(wow my apologies for completely forgetting to post this on time...)
Victor's dad has a thing for pretty young things and perhaps a sexual deviant. This would be the perfect explanation of why everyone in the Frankenstein family is described as being so beautiful.
1. Victor's father married a girl much younger in age. "He came like a protecting spirit to the poor girl, who committed herself to his care" (p. 34). He totally took advantage of her by playing the role of "protector" once her father died. Seems a little fishy to me.
2. Elizabeth was "adopted" solely based on her looks and radiance. "With his permission my mother prevailed on her rustic guardians to yield their charge to her" (p. 37). I don't think the father had a hard time taking in Elizabeth because after all, she is "fairer than a pictured cherub" (p. 36).
3. Justine is another indicator of the father's preference. Due to the setting being in more traditional times. Nothing happened in the house without the head of the house being aware and accepting it. This means that Justine would not have been a servant girl for the family unless the father had an inclination. I am sure that he enjoyed her service since she was so beautiful.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
walton hallucinates the whole story
Walton dreams up the entire story of Frankenstein and the monster. During his adventure to the North Pole, he constantly describes gigantic blocks of ice surrounding the ship. Before he sees Frankenstein's sled, he most likely suffered a head injury from the ship colliding with the ice. This would explain all the odd questions that we discussed in class, like why the monster is eight feet tall but made of many different normal-sized human and animal parts. This is also why Walton's ship-mates are so eager to sail back to land so they can leave Walton at a mental institution.
-Walton is lonely. So desperately lonely that he will dream up a companion to fill in his emptiness. He writes and tells Magaret that he desires the company of a man who could sympathise with me; whose eyes would repy to mine" (19).
-The man (Frankenstein) that Walton creates with his mind greatly resembles his own self. Like Walton, Frankenstein is ambitious and possesses a thirst for knowledge. They both feel a need to achieve some great purpose in life. They are also both lonely. Walton complains to Magaret that he has "no one near me, gentle yet courageous, possessed of a cultivated as well as of a capacious mind, whose tastes are like my own" (19).
- Walton is on an adventure to the north pole where the temperatures are below freezing. It seems to me that the cold has affected his mind, for he tells Magaret "how slowly the time passes here, encompassed as I am by frost and snow!" (19). He writes this as if he were trapped in time in another world which does not exist.
-Walton is lonely. So desperately lonely that he will dream up a companion to fill in his emptiness. He writes and tells Magaret that he desires the company of a man who could sympathise with me; whose eyes would repy to mine" (19).
-The man (Frankenstein) that Walton creates with his mind greatly resembles his own self. Like Walton, Frankenstein is ambitious and possesses a thirst for knowledge. They both feel a need to achieve some great purpose in life. They are also both lonely. Walton complains to Magaret that he has "no one near me, gentle yet courageous, possessed of a cultivated as well as of a capacious mind, whose tastes are like my own" (19).
- Walton is on an adventure to the north pole where the temperatures are below freezing. It seems to me that the cold has affected his mind, for he tells Magaret "how slowly the time passes here, encompassed as I am by frost and snow!" (19). He writes this as if he were trapped in time in another world which does not exist.
Frankenstein's Attempt to Take Over The World
Though seemingly obsessed with creation as an art, Frankenstein’s actual motives seem to be to create a superior race of humanoids to eventually surpass the human race and take over the world.
1. What stands out particularly is his choice of creating a super-human 8-foot-tall hybrid man of hand-chosen parts. Rather than choosing to reanimate a beautiful human, as he easily could have given the scenario, Frankenstein personally chooses individual parts. As such, the creation is not only entirely attributed to him rather than another “god”, but the resulting creation is now individually personalized to his tastes of what an ideal humanoid should be. Note that Frankenstein’s monster also recognizes his own intended superior attributes when he speaks to Frankenstein: “Slave, I before reasoned with you, but you have proved yourself unworthy of my condescension. Remember that I have power… You are my creator, but I am your master – obey!” (171).
2. Frankenstein then contemplates complying with the monster’s desire of having him create the monster a wife and actually partially finishes the female counterpart before rethinking the idea. On page 170, he mentions “the superior beauty of man”. However, if he had succeeded in creating a being superior to man as intended, both in terms of physical beauty and prowess and lack of susceptibility to illness, would he have created a mate for it without hesitation? He seems to wish that the superior race survive, in the current scenario humans, yet it’s questionable whether he would still find the same case true had he succeeded in his experiment. Rather, on page 55, Frankenstein states, “A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me.” Given the elated manner in which the statement is conveyed, it doesn’t seem to be a far stretch to say that Frankenstein wished to recreate the world with a new humanoid race of his creation.
3. Frankenstein doesn’t seem particularly fond of humans with the exception of Clerval and Elizabeth as given by the fact that his life “had hitherto been remarkably secluded and domestic; and this had given [him] invincible repugnance to new countenances” (46). Therefore, it doesn’t seem to be in his interest what befalls other humans besides those two. That further reinforces the idea that his true intention is for his newly created race to take over the world.
The Distraught Mind of Victor Frankenstein.
In the book Frankenstein, Victor "creates" a monster that kills all that Frankenstein loves and causes general chaos in Victor's life. But is the monster real? I think not. The monster is simply a fragment of the doctor's mind, after months and months of working to find the key to life itself, Frankenstein simply fails in his quest. After putting so much effort into his work his mind simply does not allow him to think that he has failed, Victor Frankenstein has never failed, always top of the class and seen as a soon-to-be great mind by his professors. How could he fail? Not once in the book is any detail given to how the monster was created or what science he used. How the complexity of life could be solved just by applying electricity. I believe that when he thought he saw the monster’s eyes open his mind had just caved into to months of stress, as you can see since he immediately goes to bed and sleeps it off. Deeper and deeper he gets as his subconscious makes back stories to the tale until he creates something so sinister that his mind loses control and the monster takes over, killing first his own younger brother. Even before any evidence is given it was the monster Frankenstein already knows it was him, just an intuition? I think not. Once again the doctor’s mind creates an entire history of the monster, making it learn to be extremely eloquent in such a short span just by reading a few books? Impossible. Then another murder takes place where Frankenstein on his boat is the closest one, once again the victor loses control to the monster and kills again. During his stay at the prison, he mutters about being the one who killed everyone. His subconscious was speaking through him. Victor’s mind is weak and fragile and he quests after the monster, always conveniently “seeing” brief flashes of the monster in thunderstorms, always knowing exactly where the monster is. Once he takes after the monster on his sledge he probably started chasing some poor Eskimo man who keeps wondering why some strange dude is intent on catching him. In essence, Frankenstein is crazy. The reason the monster doesn’t have a name? He doesn’t exist and if he did his name would be… FRANKENSTIEN!
Frankenstein is a neurotic killer
There are many inconsistencies in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, but perhaps none more central than the existence of the “monster” itself. The book purports to say that Dr. Frankenstein literally created a monster from dead bodies that went on a killing spree. It is more much likely, however, that Dr. Frankenstein is a pathological murderer who has killed his entire family while using his “monster” story as an alibi.
Frankenstein’s explanations for the creation of this monster lack any tie to science or reality; life cannot be induced by electrical currents in pieces of corpses sewn together. Frankenstein doesn’t even attempt to describe his animation process and simply says, “I see by your eagerness and the wonder and hope which your eyes express, my friend, that you expect to be informed of the secret with which I am acquainted; that cannot be… (p. 38)” How extremely convenient.
Even ignoring this glaring omission, Frankenstein still cannot even adequately describe the monster he purports to have created. The most disgusting aspect we hear of the monster is that, “his yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath (p. 42).” Frankenstein’s continued description ranges from normal to beautiful: “his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness (p. 42).” He finishes with the banal comment that the monster has “watery eyes,” a “shriveled complexion,” and “straight black lips.” This description not only leaves much to be desired, but also doesn’t appear to warrant the fear that the monster imbues in onlookers.
We now know that Frankenstein has fabricated this “monster.” He did this because he himself is the murderer of his family! How else could Frankenstein recall and recite the monster’s interaction with Justine and William (events which happened while Frankenstein supposedly lived in
But why would Frankenstein murder his entire family? According to Frankenstein, he spent two years creating this monster, however we know that no monster exists of ever existed. A more plausible explanation for where these two years went would be painful isolation. Frankenstein was rejected by his classmates, scorned by his teachers, and forgotten by his family. His hatred of himself grew and grew until he took his outrage out on his family and decided to murder them one by one, even going to as great a length to marry his cousin before strangling her on their honey money. In conclusion, his twisted imagination is testimony to the negative impacts of the stresses of college.
The power of Thanatos
Frankenstein's drive (and therefore downfall) isn't ambition; it's his death instinct. Simply put, Frankenstein wants to die, and his entire twisted story is merely a means to that end.
Consider how he relates his feelings. He speaks in maudlin hyperbole—either he's at heights of happiness unknown to other mortals, or his despair defies description. In Chapter II, he says, rather immodestly, "No human being could have passed a happier childhood than myself" (Shelley 39). Right. And no human being would express happiness so pompously. However, Frankenstein's happiness proves short-lived and he spends the rest of his tale bemoaning his fate. A fairly typical example reads, "...my general state of feeling was a torpor, in which a prison was as welcome a residence as the divinest scene in nature; and these fits were seldom interrupted but by paroxysms of anguish and despair" (Shelley 187).
Such extremes of feeling, repeated ad nauseam as they are, are clearly a ruse to disguise Frankenstein's true plan: self-destruction. The creature may as well not even literally exist; it is, after all, a mere surrogate for Frankenstein's desire to end himself. How could he possibly think that creating a hulking, sentient corpse-man wouldn't cause him any problems? How could he practically dare the creature to kill his fiancée by tearing up its bride to be? Frankenstein's actions aren't those of a man seeking happiness—happiness was handed to him all his life but he refused it. He instead sought a means to destroy that happiness, and ultimately himself.
So when asking the question of whether or not Frankenstein succeeds, it's important to understand his true goal. With that in mind, he succeeds marvelously. The creature is his instrument; he never loses control of it. It doesn't turn on its master; he grooms it to be his executioner from the beginning. So why not just go for a more time-honored method of suicide? Simply put, Frankenstein is too weak. He needs a proxy because it allows him a moral escape hatch, a hiding place for his essential cowardice. Killing himself in a more pedestrian fashion would disappoint his family and friends, and he clearly doesn't have the nerve to do so directly.
Thus he creates his creature; he gives life to death to give death to life.
Consider how he relates his feelings. He speaks in maudlin hyperbole—either he's at heights of happiness unknown to other mortals, or his despair defies description. In Chapter II, he says, rather immodestly, "No human being could have passed a happier childhood than myself" (Shelley 39). Right. And no human being would express happiness so pompously. However, Frankenstein's happiness proves short-lived and he spends the rest of his tale bemoaning his fate. A fairly typical example reads, "...my general state of feeling was a torpor, in which a prison was as welcome a residence as the divinest scene in nature; and these fits were seldom interrupted but by paroxysms of anguish and despair" (Shelley 187).
Such extremes of feeling, repeated ad nauseam as they are, are clearly a ruse to disguise Frankenstein's true plan: self-destruction. The creature may as well not even literally exist; it is, after all, a mere surrogate for Frankenstein's desire to end himself. How could he possibly think that creating a hulking, sentient corpse-man wouldn't cause him any problems? How could he practically dare the creature to kill his fiancée by tearing up its bride to be? Frankenstein's actions aren't those of a man seeking happiness—happiness was handed to him all his life but he refused it. He instead sought a means to destroy that happiness, and ultimately himself.
So when asking the question of whether or not Frankenstein succeeds, it's important to understand his true goal. With that in mind, he succeeds marvelously. The creature is his instrument; he never loses control of it. It doesn't turn on its master; he grooms it to be his executioner from the beginning. So why not just go for a more time-honored method of suicide? Simply put, Frankenstein is too weak. He needs a proxy because it allows him a moral escape hatch, a hiding place for his essential cowardice. Killing himself in a more pedestrian fashion would disappoint his family and friends, and he clearly doesn't have the nerve to do so directly.
Thus he creates his creature; he gives life to death to give death to life.
weak!
THE DAEMON DOES NOT DIE AT THE END. He doesn’t have the backbone (probably literally too) to follow through with his declaration of suicide. Face it, he’s weak, doesn’t have the willpower, and will end up wussing out and continue living like a mythical Bigfoot. I wish I could smack him and tell him to grow some balls.
Firstly, remember his first-time-with-fire incident? Yet he’s “determined” in by the end (fueled by the sadness of the death of Victor) to perish by flames, going into detail about ten times how he wants so badly to be burned alive.
Secondly, sure the creature’s clinically depressed, but that doesn’t mean it equates to suicide. Although he’s got severe pathological depression, he doesn’t seem to entertain the idea of suicide very often like most other suffers of major depressive disorder would.
Finally, Mary Shelley seems to have a thing for weak characters. Especially Frankenstein, who seems to fall ill to some crazy disease every time his head hurts. They’re all so interdependent and incapable of functioning when left to their own devices. Not to mention they’re all superficial, an obvious defense mechanism for those that don’t feel up to par with themselves. And like father, like son, right?
Don’t blame me; I psychoanalyze too much.
Incredible indeed!
Ridiculous is apparently key today. So since I have been bombarded by psychological themes from other classes, we shall proceed in this fashion to analyze Frankenstein. I'm sorry to say have to break it to everyone that Frankenstein is probably a brilliant psychopath in disguise. According to the first definition that popped up on Google, a psychopath can be defined as, "an individual with no superego or conscience; because of this deficit, the person often engages in extensive antisocial behavior."
Ah yes, Frankenstein the psychopath. It makes absolute sense! First of all, the man seems to have no REAL problem with grave robbing and disrespecting the dead, as he disregarded all moral dilemmas a normal person (but what is "normal"?... a topic for another day) rather quickly. True, he is a scientist, but how many people do you know that could handle hacking away at the corpses he stole from graves of people's loved ones for months, possibly years at a time without a complete nervous breakdown? In fact, Frankenstein does not seem to really realize the atrocity of his actions until the daemon is alive and well. For all we know, the creation of the daemon could be a byproduct of his true desire to just inflict damage and harm on human flesh (alive or not).
The extensive antisocial behavior is also shown in Frankenstein's regular self-imposed bouts of depressing isolation. The man just could not seem to handle being around people! Although much of his desires for isolation came about after the daemon's animation, the daemon could have just become the easy excuse in his mind to finally explicitly say "I WANT TO BE ALONE." The pressures of being around such a lovely and perfect family could have finally gotten to Frankenstein as well, cracking his tediously pieced together facade of a jubiliant, flawless individual.
I don't know if it's the Freud getting to me in my class or not, but I wonder if Frankenstein also suffers from an unresolved childhood Oedipus complex. It did indeed mention that he was the pride and joy of his parents, and it's logical that his mother would shower him with endless love and attention. Perhaps Frankenstein never quite made the transition from seeing his mother as his love object to another female. Since his mother dies, so dies his hopes for love, and by association "happiness." This can be a pretty hard pill to swallow, and it occurs right before he goes off to the university, where the daemon's construction begins. The trauma of losing his mother, the potential love of his life could have been the straw that broke the camel's back, releasing him of a superego's hold and causing him to lead the curiously twisted life of a psychopath.
Overall though, I say Frankenstein is a brilliant psychopath because he plays it off so well and using the daemon as the scapegoat for all his actions that would otherwise be deemed insane. For all we know, he could have committed the murders against his beloved (who he could secretly hate for their perfection) and just sworn "The giant monster did it!" He takes on the role of victim too easily, too smoothly and too conveniently. Bravo for the ingenuity but a cold shudder if it should all be true.
Ah yes, Frankenstein the psychopath. It makes absolute sense! First of all, the man seems to have no REAL problem with grave robbing and disrespecting the dead, as he disregarded all moral dilemmas a normal person (but what is "normal"?... a topic for another day) rather quickly. True, he is a scientist, but how many people do you know that could handle hacking away at the corpses he stole from graves of people's loved ones for months, possibly years at a time without a complete nervous breakdown? In fact, Frankenstein does not seem to really realize the atrocity of his actions until the daemon is alive and well. For all we know, the creation of the daemon could be a byproduct of his true desire to just inflict damage and harm on human flesh (alive or not).
The extensive antisocial behavior is also shown in Frankenstein's regular self-imposed bouts of depressing isolation. The man just could not seem to handle being around people! Although much of his desires for isolation came about after the daemon's animation, the daemon could have just become the easy excuse in his mind to finally explicitly say "I WANT TO BE ALONE." The pressures of being around such a lovely and perfect family could have finally gotten to Frankenstein as well, cracking his tediously pieced together facade of a jubiliant, flawless individual.
I don't know if it's the Freud getting to me in my class or not, but I wonder if Frankenstein also suffers from an unresolved childhood Oedipus complex. It did indeed mention that he was the pride and joy of his parents, and it's logical that his mother would shower him with endless love and attention. Perhaps Frankenstein never quite made the transition from seeing his mother as his love object to another female. Since his mother dies, so dies his hopes for love, and by association "happiness." This can be a pretty hard pill to swallow, and it occurs right before he goes off to the university, where the daemon's construction begins. The trauma of losing his mother, the potential love of his life could have been the straw that broke the camel's back, releasing him of a superego's hold and causing him to lead the curiously twisted life of a psychopath.
Overall though, I say Frankenstein is a brilliant psychopath because he plays it off so well and using the daemon as the scapegoat for all his actions that would otherwise be deemed insane. For all we know, he could have committed the murders against his beloved (who he could secretly hate for their perfection) and just sworn "The giant monster did it!" He takes on the role of victim too easily, too smoothly and too conveniently. Bravo for the ingenuity but a cold shudder if it should all be true.
Frankenstein: Divine as Comedy
(Don't hurt me, grammar police, for the following is only a modified freewrite(type). That is, I'm doing some editing.)
Frankenstein, sure, is a novel with historical content and flowery prose that leaves Mary Shelley readers simply dying for more. Yes, Frankenstein, I'm talking about that book about that guy who is now known as a giant green monster, similar to the Hulk, but generally thought of as less butch and more terrifying. Frankenstein may be ugly, he may be dumb, but his creature is quite the intellectual.
Funny, yes. Serious, I don't think so. Frankenstein is a comedy, I say. Comedy, in a "haha, that's HI-larious," kind of way, not a comedy like Dante's Inferno where everyone goes to hell or purgatory, if you're lucky. Sure, everyone dies at the end, but that doesn't mean it's not done in a highly comedic way. No one questions why Kenny is always killed, why question the deaths in Frankenstein? To me, the situation is similar to that of P.G. Wodehouse's Wooster & Jeeves characters. Frankenstein's a genius for being able to create life, but he arguably lacks some street smarts. His "daemon" is the Jeeves to his Wooster. When reading a Jeeves novel, you think, Could Wooster be more vacuous? Likewise, when reading Frankenstein, I wonder, Could Frankenstein be more daft? Frankenstein makes a "daemon" eight feet tall who is watery in the eyes, has raven hair, and looks nearly jaundiced. This description in itself could be frightful, but there are ways in which Shelley counteracts the nightmarish picture. First, there is the problem with not fully describing the animation scenes when Frankenstein is in his lab with the random limbs and whatnot from things human and nonhuman alike. Really, the early 1800s could have dealt with a little more gore. Why not put in some more detail? Macbeth gave us what was in the Three Witches' stew. Was an eye of newt in Frankenstein's recipe? I suppose we'll never know. And we'll never know because that information deems itself unworthy in a comedy.
Then there is the matter of the number of deaths due to the hand of the creature of Frankenstein. Some might have already been desensitized to the blow of lost lives after William and Justine. After all, they are just too pretty anyway. Frankenstein has a whole handful of beautiful people who are still alive to surround himself with. Additionally, all the feelings Frankenstein, his daemon and his friend Walton relay to the audience becomes much too maudlin, so maudlin that the emotion is replaced with levity. Instead of hilarity becoming so great that it hurts, Frankenstein exhibits hurting so great that it becomes something to be taken lightly.
Frankenstein, sure, is a novel with historical content and flowery prose that leaves Mary Shelley readers simply dying for more. Yes, Frankenstein, I'm talking about that book about that guy who is now known as a giant green monster, similar to the Hulk, but generally thought of as less butch and more terrifying. Frankenstein may be ugly, he may be dumb, but his creature is quite the intellectual.
Funny, yes. Serious, I don't think so. Frankenstein is a comedy, I say. Comedy, in a "haha, that's HI-larious," kind of way, not a comedy like Dante's Inferno where everyone goes to hell or purgatory, if you're lucky. Sure, everyone dies at the end, but that doesn't mean it's not done in a highly comedic way. No one questions why Kenny is always killed, why question the deaths in Frankenstein? To me, the situation is similar to that of P.G. Wodehouse's Wooster & Jeeves characters. Frankenstein's a genius for being able to create life, but he arguably lacks some street smarts. His "daemon" is the Jeeves to his Wooster. When reading a Jeeves novel, you think, Could Wooster be more vacuous? Likewise, when reading Frankenstein, I wonder, Could Frankenstein be more daft? Frankenstein makes a "daemon" eight feet tall who is watery in the eyes, has raven hair, and looks nearly jaundiced. This description in itself could be frightful, but there are ways in which Shelley counteracts the nightmarish picture. First, there is the problem with not fully describing the animation scenes when Frankenstein is in his lab with the random limbs and whatnot from things human and nonhuman alike. Really, the early 1800s could have dealt with a little more gore. Why not put in some more detail? Macbeth gave us what was in the Three Witches' stew. Was an eye of newt in Frankenstein's recipe? I suppose we'll never know. And we'll never know because that information deems itself unworthy in a comedy.
Then there is the matter of the number of deaths due to the hand of the creature of Frankenstein. Some might have already been desensitized to the blow of lost lives after William and Justine. After all, they are just too pretty anyway. Frankenstein has a whole handful of beautiful people who are still alive to surround himself with. Additionally, all the feelings Frankenstein, his daemon and his friend Walton relay to the audience becomes much too maudlin, so maudlin that the emotion is replaced with levity. Instead of hilarity becoming so great that it hurts, Frankenstein exhibits hurting so great that it becomes something to be taken lightly.
Male Loniness
Frankstein obviousl has many different themes running through but i think that Mary Shelley focused in on the male ego. I believe that it is Mary Shelley's attempt to portray a males vulenerability to loniness.
For starters there is Victor, a man is has everything. Who had a loving family, who even found him a wife and pseudo-adopted her in order to keep them close. Victor had dear friends who seemed eager to spend time with him and who admired him. Victor has intelligence and the respect of his peers and professors yet he still finds himself isolated, alone and cut off from the world.
Then there is Walter. Walter is constantly surrounded by his crew mates during his voyage, yet continually writes his sister confessing his loniness and his inability to connnect with anyone else on the ship. Once Victor died Walter gave in to the requests to return home, despite his desire to explore the world and stumble upon something great.
THe final example, though maybe cannot be classified as a human is the monster. Though he is never given a chance to include himself in society, had a chance to make ammence with Victor yet chose solitude and vengence.
Are men more vulernable to loniness?
Heather Stuart
For starters there is Victor, a man is has everything. Who had a loving family, who even found him a wife and pseudo-adopted her in order to keep them close. Victor had dear friends who seemed eager to spend time with him and who admired him. Victor has intelligence and the respect of his peers and professors yet he still finds himself isolated, alone and cut off from the world.
Then there is Walter. Walter is constantly surrounded by his crew mates during his voyage, yet continually writes his sister confessing his loniness and his inability to connnect with anyone else on the ship. Once Victor died Walter gave in to the requests to return home, despite his desire to explore the world and stumble upon something great.
THe final example, though maybe cannot be classified as a human is the monster. Though he is never given a chance to include himself in society, had a chance to make ammence with Victor yet chose solitude and vengence.
Are men more vulernable to loniness?
Heather Stuart
Ridiculous!
**Disclaimer: I apologize ahead of time if anyone is offended by the flagrant amount of ridiculous homosexual stereotyping in this post. It is all for the sake of supporting an equally ridiculous argument.**
Considering the time period and the reputation of the Frankenstein family, it was only natural to assume that Victor would grow up to be a fine young man with a bright future. The perfect, passive wife and five mini-Victors were written in the stars for him. One detail, however, stood in the way of such a picturesque future: Victor Frankenstein is a closet homosexual. I first became suspicious of Victor when he became obsessed with the creation of a male creature. Why not make the thing female? Perhaps he hoped that he could have a relationship with his creation away from the disapproving eyes of society; but that’s just speculation, now for the (sorta) hard evidence of his homosexuality.
1.) Victor’s first priority in his male companions is good looks. He rejects the monster he created solely based on its hideous appearance. It’s true that even proper grooming taught by the Fab Five could not fix the monster’s pallid complexion, but Victor should have at least considered that there could be a kind individual underneath the monster’s rough exterior.
2.) Victor allows his obsession with the male monster to delay his pseudo-incestuous marriage to Elizabeth. Victor confesses passionate love for Elizabeth, but doesn’t indicate any concern for the matter until questioned by his father and Elizabeth. Isn’t the saying, “Actions speak louder than words”? Victor takes action to see the male monster by agreeing to marry Elizabeth.
3.) Victor lacks strong masculine characteristics. Throughout the story, women play a passive role, acquiescing to the control of men and the expectation that they should suffer quietly. However, hands down, Victor would out win all the females in the novel for the “Passive Award”. During Justine’s trial, Victor remains silent even though he is the only person that can provide evidence to free the accused. Furthermore, he falls ill any time a traumatic event occurs rather than take action against the individual responsible for causing the distress. From my tally, he becomes sick/faints at least five times in the novel! Some may call it a weak disposition, but we all know that’s just a euphemism for pansy.
Considering the time period and the reputation of the Frankenstein family, it was only natural to assume that Victor would grow up to be a fine young man with a bright future. The perfect, passive wife and five mini-Victors were written in the stars for him. One detail, however, stood in the way of such a picturesque future: Victor Frankenstein is a closet homosexual. I first became suspicious of Victor when he became obsessed with the creation of a male creature. Why not make the thing female? Perhaps he hoped that he could have a relationship with his creation away from the disapproving eyes of society; but that’s just speculation, now for the (sorta) hard evidence of his homosexuality.
1.) Victor’s first priority in his male companions is good looks. He rejects the monster he created solely based on its hideous appearance. It’s true that even proper grooming taught by the Fab Five could not fix the monster’s pallid complexion, but Victor should have at least considered that there could be a kind individual underneath the monster’s rough exterior.
2.) Victor allows his obsession with the male monster to delay his pseudo-incestuous marriage to Elizabeth. Victor confesses passionate love for Elizabeth, but doesn’t indicate any concern for the matter until questioned by his father and Elizabeth. Isn’t the saying, “Actions speak louder than words”? Victor takes action to see the male monster by agreeing to marry Elizabeth.
3.) Victor lacks strong masculine characteristics. Throughout the story, women play a passive role, acquiescing to the control of men and the expectation that they should suffer quietly. However, hands down, Victor would out win all the females in the novel for the “Passive Award”. During Justine’s trial, Victor remains silent even though he is the only person that can provide evidence to free the accused. Furthermore, he falls ill any time a traumatic event occurs rather than take action against the individual responsible for causing the distress. From my tally, he becomes sick/faints at least five times in the novel! Some may call it a weak disposition, but we all know that’s just a euphemism for pansy.
Real?
What’s the deal with this monster. He thinks he knows what he wants, but what does he know? First of all, he is not a real person. He had no childhood or any experiences for that matter. All he knows is what he sees. Everything he knows about human thought and emotion and desires has come from the outside. He is unable to create these feelings himself.
It wasn’t until after the monster has seen Felix’s Safie that he had thoughts of love and companionship with a ‘bride of Frankenstein.’ And further, the being does not curse his creator until after reading Paradise Lost. All of the bad feelings and hatred toward humanity come to him after he observes these feelings from others. Even when he is chased out of town for the first time, he is rather confused, not angered. He simply keeps on truckin. If Frankenstein’s being is a blank slate, then human nature must be evil. Humans and society are what made him act out. People turned him against themselves due to their evil nature. The being could not help but imitate those he saw and that imitation made him corrupt and capable of vengeful murders.
-Shaunt Oungoulian
It wasn’t until after the monster has seen Felix’s Safie that he had thoughts of love and companionship with a ‘bride of Frankenstein.’ And further, the being does not curse his creator until after reading Paradise Lost. All of the bad feelings and hatred toward humanity come to him after he observes these feelings from others. Even when he is chased out of town for the first time, he is rather confused, not angered. He simply keeps on truckin. If Frankenstein’s being is a blank slate, then human nature must be evil. Humans and society are what made him act out. People turned him against themselves due to their evil nature. The being could not help but imitate those he saw and that imitation made him corrupt and capable of vengeful murders.
-Shaunt Oungoulian
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