1 or The Modern PrometheusFrankenstein or The Modern Prometheus
2 What happens? Capt. Walton is voyaging through the arctic when his ship becomes packed in the ice. His crew see a massive stranger walking in the distance and soon afterwards take aboard a smaller man who has an amazing story to tell. His name is Victor Frankenstein. He recounts the story of his life to the captain. Having devoted no small portion of his life trying to discover the essence of life, he eventually creates a massive human-like body which he manages to bring to life. Once the monster is alive he is terrified of it. The monster runs away, learns how to speak and then returns to ask Victor to create a mate for him as he is lonely. Victor refuses. The monster kills various members of Victor’s family, firstly as revenge against his creator for creating a monster that is miserably unhappy as a result of his appearance. Victor refuses to create a mate on the grounds that she might be more bloodthirsty than the original monster or that they might reproduce and create baby monsters. The Monster vows to make Victor’s life hell. Victor vows to destroy the monster. Victor dies shortly after telling his story to Capt Walton, who discovers the monster lurking aboard. The monster is weeping over his master’s dead body, is filled with remorse and vows to kill himself. The end.
3 Or in haiku… A mad scientist creates a ghastly Monsterwho just wants a hug.
4 The Doctor made a boo boo.
5 Mary Shelley Mother Mary Wollstonecraft Father William Godwin Educated informally but very well. Married Percy Bysshe Shelley (Romantic Poet) (wrote, among other great things, Ozymandias) ‘How I, then a young girl, came to think of, and to dilate upon, so very hideous an idea?’ Geneva Ghost stories A very wet summer A waking dream
6 What does she say about the book?‘I have thus endeavoured to preserve the truth of the elementary principles of human nature, while I have not scrupled to innovate upon their combinations. ‘My chief concern in this respect has been limited to the avoiding the enervating effects of the novels of the present day, and to the exhibition of the amiableness of domestic affection, and the excellence of universal virtue.’ Then states essentially – ‘The opinions and philosophy expressed by characters in this novel do not necessarily reflect on those of the author.’
7 Galvanism
8 Subtitle – ‘The Modern Prometheus’HUG I make dead people
9 Naming Monster doesn’t actually have a name – just called “monster’ “daemon” “fiend” “wretch” and “it” – non human/subhuman Victor – possibly after God ‘the victor’ in Paradise lost. Frankenstein – castle – possibly the one in Darmstadt – she may have visited this on the way to Switzerland.
10 Family Adoption of Elizabeth Victor’s feelings about parents –“We felt that they were not the tyrants to rule our lot according to their caprice, but the agents and creators of all the many delights which we enjoyed.” Rubbish father figure. Abandonment.
11 What it is to be human…
12 What it is to be human… "You must create a female for me with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being. This you alone can do, and I demand it of you as a right which you must not refuse to concede.” Loneliness Walton Victor Monster
13 “My thoughts now became more active, and I longed to discover the motives and feelings of these lovely creatures; I was inquisitive to know why Felix appeared so miserable and Agatha so sad. I thought (foolish wretch!) that it might be in my power to restore happiness to these deserving people. When I slept or was absent, the forms of the venerable blind father, the gentle Agatha, and the excellent Felix flitted before me. I looked upon them as superior beings who would be the arbiters of my future destiny. I formed in my imagination a thousand pictures of presenting myself to them, and their reception of me. I imagined that they would be disgusted, until, by my gentle demeanour and conciliating words, I should first win their favour and afterwards their love.”
14 “Of my creation and creator I was absolutely ignorant, but I knew that I possessed no money, no friends, no kind of property. I was, besides, endued with a figure hideously deformed and loathsome; I was not even of the same nature as man. I was more agile than they and could subsist upon coarser diet; I bore the extremes of heat and cold with less injury to my frame; my stature far exceeded theirs. When I looked around I saw and heard of none like me. Was I, then, a monster, a blot upon the earth, from which all men fled and whom all men disowned? I cannot describe to you the agony that these reflections inflicted upon me; I tried to dispel them, but sorrow only increased with knowledge. Oh, that I had forever remained in my native wood, nor known nor felt beyond the sensations of hunger, thirst, and heat!”
15 Characterization Victor – mopey bordering on emo.“Not the tenderness of friendship, nor the beauty of earth, nor of heaven, could redeem my soul from woe; the very accents of love were ineffectual. I was encompassed by a cloud which no beneficial influence could penetrate.” To me the walls of a dungeon or a palace were alike hateful. The cup of life was poisoned forever, and although the sun shone upon me, as upon the happy and gay of heart, I saw around me nothing but a dense and frightful darkness. Should he have made Frank a mate? Would that have made him a better ‘god’?
16 Characterisation Monster His repentance is genuine and complete.“I thought (foolish wretch!) that it might be in my power to restore happiness to these deserving people.” His repentance is genuine and complete.
17 “You, who call Frankenstein your friend, seem to have a knowledge of my crimes and his misfortunes. But in the detail which he gave you of them he could not sum up the hours and months of misery which I endured wasting in impotent passions. For while I destroyed his hopes, I did not satisfy my own desires. They were forever ardent and craving; still I desired love and fellowship, and I was still spurned. Was there no injustice in this? Am I to be thought the only criminal, when all humankind sinned against me? “
18 Characterisation Justine MoritzLive, and be happy, and make others so. Not overambitious, not fixed on revenge. Has a ring of ‘the right to the pursuit of happiness about it.’ Rights of Man – antislavery.
19 Ugliness – sensory perception“His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great god, His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscle and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion, and straight black lips.”
20 Ugliness – sensory perception.Shall I respect man when he condemns me? Let him live with me in the interchange of kindness, and instead of injury I would bestow every benefit upon him with tears of gratitude at his acceptance. But that cannot be; the human senses are insurmountable barriers to our union. Fairness – Othello, Desdemona is fair.
21 Matt Dillon?
22 Sublime – of such excellence, grandeur, or beauty as to inspire great admiration or awe.Archaic – elevate to a high degree of moral or spiritual purity or excellence
23 Machines and Servants Automaton? Descartes?Fear of the machine ‘rising up against the master.’ Caliban
24 LINKS Author’s purpose Letters – epistolary styleSubtitle – Modern Prometheus Family – abandonment issues What it is to be human Ugliness – sensory perception + the sublime
25 Wuthering Heights Wild. Strange. A bit damp.Heathcliffe waits for Cathy's ghost. Women. Always late. Othello The Tempest