FrankensteinOr The Modern PrometheusVATE Literature Revision Day 2012

Literature Examination

Assessment CriteriaUnderstanding of the text demonstrated in a relevant and plausible interpretation. Ability to write expressively and coherently to present an interpretation. Understanding of how views and values may be suggested in the text.

Literature Examination

Assessment CriteriaAnalysis of how key passages and/or moments in the text contribute to an interpretation. Analysis of the features of a text and how they contribute to an interpretation.Analysis and close reading of textual details to support a coherent and detailed interpretation of the text.

Mary Shelley• “It is not singular that, as the daughter of two persons of distinguished literary celebrity, I should very early in life have thought of writing.” MS

• “Her desire of knowledge is great, and her perseverance in everything she undertakes almost invincible.” WG

What shaped Shelley’s views and values?

Mary’s parents were radical thinkers of their time.

Her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, was a fiercely intelligent feminist writer and free thinker of the late 18th century.

Her father, William Godwin, a minister-turned-atheist philosopher and writer who – like Victor – was “totally unfitted to educate…[and]…direct the infant mind”.

Views and valuesPercy Bysshe Shelley and the Shelleyan Idea (Christopher Small). Victor Frankenstein seems to a protoype of Shelleyan values in some ways (and may bear some resemblance to Shelley himself).Politics and social upheaval.Her response to the Age of Reason and its rationality.Her exposure to Romantic ideals.Her peers and informal teachers – eg Lord Byron.Travel.Texts.

Views and values“The Shelleys had grown up in an age that had already stretched the eighteenth-century ideal of reason and enlightenment to breaking point. Prior to arriving at Lake Geneva, the couple had seen up close the havoc and destruction that the Revolutionary wars had visited on the people of rural France. The romantics of Wordsworth’s generation had already processed the effects of this.”Schuftan, Craig. Hey! Nietzsche! Leave Them Kids Alone! ABC Books, Sydney, 2009.

“The failure of the eighteenth-century dream of a society based on rational principles to materialise had been bad enough…what had emerged had been something closer to a medieval bloodbath [that] was enough to convince the romantics that the ideal of human perfectability was dead…the arguments for seeing humanity as basically flawed and doomed to repeat its mistakes began to look more and more convincing – especially to those who..had ‘a tendency to look over-intensely at the dark side of human things’.”Schuftan, Craig. Hey! Nietzsche! Leave Them Kids Alone! ABC Books , Sydney, 2009.

Views and values

Finding a plausible and relevant interpretation

Reliant on CLOSE READING of the key literary features of Frankenstein. Eg…CENTRAL CONCERNSGENREFORMSTRUCTUREPLOTSETTINGCHARACTERISATIONLINGUISTIC FEATURES

Central concerns in the textThe plight of the poor and the uneducated of society.Scientific and technological advances, and the excitement and fear that they can raise.Political upheaval and revolution. Birth and death.Nature and its role in sustaining and nurturing humans both physically and emotionally. The role of a parent.

Central concerns in the textThe nature of morality.

Religion.The ability of texts to warn and educate: Promethean Myth and Paradise Lost.Dualities and binary opposites: fate versus free choice, the masculine and the feminine, rich and poor, nature and science, God and Satan, Victor and the Monster.

The EnlightenmentA golden age is truly upon us

An era of wealth and splendour

Masters of fate, august and enlightened

Is how we’ll be remembered

A golden age of science and reason

Discovery and inspiration

Marvelous time, miraculous world

The dawn of revelation!

From Frankenstein, A New Musical

Genre

Gothic?Horror?

Romantic?Science

Fiction?

Gothic Literature• Part of the Romantic Movement that

started in the late 18th Century.

• Setting is dark; menacing: “The desert mountains and dreary glaciers are my refuge. I have wandered here many days; the caves of ice, which I only do not fear, are a dwelling to me, and the only one which man does not grudge.” (103)

• Dreams and visions: “…but as I imprinted the first kiss on her lips, they became livid with the hue of death…” (59)

Gothic LiteratureMelodramatic!Danger: human passion, excessive feeling, operating outside of society’s rules and constraints. “…the moon gazed on my midnight labours, while, with unrelaxed and breathless eagerness, I pursued nature to her hiding-places. Who shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil as I dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the grave…with profane fingers. …In a solitary chamber, or rather cell, …I kept my workshop of filthy creation.” (55)“The raising of ghosts or devils,…the fulfilment of which I most eagerly sought.” (26)

Horror and the birth of Frankenstein

When I placed my head on my pillow, I did not sleep, nor could I be said to think. My imagination, unbidden, possessed and guided me, gifting the successive images that arose in my mind with a vividness far beyond the usual bounds of reverie. I saw – with shut eyes, but acute mental vision – I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir…Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavour to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world”. MS

Romanticism

Began in the second half of the 18th Century in Western Europe.A reaction against the ideals of the Age of Enlightenment (or the Age of Reason). The French Revolution.The Industrial Revolution.

Strong emotions.

Horror, trepidation and awe at nature.

Idealisation/glorification of nature.

Medievalism, folk art and folk customs.

Embraced the exotic over the familiar.

Distaste for social structure.

Values the emotional over the intellectual.

British Romanticism

British RomanticismRelationship between Man and Nature. Power of wild landscapes. Desire to understand the mysterious forces of nature – should they be sought?“It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn; and whether it was the outward substance of things, or the inner spirit of nature and the mysterious soul of man that occupied me, still my inquiries were directed to the metaphysical, or, in its highest sense, the physical secrets of the world.”

“I have described myself as always having been imbued with a fervent longing to penetrate the secrets of nature.”

A very Romantic education

“I found on the ground a leather portmanteau, containing…Paradise Lost, a volume of Plutarch’s Lives, and the Sorrows of Werter. …They produced in me an infinity of new images and feelings, that sometimes raised me to ecstasy, but more frequently sunk me into the lowest dejection. …I learned from Werter’s imaginations despondency and gloom: but Plutarch…elevated me above the wretched sphere of my own reflections. …I felt the greatest ardour for virtue rise within me, and abhorrence for vice.” (131-2)

The Romantic Quest“The world was to me a secret, which I desired to divine. Curiosity, earnest research to learn the hidden laws of nature, gladness akin to rapture, as they are unfolded to me, are among the earliest sensations I can remember.” (22)

Paradise Lost

“Like Adam, I was apparently united by no link to any other being in existence; but his state was far different from mine in every other respect. He had come forth from the hands of God a perfect creature, happy and prosperous, guarded by the especial care of his Creator; he was allowed to converse with and acquire knowledge from beings of a superior nature: but I was wretched, helpless and alone. Many times I considered Satan as the fitter emblem of my condition; for often, like him, when I viewed the bliss on my protectors, the bitter gall of envy rose within me.” (132)

Science FictionFrankenstein is considered to be one of the earliest works of science fiction.It is literally science fiction!“A new species would bless me as its creator and source…no father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs.” (55)“I at once gave up my former occupations, set down natural history…as a deformed and abortive creation, and entertained the greatest disdain for a would-be-science which could never step within the threshold of real knowledge.” (27)

Form and StructureEpistolary form. Three narratives with a Chinese Box structure (a narrative within a narrative within a narrative). More letters within Victor’s narrative from Elizabeth Lavenza and Alphonse Frankenstein.Opens and closes with Walton’s story, told via a sequence of letters to his sister Margaret. Walton is narrating Victor Frankenstein’s story, who in turn narrates the monster’s story. Walton provides the reader with important background brings Victor’s story to life after Victor himself has died…just as Victor brought the monster to life.

Source: http://learnonline.splinder.com/post/23365508/reading-mary-shelleys-frankenstein

Structure• Gives the reader access to three different

points of view and three different narrative voices.

• Makes the novel feel more “real”.• Story within a story within a story.• The monster’s point of view told through

Victor’s point of view told through Walton’s point of view.

• The structure is enormously intertextual, reflecting Shelley’s, Victor’s and the monster’s views, values and education.

Intertextuality‘Intertextuality’ is a post-structuralist term first coined in the 1960s. It is a literary device closely associated with postmodernism.Frankenstein draws constant attention to other texts through allusion and direct quotation. What is the first instance of intertextuality?What was Shelley’s purpose in using intertextuality, and what effect does it have on us as readers?

SettingEighteenth century – we are not told the year or decade.Petersburgh, Captain Walton’s ship in the Arctic; Geneva; the Swiss Alps; Ingolstadt; London/Westmorland/Edinburgh/ Orkneys/Ireland; back on Walton’s ship in the Arctic.Why Geneva? Rousseau? Proximity to the Alps? Mary’s own travels? Why Ingolstadt? Birthplace of the French Revolution via the Illuminati.

SettingWhy Westmorland? Wordsworth and Coleridge wrote there…has definite associations with Romanticism.Why London? Victor and Clerval meet with London’s philosophers. This reminds us of William Godwin hosting Percy Shelley and Lord Byron. “Clerval desired the intercourse of the men of genius and talent who flourished at this time.”

The Orkneys – remote, barren, lonely, harsh environment. Very suitable for the task. Symbolic of Victor’s shame and horror at what he is undertaking.

MontaigneConsider this: “If we wish to be beloved by our children, if we wish to take from them all reason to desire our death – let us supply their lives with everything in our power.”

Contrast this with Victor: “I gnashed my teeth, my eyes became inflamed, and I ardently wished to extinguish that life which I had so thoughtlessly bestowed.” (76)

Language FeaturesSymbols

Light and dark – “what could not be expected in the country of eternal light?” RW. The opposite of light is dark...like nature’s hidden, secret, impenetrable places of knowledge. “Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world.” VFFire and sparks – Galvanisation. The monster’s experience with flame (it has dual properties; it is mysterious, enhances life, causes pain). Prometheus. Victor gets punished like Prometheus, but does not give his knowledge to mankind (unless Walton somehow finds out the secret...) “In my joy I thrust my hand into the live embers, but quickly drew it out again with a cry of pain.” Monster

Language Features - Motifs

1. Passive WomenThe passivity and silenced voices of women. This novel, written by the daughter of a pioneering feminist, is consciously devoid of strong, independent, active women. Victor is strangely sexless, and he is convinced that he can usurp the role of mother when he creates the Monster. He renders women unnecessary in the process of creation, and all the women associated with him end up dead through no fault of their own. What is Shelley saying to the reader? How would a feminist reading of the text interpret this?Margaret Saville will ostensibly be the woman who changes this pattern once Victor and Walton’s narrative is complete. What will she do with the letters that she receives?

Language Features - Motifs

2. Male FriendshipBonds of male friendship are unusually pronounced within Frankenstein, to the exclusion of both women and the Monster. Note the strength of the bond between Clerval and Victor, along with Walton’s longing for a friend and the depth of regard that he develops for him.“I desire the company of a man who could sympathize with me, whose eyes would reply to mine. You may deem me romantic, my dear sister, but I bitterly feel the want of a friend. I have no one near me, gentle yet courageous, possessed of a cultivated as well as of a capacious mind, whose tastes are like my own, to approve or amend my plans.”

Language Features - Motifs

3. Abortion“I, the miserable and the abandoned, am an abortion, to be spurned at, and kicked, and trampled on.” The MonsterFrankenstein’s “hideous creation” is a living abortion in every sense – he is unwanted, uncared for and rejected by his parent. The Monster is forced to watch his mate be torn up in front of him.

Threads of Interpretation

It is essential that you present an overall interpretation of the text in the examination. Your interpretation MUST be based upon the passages that you see on the day.You can consider a range of interpretations as part of your exam preparation, but you CANNOT have a pre-prepared response ready. Think of the three passages as the individual pieces of a garment, and your interpretation as the threads that hold the pieces together and forms a garment.

Loss of innocence and the

dangers of knowledge-Victor is like Eve – he chooses to let his passion for discovery consume him.

-The Monster loses his innocence when the De Laceys reject his attempts at friendship.

-“You seek for knowledge and wisdom, as I once did; and I ardently hope that the gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine has been.” VF to RW

Knowledge and serpents go hand in hand...think of Adam, Eve and the Serpent in the Garden of Eden.

“Seek happiness in tranquility and avoid ambition, even if it be only the apparently innocent one of distinguishing yourself in science and discoveries...I have myself been blasted in these hopes, yet another may succeed.” VF to RW

Dualism: Victor and the Monster as

doubles of one anotherVICTOR THE MONSTER

“Ardent” desire for knowledge. Seeks knowledge as a means to develop his ‘humanity’.

Passionate responses to nature. Passionate responses to nature.

Nature’s ability to comfort him decreases as the plot progresses.

Nature’s ability to comfort him decreases as the plot progresses.

Becomes increasingly isolated from human society; self-isolating.

Is born isolated from humans due to the nature of his creation and his appearance.

Is arrested on the Irish shore because he is mistaken for the monster.Wishes the monster to suffer “the despair that torments”.

Wishes Victor to suffer from the isolation and loneliness that he is subject to.

Victor’s attitude to the Monster

Victor is kept alive by the force of his desire for revenge: “...at the idea that the fiend should live and be triumphant, my rage and vengeance returned, and like a might tide, overwhelmed every other feeling.” (VF)

The Monster provides food and signs for Victor: “Prepare! Your toils only begin; wrap yourself in furs and provide food, for we shall soon enter upon a journey where your sufferings will satisfy my everlasting hatred.” (Monster’s inscription to VF)

Calls the Monster his “guiding spirit”: “I knelt down and with a full heart thanked my guiding spirit for conducting me in safety to the place where I hoped, notwithstanding my adversary’s gibe, to meet and grapple with him.” (VF)

Realises that both he and the Monster deserve death.

The Monster’s attitude to Victor

Grieves when he realises Frankenstein is dead: “…in his murder my crimes are consummated; the miserable series of my being is wound to its close! Oh, Frankenstein! Generous and self-devoted being! What does it avail that I now ask thee to pardon me? I, who irretrievable destroyed thee by destroying all thou lovedst. Alas! He is cold, he cannot answer me.”

The Monster - like Victor - develops from being sympathetic and loving to others to being entirely focussed on his own agony and despair, and ultimately to revenge.He believes his pain is greater than Victor’s, as Victor has had friendship, love and family. “Blasted as thou wert, my agony was still superior to thine, for the bitter sting of remorse will not cease to rankle in my wounds until death has closed them forever...But soon...what I now feel [will] be no longer felt. Soon these burning miseries will be extinct.”

The role and plight of “the other”

in society•A post-colonial reading of Frankenstein would be concerned with Shelley’s representation of the Monster as the “other” or “the noble savage”. For example: “He was not, as the other traveller seemed to be, a savage inhabitant of some undiscovered island, but a European.”

•Look for evidence of marginalisation or exoticism of those excluded from the Euro-centric mainstream.

•Example: Clerval makes “himself complete master of the oriental languages” but his “literary pursuits” are viewed by Frankenstein as “soothing” and a “temporary amusement”. Oriental texts are exoticised: “When you read their writings, life appears to consist in a warm sun and a garden of roses – in the smiles and frowns of a fair enemy, and the fire that consumes your own heart. How different from the manly and heroical poetry of Greece and Rome!”

The role of a parent or creator

“In a fit of enthusiastic madness I created a rational creature and was bound towards him to assure, as far as was in my power, his happiness and well-being.”

Victor usurps the female maternal role.The imposition of masculine will upon nature.The monster critiques Victor’s parenting skills: “My creator, make me happy”; “You are my creator, but I am your master; obey!”; “I have devoted my creator, the select specimen of all that is worthy of love and admiration among men, to misery; I have pursued him even to that irremediable ruin.”

The role of a parent or creator

The violent sexual undertones in the early chapters indicate the raping of nature.Victor as representative of a patriarchal order which seeks to exclude women. Victor as an alter-ego of Mary Shelley .