December 6, 2013

Frankenstein

Where are we going with this book?

A presentation/lesson done by a group of students (it will be on a couple of assigned chapters) - notes to give, questions to assign, a task to do, some elements of plot, setting, character, theme to show, connections to real world to make, etc.

Make your own exam. It will have material from the above (#1), from Macbeth, and from the short story and poetry analyses we’ve done.

There will be another essay - it will be comparing Macbeth and Frankenstein. It will be assigned PRIOR to the exam and then you will write your essay on the exam day.

You will need to present some kind of multimedia something, BUT it will be about an ISSUE or thematic element that comes up in the novel. Huh? What that means, is that, let’s say you focus on the issue of motherhood (or some aspect thereof), you might create some piece of art that is thematically linked.

Frankenstein notes with mini assignments. (4-5 of these that are worth free marks for doing them well)

Mary Shelley

this is the girl who wrote the original book back in the early 1800s
this is a strange little story
A competition was arranged between Mary’s famous author husband (Percy Bysse Shelley), one of his writer friends and, Mary, then an 18 year old girl.
They were trying to come up with the creepiest story.
She won.
She based her story on two things:
1) a scientific experiment done by a guy named Galvani
2) a dream she had (featured a night visitor that was monstrous)

dreams are crazy random firings of electricity that your brain turns into a story

The idea that they mean something is that YOU are making them with your problems, issues, concerns, etc. It’s YOUR idea of what the dream was that makes it a something.

Dreams are not real, they are reflections of your own ideas, thoughts and FEARS.

Maybe a recurring dream is a recurring FEAR? WORRY? PROBLEM? ISSUE?

Looks fade, Miss. Looks fade HARD. All that is left is CHARACTER.

Never forget that and you will have a MUCH better life.
Frankenstein

Main Themes of the Novel

motherhood
technology vs nature
technology vs religion
technology vs ?
the negatives of challenging God via technology
the power of bad parenting
looks vs reality
the outsider
illness

Choose one of these to focus on in particular.

Mary Shelley is not your average teenage girl.

Her father was a famous writer and political activist - one who gets involved in making change, advocating for change in the political structure

He was also an anarchist - a group of people who are against controlled government and curbing freedoms of individuals

He wrote the first mystery novel.

He was anti-rich.

He was a very rebellious, yet intellectual and challenging man.

She was raised with a different vision of what society should be like. 

Her mother was a proto-feminist who died ten days after giving birth to her.

This background guarantees that she will be independent, honest, strong, supportive of the poor and “lower classes”.

She will be brilliant, hard working, well read like crazy, argumentative and have the ability to fight the system.

Even though she married a famous guy (Percy Bysse Shelley) she was her own woman and ended up writing Frankenstein at 19.




There are some themes that come from her background!

What about the underclass? What about the “lower” end of society?

What about equality for women? That underclass in general?

Challenging religion and government is not a surprise.

Challenging others’ beliefs is not a surprise.

She lost her mother - mommy issues? Sure.

She lost a baby herself (maybe more than one) - more mommy issues? Yes.

She deals with issues of gender and sexuality (gender-based).

The time period in which she lived was also important.

The Age of Enlightenment - The Age of Reason

Corresponded with The Scientific Revolution

The world used to be considered to be made by God.

The Scientific Revolution started breaking that down and finding all kinds of natural laws, principles and scientific reasons for the way the world was.

Frank Ass #1

Find any Age of Enlightenment thinker or scientist and give me a little profile on him/her

Frankenstein is a story about obsession.

There is a doctor named Victor Frankenstein and he is a man of his Age.











The Age of Reason.

As people became more and more engaged in science and philosophy and began to actually look into the way the world was, they found that the world wasn’t they had been told.

The ideas of science and “reality” went against so many “rules” from the Bible.
It was complex problem to face.

Early responses by society based in religion were scary and negative.
Science and God seemed to be in opposition.

This was a huge issue for a LONG time (PS welcome to the world in which it is STILL A HUGE ISSUE OMG WILL WE NEVER LEARN?)

For some people, this idea of reason and science and numbers and data and RATIONAL thinking because the prime focus - religion wasn’t in the picture in the same way

The Church tends to fight back in a specific way - SATAN!

Science can make us live forever, right?

Science can “beat God”, right?

Science wins! Religion loses!

But in the end, there is no way to say the above.

Science is something we do and see and test and find evidence of and for
Faith is something we think and believe.

Science moves forward - religion does not (appear to)

As the book is written, there is a lot of heat around the issues above (and that we’ve talked about) and the issues are just new.

Preface and Letters

we begin with a character named Marlowe, who appears to be an explorer
Hey, what the heck - where is Frankenstein?
Mary Shelley begins with what some call “Bookends” or a “framing device”
this is a way of talking about the story without actually breaking the story and saying “Hi! I’m the writer! Here are some things about the story!”
We meet Robert Walton and he is a guy who is pushing the boundaries - don’t explorers do that? isn’t that a good model for thinking about a doctor who challenges God?
an explorer is kind of doing the same thing!
if she started talking about the crazy doctor, it might be a kind of disturbing thing for readers - that doctor is going to get pretty blasphemous (going against God)
this put us in the mood and creates a sense of the theme to come - challenge

We meet Victor Frankenstein THROUGH the explorer’s journey. (Robert Walton is the explorer)

It turns out that the book is actually Victor’s story about why Robert Walton should NOT challenge God and aim too high and try to seek glory too much.

Victor’s story is a warning to us all.

That is Mary Shelley’s idea - she wants to warn us about the dangers of pushing too far into areas of science, exploration, academia, etc. 2