made in 1931, so of course a movie like this would be considered gruesome and chilling. As for the opening of the actual movie, I found it interesting how it opened with Henry (*angry face at his name*) and Fitz (why does he have a henchman??) stealing the body. So the viewers get no information about who these characters are, other than how they epitomize the “mad scientist” cliché. Later Henry invites Dr. Waldman, Elizabeth, and Victor to see the creature come to life. This is something Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein would never do. It felt like a talent show, where *announcer voice* in the next act, Henry will show you...
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...the antagonists in our books, movies, histories, and cultural imaginations in more general terms what truly defines a monster? Is it the abhorrent appearance or the inhumane characteristics that has caused them to be the object of nightmares and interest? If so, are they truly what should be feared? One of the most iconic monster novels of the early modern period, published at a time when technological innovation was becoming immensely prominent is Frankenstein. Contrary to popular belief, the titular character, Frankenstein, is the name of Victor Frankenstein, the doctor who...
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...When Mary Shelley’s mother dies of “puerperal fever on September 10, 1797, she left her newborn daughter with a double burden: a powerful and ever-to-be-frustrated need to be mothered, together with a name, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, that proclaimed this small child as the fruit of the most famous literary marriage of eighteenth-century England” (Mellor 1). Mary‘s childhood is filled with a desperate need for love and affection as her father, William Godwin “found it easy to express his obvious affection when his daughters were small, but as they grew older together he became remote and awkward, more dutiful than sensitive, unable to show what he really felt for them. They, too, had to fitted into the methodical timetable, with periods allotted when they might interrupt his writing or listen to his latest story” (Locke 217). Although Godwin admires Mary, he does not seem to feel any special affection for her and finds it difficult to express his fatherly love for her. Anne K. Mellor adds, as Mary Shelley grows into the author of one of the most famous novels ever written, Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus, “we can never forget how much her desperate desire for a loving and supportive parent defined her character, shaped her fantasies, and produced her fictional idealizations of the bourgeois family-idealizations whose very fictiveness, as we shall see, is transparent” (1). Just as Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley’s childhood is filled with solitude and a desperate...
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...damages and puts fear inside certain individuals. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is a good example of how appearance does not show weather or not a creature is a monster or not. In the story, Victor Frankenstein tries to change nature by creating a powerful human being. The being seems, by all accounts, to be a monster. Victor gets to be so obsessed on working on his creation suddenly rejects it after being terrified at the monsters appearance. Victor is the real monster because of his desire for power, lack of respect for nature, and his stubbornness towards the monster in which he created. Due to Victor's requirement...
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