Final Project Self Reflection

For the final project, I attempted to combine my first and fourth projects in order to elaborate upon the ideas presented primarily in the fourth. I used the first project as a back up to my argument from the fourth. I chose to revise the fourth project because I found it to be a very interesting idea to think about, namely the gray area between literature and art. By incorporating the first project, I was able to discuss another counter-argument and to also bring in the idea of reading and the role that it plays in defining these two concepts. These two projects seemed to go well together because the ideas they explored touched upon similar topics. These were also my two favorite projects from the semester.

In this final project, I worked on further developing my counter-arguments, as well as further defining what literature is. I also paid special attention to the organization of the piece and developing the introduction, which is something that I am feeling much better about now. In coming semesters, I would like to continue to play with incorporating various writing styles into the way I write. The activity in which we rewrote our introductions in a different style was incredibly helpful, and I will likely try to use that in the future to explore different ways of expressing my ideas. Additionally, I would like to work on my introductions and conclusions, as they are extremely important in any piece of writing.

Exploring Conceptual Differences Between Art and Literature

Reading and writing have been changing the ways in which humans think since their invention hundreds of years ago. Despite the fact that, only a few hundred years ago, the majority of the population could not read or write, these skills have become not only advantageous but truly essential to functioning in daily life. These skills are in no way static, as developments in technology are constantly influencing the ways that we use them. In fact, the definitions of age-old words have been challenged by developments in technology in recent years and its impact on thought. One piece that questions the boundaries of two specific terms, namely art and literature, is “Chemical Landscapes Digital Tales” by Edward Falco. This piece, which is available on the Electronic Literature Organization’s website (http://collection.eliterature.org), combines mock “photographs” of landscapes (created in a laboratory with chemicals and a flashlight) with “tales” that are meant to parallel the feelings and ideas suggested by the photographs. This piece is not an example of legitimate writing, which can be defined as a product of mental power that encourages intellectual thought from the careful interpretation of words ordered very intentionally, because its purpose is really to create a feeling visually rather than intellectually, it contains minimal amounts of written words, and it doesn’t follow a specific direction or plot. Its characteristics are, however, rather reminiscent of a piece of artwork.

When most people think of literature, certain characteristics generally come to mind. One trait that is often associated with literature is that it is written with a purpose. According to www.merriam-webster.com, literature is “writings in prose or verse; especially: writings having excellence of form or expression and expressing ideas of permanent or universal interest.” On this note, Falco’s piece could not be considered literature because it is abstract in nature. Its purpose is to provide a window allowing the viewer to create a world with characters and a story, but the viewer must create this world on their own. The assistance granted by the piece itself is minimal; indeed, Falco intentionally designed the piece so that the viewer cannot even read all the text in one or two viewings. Critic Sven Birkerts would agree with the idea that this piece is not a legitimate example of a literary text. In his book, The Gutenberg Elegies, Birkerts says “…this is the problem facing the fiction writer in our time. Not only must he figure out what to do about the flatness of quotidian experience, but he must also deal with the fact that the greater part of human activities – which once may have stood out in relief – now take place on many tracks at once, with the individual in a state of distracted absorption” (206). Birkerts would likely argue that this piece has too much going on, in too many different mediums, to be considered a “literary text.” The viewer has to get an impression from a picture and speed read as much of the writing as they can in the four to five seconds that it appears on the page, and then they are expected, by Falco, to mentally create a story based on the experience.

Birkerts touches upon an important idea in his quote, the state of “distracted absorption.” There are many writers and other intellectuals, including Birkerts, who believe that because of the amount of information that is available in our current society, most people only graze the surface of topics and never learn to dig deeper into the ideas they are presented with. Distracted absorption implies that we as a society have a difficult time focusing on one activity at a time. Indeed, this can be seen particularly in students, who often report that they have to listen to music to concentrate on their schoolwork. In the case of this piece, interestingly enough, the distraction comes not from an outside source but from the piece itself. Just when the viewer starts to see the photograph the words appear. Just when they start to read the words, the whole thing, picture and words together, begins to fade. The entire sequence of events takes place in less than ten seconds.

One counter-argument that I could anticipate is that, since so many people merely skim the majority of what they read anyway, limiting the amount of text means that they will read and absorb a larger percentage of what they are being told. Indeed, in the modern world, information is available on a large scale and is capable of spreading at ever-increasing speeds through new technology and forms of expression, such as electronic texts. In his book Culture Jam, Kalle Lasn says, “There is more information in the Sunday New York Times than the average person living during the Renaissance would have absorbed in a lifetime” (23-24). He goes on to describe how this information is not only, to a large degree, useless, but furthermore almost always comes to us in a biased form or with some sort of spin on it. One could argue that by limiting the amount of information that one is presented with will encourage them to spend more time with it. While this idea makes sense in theory, it wouldn’t hold true in actuality. Limiting the amount of written text that an author provides to an audience will not help with the audience’s distracted absorption because it will actually encourage the audience to spend less time with the piece, as they will assume that there is less to take away from it.

Another counter-argument could be that this text is worthy of study because of the fact that it uses writing to make the reader think. Furthermore, it allows for different people to read it and interpret it in different ways. However, I would argue that the second quality, in spite of the first, makes it more like artwork than like a literary text. According to the online dictionary www.merriam-webster.com, art is “the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects; also: works so produced.” As the written portion on each picture in the piece is based on the impression that Falco got from the picture, the work is a perfect fit with the aforementioned definition of art. The words are a minor aspect of the piece and are structured differently based on their location in the sky or on the ground. (When text appears over the picture’s “sky,” it is double-spaced; when it appears over the “ground,” it is single-spaced.) This structural difference makes even the written portion of the piece important visually, thus reinforcing the idea that this piece should be considered art as opposed to literature.

If this piece were to be in a non-electronic written form, it would most likely be some sort of picture book. Under the aforementioned definition, a picture book, while a written text, cannot be considered literature. While picture books are written with a purpose and do tell a story, they are not “writings having excellence of form or expression and expressing ideas of permanent or universal interest” (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary). Literature can be digital, but it should not be primarily visual. The only exception to this rule would be a film, as the final product is based on a carefully developed script, which is a clear example of “writings having excellence of form or expression.” Films are essentially visual interpretations of novels or other forms of storytelling. They can be considered literature because literature can be defined as something that requires reading, which is the interpretation of words into the ideas that they represent. We “read” a film by interpreting the lines that the actors speak, which they memorized from a written script, into ideas. From the simple words they say, we derive complex concepts.

As our society moves farther and farther away from traditional mediums, such as books and newspapers, we will have to redefine old words, and also create new ones, in order to accurately describe the new forms of literature and art that are created in the future. The boundaries between simple words like “art” and “literature” are becoming increasingly blurred by innovations that fall somewhere in between the two categories. Until these words are redefined, however, or until new words are created to describe the gray area between those two ideas, Falco’s piece entitled “Chemical Landscapes Digital Tales” has to be defined as art, as it fits that description almost perfectly. While art is a wonderful aspect of culture, it is not literature.

Works Cited

“art.” Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, 2010. Merriam-Webster Online. 21 April 2010 http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/art

Birkerts, Sven. The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age. New York, NY: Faber and Faber, Inc, 1994. Print.

Lasn, Kalle. Culture Jam: How to Reverse America’s Suicidal Consumer Binge – And Why We Must. New York: Quill, 2000.

“literature.” Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2010. Merriam-Webster Online. 20 April 2010 http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literature

Project 4: Blurred Lines Between “Art” and “Literature”

In recent years, the definitions of age-old words have been challenged by developments in technology and its impact on thought. One piece that questions the boundaries of two specific terms, namely art and literature, is “Chemical Landscapes Digital Tales” by Edward Falco. This piece, which is available on the Electronic Literature Organization’s website (http://collection.eliterature.org), combines mock “photographs” of landscapes (created in a laboratory with chemicals and a flashlight) with “tales” that are meant to parallel the feelings and ideas suggested by the photographs. Legitimate writing is a product of intellect, encouraging intellectual thought from the careful interpretation of words ordered very intentionally. This piece is not an example of legitimate writing because its purpose is really to create a feeling visually rather than intellectually, it contains minimal amounts of written words, and it doesn’t follow a specific direction or plot. Its characteristics are, however, rather reminiscent of a piece of artwork.

When most people think of literature, certain characteristics generally come to mind. One trait that is often associated with literature is that it is written with a purpose. According to www.merriam-webster.com, literature is “writings in prose or verse; especially: writings having excellence of form or expression and expressing ideas of permanent or universal interest.” On this note, Falco’s piece could not be considered literature because it is abstract in nature. Its purpose is to provide a window allowing the viewer to create a world with characters and a story, but the viewer must create this world on their own. The assistance granted by the piece itself is minimal; indeed, Falco intentionally designed the piece so that the viewer cannot even read all the text in one or two viewings. Critic Sven Birkerts would agree with the idea that this piece is not a legitimate example of a literary text. In his book, The Gutenberg Elegies, Birkerts says “…this is the problem facing the fiction writer in our time. Not only must he figure out what to do about the flatness of quotidian experience, but he must also deal with the fact that the greater part of human activities – which once may have stood out in relief – now take place on many tracks at once, with the individual in a state of distracted absorption” (206). Birkerts would likely argue that this piece has too much going on, in too many different mediums, to be considered a “literary text.” The viewer has to get an impression from a picture and speed read as much of the writing as they can in the four to five seconds that it appears on the page, and then they are expected, by Falco, to mentally create a story based on the experience.

Birkerts touches upon an important idea in his quote, the state of “distracted absorption.” There are many writers and other intellectuals, including Birkerts, who believe that because of the amount of information that is available in our current society, most people only graze the surface of topics and never learn to dig deeper into the topics they are presented with. Distracted absorption implies that we as a society have a difficult time focusing on one activity at a time. Indeed, this can be seen particularly in students, who often report that they have to listen to music to concentrate on their schoolwork. In the case of this piece, interestingly enough, the distraction comes not from an outside source but from the piece itself. Just when the viewer starts to see the photograph the words appear. Just when they start to read the words, the whole thing, picture and words together, begins to fade. The entire sequence of events takes place in less than ten seconds.

One counter-argument that I could anticipate is that this text is worthy of study because of the fact that it uses writing to make the reader think. Furthermore, it allows for different people to read it and interpret it in different ways. However, I would argue that these qualities make it more like artwork than like a literary text. According to the online dictionary www.merriam-webster.com, art is “the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects; also: works so produced.” As the written portion on each picture in the piece is based on the impression that Falco got from the picture, the work is a perfect fit with the aforementioned definition of art.

As our society moves farther and farther away from traditional mediums, such as books and newspapers, we will have to redefine old words, and also create new ones, in order to accurately describe the new forms of literature and art that are created in the future. The boundaries between simple words like “art” and “literature” are becoming increasingly blurred by innovations that fall somewhere in between the two categories. Until these words are redefined, however, or until new words are created to describe the gray area between those two ideas, Falco’s piece entitled “Chemical Landscapes Digital Tales” has to be defined as art, as it fits that description almost perfectly. While art is a wonderful aspect of culture, it is not literature.

Works Cited

“art.” Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, 2010. Merriam-Webster Online. 21 April 2010 http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/art

Birkerts, Sven. The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age. New York, NY: Faber and Faber, Inc, 1994. Print.

“literature.” Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2010. Merriam-Webster Online. 20 April 2010 http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literature

Blurred Lines Between Art and Literature

The piece that I will be critically evaluating is “Chemical Landscapes Digital Tales” by Edward Falco. This piece combines mock “photographs” of landscapes with “tales” that are meant to parallel the feelings and ideas suggested by the photographs. This piece is not an example of legitimate writing because its purpose is really to create a feeling visually rather than intellectually, it contains minimal amounts of written words, and it doesn’t follow a specific direction or plot.

Birkerts would also disagree with the idea that this piece is an example of a legitimate piece of writing. In his book, The Gutenberg Elegies, he says “…this is the problem facing the fiction writer in our time. Not only must he figure out what to do about the flatness of quotidian experience, but he must also deal with the fact that the greater part of human activities – which once may have stood out in relief – now take place on many tracks at once, with the individual in a state of distracted absorption” (206). Birkerts would likely argue that this piece has too much going on, in too many different mediums, to be considered a “literary text,” as he sees texts as linear, with a set beginning and end. The introdution to this piece on the website collection.eliterature.org describes the experience of viewing this piece as “like walking through a field: readers begin at any one of several different starting points, wander around as long as they like, and then exit wherever and whenever they choose.”

One counter-argument that I could anticipate is that this text is worthy of study because of the fact that it uses writing to make the reader think. Furthermore, it allows for different people to read it and interpret it in different ways. However, I would argue that these qualities make it more like artwork than like a literary text.

A Picture is Worth A Thousand Words

Edward Falco’s digital text “Chemical Landscapes Digital Tales” remediates the reading/writing experience by using text as a secondary means for telling a story instead of as the primary one. This text contains eight photographs that appear to be landscapes, which the author made in a darkroom by using chemicals and a flashlight. Lying over the photograph is a story, structured to have single lines on the top half of the photograph (in the “sky”) and a full paragraph at the bottom of the photograph.

This text initially interested me because the author says on the description page that he “tried to time the fading in and out of the text so that it is almost impossible to read it all before it fades away.” I found this intriguing because it doesn’t make sense that someone should go through the process of writing something if they do not want people to read it. So why bother?

Pondering this question while contemplating the eight photographs, I eventually realized that it isn’t that the author doesn’t want the viewer to read the words, but rather that he wants his pictures to tell the reader the story instead of just the words, and everyone reads and interprets pictures differently for the simple reasons that no one sees everything in every picture and that the parts of the pictures that resonate with each person are different. The author wants the words that he wrote to supplement the pictures, which look like hazy landscape pictures taken with an out-of-focus camera. The words provide a story, but since the viewer can only read some of the words at once, they can travel through the picture in several different ways depending on what sections of each text they read, whether they return to the same photograph a series of times to finish each text, the order in which they read the sections on each photograph, and the order in which they view the photographs.

Project 3: Echoes of Frankenstein in Unexpected Places

Even those who haven’t seen the film can picture the opening: Dr. Phil and Shaquille O’Neal chained to the floor of a dirty bathroom with a dusty old TV stuck into the wall between them. A mysterious voice begins to welcome them to their present situation. Moments later, the TV turns on to give a body to the voice. The speaker is Jigsaw, the well-known mastermind of the Saw film series. Looking at the film Scary Movie 4 on the level of its own creation, one can see that the film is a remediation of Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein. The original version of the novel has been remediated by a variety of films in the past 100 years. Some films, such as the 1994 film Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, are quite obviously remediated versions of the original novel. Others, however, such as Scary Movie 4, are not so obvious or straightforward. This 2006 film is a parody that incorporates various aspects of plot from a variety of other films, including The Grudge, The Village, the Saw series, and War of the Worlds.

While not obviously or exactly a story about the creation of some sort of being, this film remediates an extremely important element of Frankenstein, the actual creation of the novel by Mary Shelley. Just as Shelley refers to her novel in her 1831 introduction as her “hideous progeny,” this film, and indeed the others in its series, may be seen as a detestable creation by some, not in the least by those whose works the film parodies. The creation of both of these works (namely the novel Frankenstein and the film Scary Movie 4) is extremely similar in that both works use and adapt pieces of outside works in order to supplement and further their stories, both share similar plot structural elements, and both have common threads in character development.

Shelley’s novel is distinctly recognized as being an example of intertextuality in writing. Intertextuality is the quality of having other texts incorporated either explicitly or implicitly into the text or plot of the piece in question. Some of the more famous instances of this in the novel may be Shelley’s use of her husband’s poem “Mutability” or the apparent connections between the novel and the story of Genesis. However, these well-known intertextual pieces cannot, and should not, take away from the importance of other less-well-known texts that Shelley incorporates or of similarly well-known texts that she incorporates to a lesser degree. The film Scary Movie 4 is not merely a parody of four films from popular culture. Rather, it takes the implications of these major contributing stories, as well as those from the thirteen other officially spoofed scenes and events, and mixes them together to form the full impact that the film has on the viewers.

In one scene, for example, the President is informed of an alien attack while listening to a children’s story being read in an elementary school. This is a spoof about how President Bush went to hear children reading about pet goats on September 11, 2001. This scene in particular is an interesting one in terms of intertextuality because the door through which it leads the reader goes not to one distinct place, but rather to all of the news broadcasts and papers that documented this event in history. This scene creates an undertone of frustration and sadness within the viewer at being reminded of the horrible events of that day, as well as of the other public memories of our previous President.

Various aspects of the plot structure are also similar throughout these two stories. Scary Movie 4 is a perfect example of how producers can take a well-known piece of written work – in this case, a novel – and translate purely the textual structure, without the plot, to create a similarly structured work in a different medium. For example, in a way similar to Shelley’s Frankenstein, both begin with a scene that, after its initial presence within the story, becomes unimportant for a large portion of the following plot. In Frankenstein, this is a series of letters from the initial narrator to his sister. These letters set the stage for the remainder of the novel to share the woeful tale of the mysterious stranger, no other than Victor Frankenstein himself. In Scary Movie 4, this scene is one of Dr. Phil and Shaq chained as Jigsaw’s prisoners in a bathroom that is reminiscent of the corresponding scene in the Saw series.

Throughout the film, character development causes different characters to fall into different roles from Frankenstein at different points in the plot. As a result, while this does not allow the story of Frankenstein to be seen linearly through the plot of the film, it does allow for aspects of the characters to be seen in a more open-minded, fluid perspective. For example, there is one scene near the end of the film where the character Jigsaw is portrayed as both Frankenstein and as the creation simultaneously. On one hand, Jigsaw is a creator and an inventor. His creations are evil and malicious. On the other hand, however, Jigsaw is also like the Creation in that, through the way he is portrayed, he draws out feelings of sympathy from the audience because of the life he has been forced to lead due to circumstances beyond his control.

Intertextuality is so much more than simply mimicking parts of stories. Rather, it allows a film to expose an audience to a wide range of emotions and memories, and it furthermore allows these emotions and memories to be present to different viewers at different times. Some viewers may not experience all possible emotions every time they view the film, just as not all readers will go through every intertextual door in Frankenstein every time that they read the novel. In this way, as well as in the other ways that they are similar, it is clear how the creators of Scary Movie 4 used Shelley’s novel as inspiration for this remediated version of her creation.

Works Cited

Scary Movie 4. Dir. David Zucker. Miramax Films, 2006. Film.

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. 2nd ed. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2000. Print.

Frankenstein References in Unexpected Places

Although the film is not explicitly a “Frankenstein” story, Scary Movie 4 is in essence like the story of Frankenstein in that it is a story composed of a series of other stories. This film is a parody, incorporating various aspects of plot, character development, and production style from a variety of other films, including The Grudge, The Village, the Saw series, and War of the Worlds.  In a way similar to Shelley’s Frankenstein, the film opens with a scene that is not directly important to or involved with the majority of the remaining plot.

Scary Movie 4 is the fourth in a series of five films presented in such a manner. In addition to pulling in aspects of separate films, they also relate in some ways to each other. For example, approximately halfway through the film, a character is introduced for a brief period of time who actually died in Scary Movie 3.  Presenting this focus is important because it demonstrates from the beginning the echoes of Shelley’s novel within the film. The novel is not just present in aspects of the film’s plot; rather, it is evident in the very methods used to tell the story within the film.

Throughout the film, different characters fall into different roles from Frankenstein at different points in the plot. As a result, the story of Frankenstein cannot be seen linearly through the plot of Scary Movie 4 even though it may be visible from a more open-minded, fluid perspective. In one situation, near the end of the film, Jigsaw is portrayed as Frankenstein in that he is a creator and an inventor and also in that he is seeking revenge for the death of a loved one. However, Jigsaw also seems a bit like the Creation from the story of Frankenstein in that he is portrayed in such a way as to encourage the audience to feel sympathetic towards him because of the life he has been forced to lead due to circumstances beyond his control. Because these two roles are played at some times simultaneously, it may be difficult to easily see the Frankenstein references that are present. I would focus on this scene because there are many aspects of the novel that are present within it, and they are only visible when looked at through a very fluid perspective. Using this logic, many films contain trace amounts of Frankenstein within them. However, these are often overlooked because of the fact that when we watch films for pleasure, we often miss small but important details. 

Intertextuality in Shelley’s Frankenstein

At first glance, Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel entitled Frankenstein looks like any other novel. Upon opening the front cover, however, readers will begin to notice that the novel is not just the story of a man terrorized by his creation of a human-like being. To the curious and observant reader, the novel can serve as a portal through which they can reach many other texts. This quality, intertextuality, allows the novel to say more than the words written upon its pages. One example of intertextuality in this novel is Shelley’s use of William Wordsworth’s 1798 poem entitled “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey.” (The poem will be referred to as “Tintern Abbey” throughout this essay for the sake of the audience.) In fact, Shelley’s novel mirrors Wordsworth’s poem in many ways, demonstrating that intertextuality is more important than just the instance when the second text is quoted within the first.

Shelley quotes “Tintern Abbey” at the point in the story when Victor Frankenstein is traveling home with his father after recovering from the illness that overcame him upon learning upon Henry Clerval’s death. At face value, a sentence fragment precedes the quote, which completes Victor’s thoughts about his deceased friend. Looking beneath the surface, however, we see that there are distinct similarities between Frankenstein and “Tintern Abbey.” One such similarity is that both contain explicit and detailed descriptions of nature. Both Shelley and Wordsworth use these descriptions to invite the reader in, allowing the reader to enter into the worlds that they have created. While in Frankenstein these details mostly provide a background to the story, thus making it believable, Wordsworth uses these descriptions to enhance the impression that the narrator makes upon the reader, as they are one of the few means that the reader has to see into the soul of the narrator. As nature is important to the narrator of the poem, it is likewise very important to the creature Frankenstein creates.

If the reader should read “Tintern Abbey” after reading Frankenstein, they may notice a certain similarity between the narrator of the poem and Victor. The poem reads “And so I dare to hope / Though changed, no doubt, from what I was, when first / I came among these hills; … / … more like a man /Flying from something that he dreads, than one / who sought the thing he loved” (lines 66-73). Like Victor, the narrator is chased by the fear of something that he has done. In the case of the narrator, however, the thing that is chasing him is his wasting his “hour of thoughtless youth” (line 91) upon the aspects of nature that could be observed visually, and not upon those that required mental examination.

Wordsworth’s poem ends as follows: “Nor wilt thou then forget, / That after many wanderings, many years / Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs, And this green pastoral landscape, were to me / More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake.” The narrator further professes the impact that his youth spent in nature has had upon his life. While this section of the poem is not actually included in Frankenstein, we can see how it relates to Victor’s story. Even at the end of his life, Victor carries the memories of the people whose lives his creation has impacted or ended. Even through their absence, he has not forgotten them, and he carries them very close to his heart.

Unfortunately, intertextuality is only an effective tool if the reader is familiar with both texts. The average present-day reader may not actually be familiar with “Tintern Abbey,” but if they should search it out and read it, they will see that the similarities between the two texts serve to enhance the story of Frankenstein through the incorporation of themes and ideas from “Tintern Abbey” into the novel.

“His Most Abhorred Task”; or The Creature’s Right to Love?

As the story of Frankenstein continues, we hear more of the creature’s story, as he tells it to Frankenstein. The creature eventually tries to win over the favor of the old man in the cottage where he has been hiding out for the past year, but when the other inhabitants return home sooner than expected, they are terrified by the creature’s appearance and leave the cottage soon after. The creature is upset by their reaction and burns the cottage down before setting off for Geneva seeking revenge upon Frankenstein. Upon arriving in Geneva, he happens to find William. After killing Will, he hides the necklace in Justine’s dress before leaving.

After finishing with his story, the creature demands that Frankenstein create a female for him to live with. At first, he refuses, but eventually Frankenstein reconsiders and sets off a few months later with Henry Clerval, under the pretense of going on vacation, to work on his “most abhorred task” (132). It takes three months for them to arrive in London, where the friends separate. Frankenstein sets up a new laboratory on an island and begins work on the second creature. One night, however, Frankenstein has second thoughts again and destroys his work. The creature visits Frankenstein several hours later and threatens him by saying “ ‘I go; but remember, I shall be with you on your wedding-night’” (146).

One thing that I noticed was that the creature refers to having a female companion with whom to live as “ ‘a right which you must not refuse to concede’” (128). Even from his minimal interactions with society, the creature has learned that males and females are “supposed to” form pairs and live together. However, why does the creature believe that this is a right? According to www.m-w.com/, a “right” is defined as “qualities (as adherence to duty or obedience to lawful authority) that together constitute the ideal of moral propriety of merit moral approval.” The creature further emphasizes how he views having a female companion to be a condition owed to him by his existence when he says, “ ‘Shall each man … find a wife for his bosom, and each beast have his mate, and I be alone?’” (146). The creature seems to strongly feel that, if he should have even one person with whom to communicate and in whom he can find acceptance, that it will make up for every other negative experience that he has had thus far.

Another question: why, knowing the way that he was received by the world, would the creature ask for another being to suffer the same negative experiences that he himself has gone through? Even if the creature just feels lonely, why would he feel content to have one other person with whom to communicate for the rest of his life, and why would he be happy to leave Frankenstein alone after this favor (of sorts), if he feels so strongly that all of his misfortune and suffering is Frankenstein’s fault?

Frankenstein’s “monster” doesn’t seem so scary

Shelley starts off the novel with a series of letters from one character, a certain R. Walton, to his sister, Mrs. Saville. We find out at the end of his fourth letter, however, that the story to take up the rest of the novel is not actually his own story, but the story of a man that he meets during his travels. As chapter one begins, the narrator switches from R. Walton to Frankenstein, although the tale is Frankenstein’s as told by R. Walton to Mrs. Saville.

We learn next Frankenstein’s personal history growing up, and about his family. When he is seventeen, he goes away to school at the University of Ingolstadt, where he is mocked by the first professor he meets for the fact that, growing up, he so diligently studied two people whose works had been completely disproved. Despite this somewhat rocky start, which doesn’t seem to affect him very much at all, Frankenstein quickly rises to the top of the university, making “some discoveries in the improvement of some chemical instruments, which procured me great esteem and admiration at the university” (55). It is no surprise, then, when he eventually discovers, as he calls it, “the cause of generation and life; nay, more, I became myself capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter” (56-7). Becoming completely wrapped up in this experiment, Frankenstein begins neglecting writing to his family and becomes sickly, nervous, and very standoffish. When he finally finishes making his creation and it comes to life, Frankenstein becomes terrified by what he has done and runs from the room. The monster disappears from the university, and Frankenstein becomes very sick for several months.

One thing that I didn’t really understand about this story is why Frankenstein becomes so afraid of his own creation. He himself describes his creation as beautiful, with correctly proportioned limbs, flowing hair, and pearly teeth. The only aspect of the creature’s image that appeared to disturb Frankenstein was the eyes, which were dull yellow and watery. As Frankenstein himself says, “I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. For this I had deprived myself of rest and health” (60). Why then is he filled with horror and disgust by his own creation, which he had desired to strongly to create?

Another thing that I noticed from reading farther into this novel is that the “monster” doesn’t really seem scary or terrible at all. In fact, when we begin to hear his story at the beginning of chapter eleven, I felt sort of bad for him. After all, Frankenstein created him and then ran from him in terror. The “monster” didn’t ask to be a monster, or to be created at all. Now, he has had to learn everything about how to survive on his own by teaching himself or observing nature or other people. Everyone that he meets in his early days either runs from him in terror or attacks him. At one point, an entire village attacked him “until, grievously bruised by stones and many other kinds of missile weapons, I escaped to the open country” (98). He eventually ends up hiding in a tiny hovel “so low, that I could with difficulty sit upright in it” (98).

I do wonder, however, despite his observing others, how is it that the monster is so smart? How does he have the intellectual capacity to learn so much information in such a short time? He basically goes from a child to a fully functioning adult in only a year or two. Perhaps Shelley will answer this question in upcoming chapters.