The plot thickens…and everybody dies. Saturday, Feb 28 2009

I will be with thee on thy wedding night

The monster’s foreboding message^^

Ut oh.   Victor thinks the monster intends to kill him.  Victor is so involved in his own ego, he can’t see the fact that the monster is going to kill another loved one, and NOT Victor.  Victor can’t see that the monster wasn’t going to kill him in any of the various meetings they had.  WHY would the monster hold back from killing his creator?

The monster knows it is much more painful to watch the ones you love die than to die yourself

Or…Victor is his creature? As much as the monster tortures Victor and despises him, he still in a way looks up to him.  The monster is teaching Victor a lesson, from what the monster has learned through observation and reading.  He has a desire to make Victor change.  He also has attention from Victor, if he killed Victor there would be no chase, no passion, no revenge anymore.

What if there is no monster?  What if the monster and Victor are the same person?!?

Digital experiment question: Are Victor and the monster one in the same person?  If so, why does Victor want to kill his loved ones?

Evidence against:  Why would Victor want to kill his own family?   Waldon, at the end, sees the monster.

Page54:

alas, i had turned loose into the world a deprave wretch whose delight was in carnage and misery.

Is this just sheer self destruction?  Why is he taking his time marrying Elizabeth?  Is Victor killing them off so they can’t hurt him the way his mother hurts him?

The “wretch.”  Chapter search: who is this term applied to most often to?  When I searched, I mostly found instances where Frankenstein called the monster a wretch, and not himself.  I do think the point that the monster began calling Frankenstein a wretch just because Frankenstein called the monster that, similar to kids mimicking what they hear from their parents.

Think of the relationship between a master and a slave. The master needs the slave to reflect back to him who he is. The master needs the slave, becomes dependent, until the master becomes the slave of the slave.

Victor, in exploring is the monster is just him or not, could be mirroring his own powerfulness. A wretch looks in the mirror and sees a wretch.

This conflict poses the question:  Is wretchedness self inflicted?  Wretchedness is achieved Victor is supreme in wretchedness.  He quotes Paradise Lost in that he devil would rather rule in hell than serve in heaven.

How can we use technology to read better?  Highlighted words to catch repetition, tag clouds, kindle.

Do we want a program that can read for us, in order to help us read and understand better?  I think the consensus was a resounding “no.”

Usually we want to blame Victor for ignoring Elizabeth, being selfish and innocent. Isn’t his interpreting the monster as doing something to him, part of his attitude as wanting to be the one who achieves life, becomes and antidote to death, the one worshiped by a new species. Is his longevity of engagement to Elizabeth related to that idea? He is not shirking responsibility, it’s more philosophical than that; is it part of his belief that others will hurt him too much.

Interpretation meant for Paradise Lost: God is better. By the time of the romantic era: Heroising Satan, because he didn’t care, he stood up for himself, didn’t care how many rules he broke.

Steven Johnson says that the form of Paradise Lost was no longer able to contain the creative energies of the human race, and what wrong with the poem is that it wants to be a novel. If it WAS a novel, it would be Frankenstein.

The willingness to defy an authority figure who puts limits on you to the death.. Is this admirable? Is there an element of masochism in this? or is it heroic? Victor neglects his family to death. Is that okay? If so, is heroism somehow connected to the novel (as a form). 

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Association of Ideas, Transfered from Locke to Frankenstein Wednesday, Feb 25 2009

The 1831 Introduction

Remember: Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in 1816, published in 1818, and RE-published in 1831.

(Pg 186) How could a young girl write something so horrible?

And now, once again, I bid my hideous progeny go forth and prosper.

Mary Shelley perhaps equates her novel with the second monster?

The monster could represent art.  Lockes idea: If you were to say, get the flu.  And you ate a ton of honey that day, you equate the taste of honey with sickness.  Association of ideas.  SO culture associates ideas.  Think: if you are growing up, and every time you pass a poor person your mother mutters “lousy poor people”, kids associate poverty with lousy people.

Enlightenment: If you bring up children properly, we will have a better world.  Fundamental set of belief led to insanity: Thomas Day.  Decided that culture was so corrupt he wasn’t going to teach them anything.  So they wouldn’t have prejudice (prejudgments) .  Kids learn for themselves, have healthy associations.    Day adopted two young girls and told them nothing.  he let them stick their hands in fire.   The children turned out to be schizophrenic.   Is not telling them that fire burns stopping corruption??

…Dance Break…

Continuing the conversation.

Monster!  How does the monster represent the philosophy?   Does he have a sense of right and wrong?  On one hand he is so impressionable without an upbringing there is not moral compass for him to use.  On the other, there has to be some form or nature and innate morality in him.   This is a really complex issue….I do think this is a good representation about the power (and danger?!?) of knowledge.  As soon as the monster gains knowledge from the neighboring family he observes, he gains the ability and desire to manipulate Victor.  Before he learned language and was able to read, he was a seemingly harmless beast who was content to observe and discover.  The more and more he picked up about society and humans, the more dangerous and horrible he became.

Is there some evidence that he is trying to hurt Victor, his “parent?”  Adolescents act out, don’t do things, do other things, commit suicide, etc all in response to their parents.  Is the monster doing things to get attention from Victor, even if it is negative attention?  Is he trying to punish Victor for creating him by proving problems for him and killing the people he loves?

His initial idea is not to kill William, but to have a friend.  Does it make a difference if it is not premeditated?

At the end of chapter 9 in Vol 2:  “oh my creator, make me happy. “

^^ He basically says that he was good, and circumstances made him bad.  So he asks Victor to make a female monster.  Does his creator owe him another monster?  Does God owe us happiness?   Perhaps your parents should provide a framework for happiness, in order for you to achieve it.  Parents do owe their children the materials or the opportunity to achieve, if they have made the moral choice to have a child.  It is not forced upon them, just as Victor was not forced to create the monster.   It does take an effort to create a bond between parent and child.  Is there a correlation between the legalization of abortion and the dropping of crime rates?  The ratio of people having children to people wanting children is closer?  er…I don’t know what I think about this.

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The Monster’s Tale Wednesday, Feb 25 2009

How does the Monster’s tale make you feel about him?

I can’t help but feel sorry for the monster through the beginning of his journey.  His creation was very different from the rest of humanity.  Everyone else comes from a union of love, passion, etc.  The monster is a result of a selfish ambition and a single man who was dabbling in the boundaries of life which he didn’t know the capabilities of.  Since the monster was created fully grown and fully functional, he missed out on being “raised,” so he has no concept of language, how to cook food, and anything else that normal humans are able to pick up through years of living with a family.  He is physically at a disadvantage in every way.

I also admire his curiosity and patience.  His actions are very childlike, in observing and learning from the people he sees.

From his woeful cries about knowledge to his suffering as a society outcast, the monsters story standing alone from his sense makes me feel sympathy towards him.

As the story progresses, my view of the monster changes to seeing him as very manipulative.   As he gains knowledge and the ability to read and understand society, he transforms into a manipulate creature, using his loneliness and plight that previously made me feel sorry him to his benefit.  I also have a sense of fear of the monster, knowing how strong and fast he is, and being almost a clean slate, how susceptible he is to whatever thoughts are thrown at him. This is especially evident in his reading of Paradise Lost, which he takes as historical fact.  This part of the tale makes me feel very wary about his impressionable state and the lack of moral basis he has.

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Love in the time of…Frankenstein Monday, Feb 23 2009

Personal and Expounded Thoughts:

Victor is “attacked by the fatal passion.”  Think attacked by fate before, now he’s attacked by passion. Nothing was him, he is all excuses. Lame! You can’t blame fate or passion on your actions. Take some accountability buddy!

“Indulged”: I made a mistake. The form of the sentence is important. Mary Shelley is accusing Victor of being too often an innocent bystander. I totally agree with Mary Shelley. What a comment on our society too! I very much hate it when people blame circumstances, or other people for their lives. No. You are using excuses. You are playing into what’s been handed to you, or even making up something so you don’t have to take action or live a certain way. Thank you, Mary Shelley, for exposing all the passive, excuse-laden, non-accountable people who end up creating monsters out of their lives.

Plain notes from class:

Why is there this intense desire to create life? Victor wants the divine power. Why not just say we all die and be done with it?

He would like to have been able to prevent his mother from dying?

The more intensely you love, you deeper you are going to be hurt (or the potential to be hurt).

Some people don’t fall in love if they don’t want to get hurt, some people might not have children so they don’t get hurt?

Prometheus, “Prometheus Unbound”

Victor is the modern Prometheus, he is trying to give immortality to modern humanity, and will suffer for it like Prometheus did for giving fire.

Shelley also quotes Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner. Summary:  The ancient mariner grabs a wedding guest to tell the story.  There is an albatross that flies to his ship everyday, and all the mariners love it. The ancient mariner shoots the bird. The ship can’t go anywhere, all the crew members die,  but before they do they hang the albatross around his neck. The ancient mariner sees snakes in the water. He asks himself why is it that all these beautiful men dead around me, and he is the only survivor with the slimy snakes in the water around him. Suddenly the moon rises and he sees their beauty, and the albatross falls from his neck, and the ship moves and he is saved. But now he is cursed to keep telling the story.

Victors mother love him unconditionally, and the albatross loved the mariner unconditionally.  The mariners love makes him kill the bird. Why would you want to kill someone that loves you? Why would you want them not alive… relate to why did everyone want Christ to die, leading to the crucifixion?

Proposal: Unconditional deep divine love is scary as hell.

Mariner to wedding guest:  you have to witness this tale before you witness the wedding.  You have to understand the deep love and terrible fear the couple is going through.

Why does he loose contact with his family and Elizabeth, his betrothed?

Making the monster is an attempt to keep Elizabeth from hurting him, or to find immortality so she wouldn’t die and leave him. He is afraid of a world without her. His motivating factor is that world without her. This a a bad motivation, and it creates a bad monster.

Victor quotes Satan – He thinks he has more suffering than Elizabeth, “I bore a hell within me.” (Paradise Lost – Milton)

“I can not live in this world of misery – says Elizabeth) um, yes Mr. self-centered Victor! Victor, the egotist, doesn’t seem to notice she is suffering also.

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Victor vs Walter Sunday, Feb 22 2009

Is Walton like or unlike Victor? How?

Walton and Victor are very much alike, if we are simply looking at their natural tendencies.  In the story, most of their differences come from the fact that they are at different places in their lives.  They both used to be looking for fame, for singular recognition and discovery.  One of them is now different because he actually managed to achieve his ambitions and learned the consequences of his selfishness.

Victor also seems a little more “out there,” in that he goes crazily and obsessively from one passion to another, and doesn’t seem to do a lot of planning or thinking through.  From the brief glimpse of Walter we have through his letters and actions, I think he takes a lot more methodical and logical approach to his still over-the-top life choices.

There is also the basic sense that Victor is more hands on in a sense, wanting to do or make or experiment.  Walter is more big picture adventure and discovery bound.

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Fate in Frankenstein Sunday, Feb 22 2009

Remember that Walter is ambitious, as is Victor Frankenstein.

Walter – be great, discover

Victor -Wants to overcome the ideal bounds of life and death.  Mary Shelley uses the term “artist” for what we would call a scientist.  A scientist that wants to make a great discovery, wants to be a genius, and in that sense an artist.

For Marry Shelley, all of them are artists.  Look at some of the great romantic writers/poets, and what their personalities are like in the poetry.  What Mary Shelley is doing is critiquing and analyzing: saying this is what’s wrong with what’s being great.  Critiquing her husband Lord Byron who have ambitions like those great artists, showing what’s wrong with Walter and Victors attitude.

Most people don’t see the novel this way:  Most people see that man shouldn’t meddle with God’s creation.  This novel is truly an analysis of why, in the question of why people are driven to these things.

The 1831 edition adds in a greater sense of Victors obsession with the secrets of nature and as in the sense of being FATED, in the preface.  Is this Mary letting Victor off the hook by excusing the situation for fate?  Does it show victor as fated? It shows him as “I WAS fated,” victor says.  What’s the difference?  For him, it’s is way of justifying his actions.  It let’s himself off the hook.  Part of his problem may be his belief in fate in the first place.  Fate is a way of exonerating yourself.  There is some problem of victor being too easy on himself.  He does say he feels guilty though…

A novel is like a game, trying to figure out what the author thinks about their characters and why.

Evidence:  Read “x” is true.  You can see that x really isn’t true; this is where you can see the author hiding in the words.  “English majors figure out this knee jerk.”  Other people, does this make sense??  haha, sure it does.  We are quite different breeds in Dr. Mandells mind, I see.

Victor describes his childhood.  It’s full!  It was loving, full of friends, and plenty of education.  Setting up cause and effect: here is a totally loved and privileged man.

Exploring the use of the word creature:  He calls the monster his creation later.  Very early on we get a sense of Victor believing himself a creature, having been formed by his parents.

What about the alchemists?  They wanted to change anything into gold.  Not about experimentation.  About the great man: Aristotle was truth, no matter what he said.  Thinking about Great Men, the alchemists want to be great man.  Think, what would you be if you found the fountain of youth?  You would be a great man.  This is kind of what Victor transfers, via the teacher, into his studies of modern chemistry. He transfers the desire to create something great.

Prof. Waldman says Victor can still be a great man and a MODERN scientist, opposed to an alcheimist. Victor, who claims that fate led him to Mr. Waldman, claims that the alchemist were the fatal impulse that led his ruin.

Shelley then describes the process of creating the monster in great detail.  What is Victor like when he is creating the monster? He lets it completely take over his life. He is willing to die to create life.   It supports his spirits to think he will succeed.   Looking back on his process, it looks crazy.  Today, we would call this obsessive compulsion.   Victor gets a God complex, imagining his creature is like his child, he will be the most absolute father.  The caretaker expects a worshipful attitude towards him.  This new species owes their very existence to him.   This process doesn’t give Victor life or vigor, it TAKES life from him.  Think of pregnancy, another creation of life.   According to Mandell, it’s incredibly enlivening.  Economy of “by giving, you get.”  What do we think about artistic creation? We usually think creation gives life, and we feel saddened at the end of the writing session, not drained.   If something takes stuff from you, and doesn’t enliven, maybe it’s the wrong job.

He never considers something bad could happen, he thinks it will be all good.  Victor is not at all self critical.  On a high of success, he is exalted.  He is in a process of working through and for the ego. We see victor creating out of ego, BY and FOR his ego.  Virginia Woolf in “a room of ones own”, says that your ego, the part of you that resents attacks on women, that part can NOT be the part of you that’s creating art.  You have to write past and through that, whatever your ego.

The minuteness of the part formed a great hindrance to my speed.  (If he made a regular or small person, he would have to do it slowly)  Why not make small person?  No, Victor has to get it done now.  It seems like he was on speed, on a high, and that he had to get it down NOW.  The reason that the monster is ugly is because he’s HUGE.  It’s huge because Victor is thinking of speed, and is working with speed because Victor is only thinking of himself.  Once again, he didn’t think of consequences.  Exploring the concern with self over concern with the art object.

Critiquing is a way of being an artist

Why do we think in the movie versions the MONSTER is called Frankenstein?

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In the beginning, there was Frankenstein. Or something like that… Thursday, Feb 19 2009

Beginning our discussions on Frankenstein, focusing just on the beginning letters from Walton to his sister.

Walton spent a year in trying to become a famous poet; he wanted to simply write for the sake of writing. Is there a difference between being a writer and just writing?

Ann (?) Lamot says: Whatever you think publishing is going to do for you, it’s not.

What is the relationship between a person and an idol? Consider why someone would want the fame. For instance the marriage of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes: she idolized him, so what was their relationship in the beginning, do we think? He was the idol, so he was in control in their relationship.

What is the motivation for Victor telling the story of his adventures? Victor wants to teach Walton a lesson, evidence by his statement “Dear man, do you share my madness?”

Walton states that he will achieve dominion and become king of elemental forces.

Have you drunk also from the intoxicating draft? Victor says that he shared that madness that he sees in Walton, he wanted greatness and wanted to share fame with. Now he has hindsight and maturity. Thought: is grandeur dreaming linked with maturity and growing up?? Victor tells his story to try and change Walton’s mind, to make him not want the fame of discovering the passage to the North Pole anymore.

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A Truncated Review of Characters Wednesday, Feb 18 2009

Master Linton is the son of Heathcliff and Isabella

He marries young Catherine, a relationship that Heathcliff forcefully promotes. Edgar sees this and tries to change the will so Heathcliff doesn’t get the property.

Is Linton admirable? We decided no, he is sickly and feeble. His heart is selfish; he sacrifices Catherine to Heathcliff so he doesn’t get hurt.  Linton ultimately pulls through for Catherine in the end by unlocking her room so she can see her father for the last time.  Ultimately though, he has no courage, no real character.

Hareton Earnshaw, who is Hindley’s Son, is uneducated. Does he embrace his status? It seems he is truly a brute force alone.  Hareton comes with Cathy Linton to form a team with Heathcliff, and he allows Cathy to educate him.  He grows up swearing, and with no parental direction. Heathcliff encourages the bad behavior, yet it seems like Hareton has a good heart despite his harsh life.  He is like a child, the first time he saw Cathy he grabs one of her curls.

Young Catherine Linton we can sum up in onr word: selfish

Charlotte Bronte’s letter, paraphrased: This story must appear a rude and strange production.  It is unintelligible, and where intelligible, it is repulsive. She can hardly know what to make of ruggedness, hardness, untaught and unchecked, (here acknowledging the brutality of the novel) Heathcliff indeed stands unredeemed, never once standing in his arrow straight course to perdition, and portrays one solitary human feeling. No, the single link that connects Heathcliff to humanity is his rudely confessed ____-for Hareton. (I missed the word)  Heathcliff is a mans shape animated by a demons life.   People begin to ask how Emily Bronte could create such a scene and character as Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights. Her thoughts include whether it is right or advisable to create beings like Heathcliff….the writer who posses the creative gift owns something of which he is not always the master.  Without any warning when they are writing, there comes a moment when a writer refused to makes ropes out of seas sand and sets to work in statute making.  As fate or inspiration, either grim or glorious, you have little choice left.   You almost have no choice to work under passions you have no claim over.  Here she is talking about the write being animated or inspired by something they can’t control. There is a moment the art takes over.

IS Wuthering Heights a great work of art?

Writers can be taken over by character, and the question remains, is that a bad thing?

This totally makes me think of Heath Ledger and how he allegedly got so into the Joker character he was depressed and had to take meds, eventually leading to his overdose and death.  Method acting = method writing?

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Heathcliff and Cannibalism, Explained by Matthew Beaumont Monday, Feb 16 2009

“Heathcliff’s Great Hunger: The Cannibal Other in Wuthering Heights” by Matthew Beaumont helps me understand not only a scene near the end of the book, but helps to put the entire book in a clearer historical context. The article published in the Journal of Victorian Culture outlines Emily Bronte’s childhood and influences from political and activist figures.

Focusing now on a dinner scene in chapter 31, we find Linton visiting Wuthering Heights for what he thinks will be the last time. He plans to inform Heathcliff that he will return to London, as he doesn’t wish to spend anymore time at Thrushcross Grange. Heathcliff responds “you’re tired of being banished from the world, are you?” which combines a streak of humor in Heathcliff and a stark proclamation of his conscious position on earth: He is acutely and most likely happily aware that he, at Wuthering Heights, is banished from the world.

Heathcliff’s tone continues almost lightly as he asks young Catherine to “bring the things in.” He offers a foreboding reassurement to Lockwood: a guest that is safe from repeating his visit is generally welcome.” Heathcliff seems cool and acts with almost a forced hospitality, which may be true in any distant landlord/renter relationship.

After reading this, I felt that it was an exchange fairly consistent with each of the characters and the actions surrounding the plot. I would have overlooked this chapter if Beaumont hadn’t helped to extract deeper meanings and double entendres.

To better explain Beaumont’s view of Heathcliff’s cannibalism in Wuthering Heights before I continue my analysis of the scene, here is an excerpt from the article:

If Heathcliff combats the cannibalistic rituals of an aristocratic mode of

inheritance, then he ultimately does so with the tools provided by the

cannibalistic culture of capitalist competition. His return to the

Heights, after his ‘transformation’ (95) – in part his transformation into

a capitalist – marks the onset of what we might call his phase of primitive

accumulation. As Eagleton has suggested, he is ‘contradiction

incarnate’, since ‘his rise to power symbolises at once the triumph of

the oppressed over capitalism and the triumph of capitalism over the

oppressed’.42 He is, we can conclude, both cannibalised and cannibal.

Having established what Beaumont’s view of Heathvliff’s cannibalism is, we can now look at the dinner scene in chapter 31 in a new light. The small and subtle passages and words chosen are what makes this scene a fantastic example of Bronte’s genius writing.

Instead of chronicling Cathy bringing out dinner or even the dinner settings, Lockwood reports that she brings out a tray of forks and knives. This is a reflection of Heathcliff’s great appetite: for food, for love, for revenge, etc. Could Bronte also be showing us the tools for a “cannibal repast” in Heathcliff? By bringing out a tray of forks and knives, a sinister inflection is brought upon this dinner, and even the comment that Heathcliff’s guest will not repeat his visit. Beaumont even suggests that though Lockwood is too dull to realize it, there is a clear hint that he will not leave the Heights alive.

Beaumont’s “Heathcliff’s Great Hunger” helped shape my sinister view of Heathcliff in the subtleties of his words and the actions surrounding his life. With knowledge of Emily Bronte’s childhood, such as the following excerpt chronicling her childhood experiences, it is much easier to put the character of Heathcliff and the other nuances and proclamations about culture and society into the context of her thoughts.

(Beaumont) Cannibals play a significant ideological role in the mythological

imaginary of the young Brontës. Angria, the fictional setting for the

games and stories enjoyed by all the Brontë children, was a British

colony on the western coast of Africa. It had been inspired by the twelve

toy soldiers that Patrick Brontë had given to his son Branwell in June

1826, when the trade wars between Britain and Ashanti, which ended in

1831, were at their height. Emily Brontë was at this time almost eight.

The soldiers, known as the ‘twelves’, represented a British expeditionary

force; and a set of tiny ninepins represented the ‘Ashantees’.

These natives, as Branwell made clear, were cannibals.

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Wuthering Heights in Other Media Explored Monday, Feb 16 2009

Classmate reviews: Exploring transcendental and empirical love. Catherine’s two loves between Heathcliff and Edgar beg the question, can you love two people at the same time? Can you categorize love? When she is dying, we again ask the question why she gives up transcendental love for empirical love. She says it would degrade her to love Heathcliff, but isn’t this such a petty reason, if it is really true love with Heathcliff?

Heathcliff is also compared to Frankenstein; the monster, not the doctor? My article also mentioned a relation to Frankenstein, saying

Heathcliff’s character combines the cannibal’s aggression with

the clinical interest of the vivisectionist. He thus seems to embody not

only the features of a monster, but of a Frankenstein too. After all, Dr

Frankenstein was himself a vivisectionist, one who ‘tortured the living

animals to animate lifeless clay’.

Why would Emily Bronte, as a woman writer, want to darken love and romance? Why would she want to interrupt the romance tale? Is it possible for someone to have a reason to love someone for just the societal purposes?

I guess we’re all “soul-mate” people, we would rather marry our soul mate than our socially acceptable partner. The verdict is out! Marrying your soul mate wins. On a side note, I totally disagree with marrying your “social” love and having lots of (or just one) soul mates on the side to be friends with. This is exactly Edgars situation, and it is totally unfair. I believe cheating is not only physical but in the heart, and more basic, cheating is wrong. So if you marry your social love but have a soul-mate friend, your heart is not with your married partner. Which is just not good.

How much of love is really detached from social determinants? If they got kicked out of school, had a disease, etc, would it make a difference?

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