Friday, March 20 2008 (Spring begins)

Today’s Agenda

1)      Presentation Groups: Presentations begin April 3 (I’ve moved the date to account for our reading)

a.       What are the groups?

2)      For today you had to finish Frankenstein. Many of you have very interesting things to say,  particularly about the conversation with the monster at the end.

1)

However, the part that surprised me the most, or the part that I found most interesting gin the end was; the monster actually felt sorry for the death of Frankenstein. Also, if I remember correctly, the monster admitted that he was the slave to Frankenstein, not the other way around. This I found shocking, in a way.

2)

The fact that the monster felt guilty for Victor’s death confused me a lot. How can this monster feel guilty for his creator after mentally breaking him down for so long?

3)

I can’t decide if I like the ending of the book or not. On one hand it tied up a lot of loose ends and answers many of the questions I had wanted to know. It also revealed the monster to be what I would argue as very human. The monster was full of contradictions, frustrations, the need to be loved, and hatred which are all very human. Then monster may have a lot of issues and been murderous but that unfortunately isn’t very uncommon to find in humanity. However I found the ending to this story disappointing. The monster runs Victor around Europe and to the ends of the earth to let him waste away?

This morning,  I am going to argue that one of the reasons why we anticipate this final confrontation is because it is expected by Frankenstein, who goes on for pages and pages about it. We get used to thinking that his version of the TRUTH is the TRUTH, when it clearly is not.

However, once we recognize that, we need to recognize that HE is the one telling us the story (through Robert). It is for this reasons that the MONSTER may seem so strange to you when he shows up at the end. Many of you commented on how the monster’s final speech characterized the monster as a different kind of person than the kind of person Frankenstein had made him out to be.

There’s a big hint about the kind of person Frankenstein is near the end of the novel. Let’s look at the Sept 5^th letter near the end, in which Frankenstein talks to Walton’s crew. Consider what he says: he talks about the importance of pursuing your goals, no matter what.

Journal Entry: Why is this speech important? What does it tell us about Frankenstein? In particular, think about the context in which it is delivered.  Is there anything strange about where and where Frankenstein is saying his, given his own personal history has we have understood it so far?

Group Work: I want you to discuss the following: If you were one of the crew mates who heard this story, would you believe Frankenstein? If so, why, if not, why not?

Class Discussion of Reading:

Mini-Lecture.

• Consider WHO is telling us WHAT
• What are the narrative frames in this story?

When we come to the end of the novel, one of the things that we may begin to understand is  how important is to consider WHO is telling us WHAT in this novel. It is all reported by Robert Walton, but, in that story, parts are attributed to Frankenstein, and parts are attributed to the Monster.

• It’s important to consider the speaker
• In this case, our speaker is a traumatized individual.

This should reinforce for us how important it is to consider the SPEAKER of a narrative, as the speaker’s perception of reality can really impact what is it is they say and do. For example, last time I talked about how trauma can impact our understanding of the world in very real ways.

• What are the traumas in his life?
• The death of his mother
• He is consumed in his efforts to resurrect the dead

Well, if we recognize that Frankenstein is a traumatized character, we might think about the traumas in his life that we are aware of. What are some of them? I would argue that the real trauma in his life is the death of his mother. We know that Frankenstein is a selfish person, but we also know that he is all consumed with her early research to resurrect the dead. Why might this be the case?

• The horror is that he accomplished something very different than what he set out to accomlpish.

While he never talks about resurrecting his mother,  the possibility is inherent in the work he is doing. This can also stand as an explanation for why he is so disgusted by the birth of the monster: when the monster is born, he sees that he has not reanimated ANYTHING, but, rather, as created NEW life and that all his efforts to resurrect OLD life were for naught. Notice that the MONSTER NEVER talks about its “old life” and never wonders about the “parts” he has been made out of. He is a NEW THING.

Frankenstein’s problem gets even worse if we consider his first conversation with Walton and the Crew and his final conversation with Walton and the crew. Remember  how Frankenstein only wanted to get on the boat if it was going his way? Well – well, why is this? It was to get to a confrontation with the monster, which we now know was probably imagined by Frankenstein – but he was totally dedicated to the pursuit.  Just like he was totally  dedicated to resurrecting the dead. This is the same kind of dedication we see at the end of the novel in his speech to the crew. Notice that, before and after this, Robert himself – who told us early on that he would rather die than not reach the pole, is ready to stop the journey.

There is ample evidence in this novel that Frankenstein’s early trauma, and his inability to cope with that trauma, lead him into entirely self-destructive pursuits, and  warp his ability to perceive reality. Now, this is a downer for sure, and in our next reading are going to encounter a character who is much better equipped to deal with these issues. But I what  to point out right now is that we have entered a new way at looking at people. For  Columbus, value was simply economic. For Dante, human life was determined by spirituality. For Chaucer, life was determined by social station and occupation. For Defoe, life is largely determined by your race and nationality. However, for Shelley, all of these factors are SECONDARY to one’s formative experiences, which  have the ability to determine both who you are, and what it is you are capable of doing.

Read: Up to chapter 6 of Jane Eyre

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