Frankenstein Discussions

Thanks to the students, staff and faculty who participated in tonight's Frankenstein discussions! We hope everyone enjoyed their sessions, and that you'll post comments to the blog.

To post a comment or to share what your group discussed, click the Comments link at the end of this post.

Exhibit/Lectures at Eastern

This fall Eastern Illinois’ Booth Library is exhibiting “Frankenstein:
Penetrating the Secrets of Nature” from Oct 17-Nov 20. This traveling library exhibit “encourages audiences to examine the intent of Mary Shelley's novel, Frankenstein, and to discuss Shelley's and their own views about personal and societal responsibility as it relates to science and other areas of life."

In addition, Booth Library will host a series of lectures on Tues/Thurs at 4:00, a film series on Wed evenings and other events. Some of the lectures include:
“The Art of Monsters: Sound Effects of Frankenstein Films”
“When Food Becomes a Monster”
“The Marketing of Fear”
“History of Organ Transplants”
“Fate of the Unmentionables: What Happens to Waste?”
“Why We Feel Sympathy for the Monster”
“Frankenstein and Latin America”

Booth Library will soon have a web site with complete information. For more on the traveling library exhibit, visit the American Library Association's website.

Frankenstein Events

Titan TV will show a series of “Frankenstein” movies throughout Fall Festival
Weird Science
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
The Bride of Frankenstein
Frankenstein (1931) (will be shown after the screening in Hansen Thursday evening)

September 21:
Shelley critic, Professor Anne Mellor, will address the IWU community in her talk: "Mothering Monsters - Mary Shelley's Frankenstein." (time and location TBA)

September 30-October 1:
IWU's English Honor society, Sigma Tau Delta, will host a student literary conference with a panel dedicated to Frankenstein on Saturday, Oct 1. (times and locations TBA)

Sunday, November 20, 7:00, Buck 108
Sonja Fritzsche will show Ridley Scott’s Bladerunner (USA, 1982). (This is for her Gateway class, but other first year students are welcome to join her class).

In spring:
Professor Mike Theune will give a talk to the IWU community on Shelley and the Romantics.

Frankenstein and Patchwork Girl

From Professor Wes Chapman:

Many works written after Frankenstein have borrowed from the novel in a lot of different ways, a testament to just how powerfully the novel resonates in our culture. One of the most interesting of these that I know of is Patchwork Girl, a hypertext novel written by Shelley Jackson and recently acquired (thanks to Stephanie Davis-Kahl) by Ames Library.

The premise of Jackson's story is that in some ways we are all (like the monster) patched together from parts of other people, from the genetic acquisition of an uncle's nose to the intellectual influences of every book we have ever read. True to this idea, the hypertext quotes at great length from Shelley's novel, but alters the meaning of the original by adding (among other things) sections in which the female monster is successfully created and smuggled away to America. It's a profound meditation on the nature of identity, and well worth a read for those who are up to an intellectual challenge.

Patchwork Girl is available in the New Materials section of the library.

Details for Thursday 8/25 Discussion

As first year advising coordinator I am writing again with details on what you should bring to and how to prepare for our upcoming Frankenstein discussion that will take place on Thursday, Aug. 25, 5:00-7:00.

1. Bring the book. I know it sounds obvious but make sure you bring the book to campus and then to the group discussion.
2. Bring writing utensil and paper.
3. Wear your nametag. Although you will be learning your fellow classmates’ names, the facilitators will certainly appreciate it if you are wearing your nametag.
4. You are expected to contribute to the discussion so come prepared with something, many things, to say. Also, you are expected to listen and respond to other people’s comments during our group discussion.
5. When you finish the novel, or even as you are reading it, take notes. Then, write down five, more if you want, observations, quotes, questions and bring all of your writing with you to the discussion.
6. Finally, if this is the first time you are reading the novel, consider what you thought about Frankenstein before reading Shelley’s work? What were your preconceived notions about the character Frankenstein? About the novel Frankenstein? How have they changed?

Again, safe journeys; I look forward to our discussions.

Prof. Nadeau

Frankenstein Website

Check out our new website and let Stephanie know if you have any suggestions!

Study Questions

As promised, here are a number of questions that will help you reflect on Frankenstein. A downloadable copy is also available in MS Word on the Ames Library website.

Study questions for Frankenstein
Modified from http://www.unl.edu/sbehrend/html/sbsite/StudyQuestions/Frankenstein.htm and http://classes.berklee.edu/llanday/fall01/tech/frankenstein.htm

1. Who was Prometheus? Why is the novel subtitled "the Modern Prometheus"?

2. Why is the novel initially set aboard a ship? Can you think of any other famous works which are set aboard ships? Why did Mary Shelley choose to use that particular setting here? Does it mean anything beyond the immediately apparent physical setting?

3. How do the narrative frames of the novel function? What are the layers of the story and how are they related by narrator, time, space, and content? Where--and who--is at the center of the story?

4. What sort of man is Walton? Does he serve any thematic function in the novel, or is he included largely as a "storyteller"--that is, is he included simply as a mechanical narrative device?

5. In what ways do Walton's letters prepare us for the tale he tells? What difference (if any) do these letters make in the way we react to the rest of the novel?

6. Work out a character sketch of Victor Frankenstein, concentrating on his values and psychological makeup. What does he value? What motivates him? What appear to be his "moral standards"?

7. The first three chapters tell us about Victor Frankenstein's childhood and youth; the fourth, about his "discovery" of the principle of life. For movie fans these chapters may seem irrelevant: after all, we want to see the Creature being created and--amid bursts of smoke and flashes of lightning--"born." Why, then, does Mary Shelley devote so much space to Victor's childhood environment and his education? Why do we need this stuff, anyway?

8. Volume I, Chapter iv the Creature is created. Where is the focus in this section? On the process of creation? On the Creature? Somewhere else?

9. Why does Victor work so diligently to bring the Creature to life and then become so abhorrent when he succeeds? Is Mary Shelley working with any "prototype" or "pattern" here? Has this sort of experience or behavior occurred anywhere else that you can think of, in literature, art, or elsewhere?

10. In chapters II.ii-xi, the Creature tells his story. Notice the place Victor Frankenstein meets his Creature. Why is this setting particularly appropriate? The novel now begins to zero in on its major themes. Of what does the Creature accuse Victor?

11. What do Chapters II.iii–vii reveal about the Creature's "natural instincts"? What gives him pleasure? What does he value? (Consider, for instance, how he describes the DeLaceys and their cottage.) Of what does the Creature's education consist?

12. In II.viii what does the Creature finally decide he must do, and why?

13. In II.ix what argument does the Creature offer in support of his demand? Why? Is it a reasonable argument?

14. In III.iii (p 116) why does Victor Frankenstein decide to discontinue his efforts to create a "bride" for the Creature?

15. On p. 117 we begin to see most clearly in Frankenstein's isolation from his fellow creatures a parallel to the Creature's own situation (see also pp. 123, 128). In what other ways are Victor and the Creature beginning to be strikingly similar? Have you encountered this sort of "parallel-making" anywhere else in literature or the arts? If so, where?

16. In III.vii note the surrealistic environment of the "chase" scenes. Are we getting into a different sort of novel than we were originally led to expect? If so, what is the nature of the difference?

17. On pp. 147-48, 151-52 we have Victor Frankenstein's final words--any significance? What about the Creature's final words p. 153-56?

18. Who is the novel's protagonist? Antagonist? "Hero"?

19. In an influential essay, the Romantic scholar and critic Harold Bloom wrote that the reader's sympathy lies with the Creature, but in his book The Romantic Conflict (1963) Allan Rodway says the reader's sympathy lies with Victor Frankenstein. Who is right?

20. What is a "monster"?

21. How are Nature and Technology represented in the novel? How is the modern conflict between the natural and the artificial dramatized in the novel? How is human nature portrayed?

22. How is gender treated in the novel? How is Nature gendered? Science? Creation? Consider the passionate relationships in the novel; how does gender inflect them?

23. What kinds of places are imagined in the novel? How do the interior states of the characters fit in with the exterior spaces in which they find themselves? How are different environments contrasted?

24. Frankenstein has remained vivid and alive through a series of visions and revisions of Shelley's novel. On August 25 we will view James Whale’s 1931 version of Frankenstein starring Boris Karloff (see Redfield’s article on the Frankenstein Talk Blog, or at http://www.rc.umd.edu/praxis/frankenstein/redfield/redfield.html). In addition to this film, dozens of others have been inspired by Shelley’s novel. Other than the obvious remakes, can you think of other films and/or novels that deal with Frankenstein and extend some of the same concerns in some way?

"Romantic Visionary Narratives"

English professor Mike Theune sent this along -- what you do think?

I’m very interested in the ways Frankenstein interacts with other ideas, issues, and trends of its day, and I’m especially intrigued in the way the novel critiques certain paradigms of Romantic visionary transformation.

The stereotypical narrative of Romantic visionary transformation—versions of which may be found in the poetry of Wordsworth and Coleridge, two poets quoted at length in Frankenstein—a solitary individual, usually a man, who feels dejected—a little depressed, a bit down—goes out into nature and has his emotions renovated, his positive feeling restored, by the glorious and mysterious sights he sees. Large portions of Frankenstein seem to me spoofs on this kind of narrative. Very shortly after burning down De Lacey’s cottage, the Creature is cheered by a spring sunrise. Even while terrible things are happening to Victor, nature can calm him at times—he is transformed by the mountains, but, of course, the next day he again despairs. Victor even comes to realize that “…now we are moved by every wind that blows and a chance word or scene that that word may convey to us.” What the novel powerfully shows is, as the Creature says to Victor, “How inconstant are your feelings,” and, as Victor says to himself, “How mutable are our feelings…”

In the place of the emotional instability of stereotypical Romantic visionary transformative moments, Shelley emphasizes the need for committed human connection and friendship. The Creature wants companionship. And throughout the novel, Victor’s ability to be transformed actually diminishes as he loses friends; he states, “…[O]ne by one my friends were snatched away—I was left desolate.” In the end, only Victor’s dreams can nourish him, and all those dreams have friends in them. Ultimately, according to Shelley, without friendship, trapped in the frozen emotions of revenge and despair, nature cannot bring relief. By the end of the novel, the signs nature gives are, themselves, all transformed, turned into nothing but frozen, chiseled indications merely of the ongoing hunt; Victor recounts, “Sometimes, indeed, he [the Creature] left marks in writing on the barks of the trees or cut in stone that guided me and instigated my fury.”

In “Tintern Abbey,” poet William Wordsworth writes of “a feeling, and a love” for nature “…[t]hat had no need of a remoter charm, / By thought supplied, or any interest / Unborrowed from the eye.” One of the major points of Frankenstein is to show that a feeling for nature in fact needs, is based on, the remoter charm, indeed the imperative, of friendship.

What the Story's About Depends on Who's Telling It

Professor Wes Chapman of the English Department just sent this along for posting...

Warning...spoilers ahead...read the novel before continuing...

Frankenstein's monster has become a powerful symbol in our culture of the dangers of scientists' poking their noses into things that might better be left alone, things that humans "aren't meant to know."
Frankenstein's own words support this view of what the novel is about:
"learn from me...how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge, and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow" (31).
But _Frankenstein_ the novel consists of three main narratives, not just one, and only one--Frankenstein's--is about the dangers of science.
Moreover, the other two narratives ought to make us question whether Frankenstein really knows what he's talking about.

Walton's opening narrative is largely about the importance of friendship. There is little here to contradict Frankenstein's tale directly, at least until after we have read the whole book through, but we should at least question whether Walton's desperate need for an educated friend might make him portray Frankenstein more favorably than Frankenstein deserves.

The monster's tale is much more complex, and a much deeper indictment of Frankenstein. The monster does not care, and at first does not know, that he is the product of a scientific experiment. What he knows is that, thrust as he is without guidance or aid into a state of nature, he is cold, hungry, and miserable. He quickly learns that people judge others on the basis of their appearance, and that because he is ugly they will attack him even when he has just saved a life. He learns more slowly that society values wealth and high social status above all, and that those like him who have neither are destined to be miserable.
Eventually he learns to hate, and to seek revenge, not (he says) because he is the product of science, but because he has been mistreated: "I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend" (66).

In short, where Frankenstein sees the theological implications of science as the crucial issue, the monster sees as crucial the social implications of injustice. These views cannot easily be reconciled, or even brought comfortably into dialogue with one another. In this way, the novel is less about the dangers of science than it is about the difficulty and importance of agreeing upon a moral and conceptual framework within which to judge science (or for that matter anything else).

Wes Chapman