Frankenstein (3)

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Frankenstein (3)

• The Monsters Education and Rejection by Humans

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Outline

• Starting Questions
• Education and its Implication
• Allusions
• The story of De Laceys
• Rejection and Regaining Hope in Nature

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Starting Questions

• Is the monster human? How do you characterize
  him? How is he educated?
• If Victor rejects him because he is ugly, what
  about the others such as De Laceys family, the
  little girl and Williams?

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The Monsters Education From Nature to Human
Civilization

• Human Mind as a blank slate noble savage (with
  natural goodness and without the pollution of
  civilization)
• Physical Responses and Survival (fire, food,
  shelter) ? continued appreciation of nature (moon
  103 Spring 115, 116)
• Sensual appreciation of music and feeling
  emotions (103 birds singing, music108-,
  painpleasure)
• Observation 1) He chooses to learn from the good
  but not the barbarous (chap 12 110--)
• Language (112-) ? learning the language like
  Safie (117, 118-19) ? Reading (later)

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The Monsters Education (2) Society

• Self and Other a) observation of and sympathy
  for the others? helps and attempts to understand
  and them help (115)
• housekeepingthe use of wood and tapers human
  interactions and connections
• Two kinds of human beauty 108-109
• human sadness and the motives behind (e.g.
  poverty) (110-111)
• Human kindness Felix and Agathas serving the
  father food while they eat nothing.
• Helping them carry wood (111), clearing their
  paths (114-15) sympathy (112)

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The Monsters Education (2)

• Self and Other (2)
• b).Self-Knowledge Sees himself (114) ?bitterness
  ? efforts in self-improvement ? more
  self-understanding and questions (120-21)
• (next)

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The Monsters Self-Doubt

• (p. 120) And what was I? Of my creation and
  creator I was absolutely ignorant, but I knew
  that I possessed no money, no friends, no kind of
  property. I was, besides, endued with a figure
  hideously deformed and loathsome I was not even
  of the same nature as man. I was more agile than
  they and could subsist upon coarser diet I bore
  the extremes of heat and cold with less injury to
  my frame my stature far exceeded theirs.

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The Monsters Views on Knowledge and Virtue in
Isolation

• Of what a strange nature is knowledge! It clings
  to the mind when it has once seized on it like a
  lichen (??) on the rock. I wished sometimes to
  shake off all thought and feeling, but I learned
  that there was but one means to overcome the
  sensation of pain, and that was death--a state
  which I feared yet did not understand. I admired
  virtue and good feelings and loved the gentle
  manners and amiable qualities of my cottagers,
  but I was shut out from intercourse with them

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For your Reference Maslows Hierarchy of Needs

• in Human Development
• Physiological - The need for food, drink,
  shelter, warmth and relief from pain
• Safety and security - The need to feel safe and
  secure
• Social and affiliation (with the family of De
  Lacey) - The need for friendship and interaction
  with others
• Esteem - The need for self esteem and the esteem
  for others
• Self-Actualization (source)

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The Monsters Self-Improvement Finding Company

• c) connections and natural benevolence hope
  destroyed and re-built several times
• I cherished hope, it is true, but it vanished
  when I beheld my person reflected in water or my
  shadow in the moonshine, even as that frail image
  and that inconstant shade. (131)
• Makes plans to approach them.

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The Monsters Self-Improvement Readings

• ardent learning of language as a godlike
  science applies his whole mind to it.//
  Frankenstein but with different purposes 112,
  113)
• The Sorrows of Werter Plutarch's Lives
• I learned from Werter's imaginations despondency
  and gloom but Plutarch taught me high thoughts
  he elevated me above the wretched sphere of my
  own reflections to admire and love the heroes of
  past ages(128-29)
• The Sorrows of Werter individualism and
  sentimentalism
• Plutarch's Lives heroes, wealth and social status

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The Monsters Education (2) Paradise Lost

• (first page) The monster as Adam, or Satan.
• Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay
• To mould Me man? Did I solicit thee
• From darkness to promote me? (Paradise Lost)
• chap 10 (pp. 100)
• "Remember that I am thy creature I ought to be
  thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel, whom
  thou drivest from joy for no misdeed."Chapter
  11(106)"...and it presented to me then as
  exquisite and divine a retreat as Pandemonium(??
  ) appeared to the demons of hell after their
  sufferings in the lake of fire.",

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The Monsters Education (2) Paradise Lost

• Chap 15 (129) Reading Paradise Lost ? the
  beginning of rebellion and revenge.
• Like Adam, I was apparently united by no
  link to any other being in existence but his
  state was far different from mine in every other
  respect. Adam had come forth from the hands of
  God a perfect creature, happy, and prosperous,
  guarded by the especial care of his Creator .
  but I was wretched, helpless, and alone. Many
  times I considered Satan as the fitter emblem of
  my condition, for often, like him, when I viewed
  the bliss of my protectors, the bitter gall of
  envy rose within me."

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The Monsters Education (2) Paradise Lost

• Chap 15 (129) Reading Paradise Lost ? the
  beginning of rebellion and revenge.
• (p. 131)"...to ramble in the fields of Paradise,
  and dared to fancy amiable and lovely creatures
  sympathizing with my feelings and cheering my
  gloom their angelic countenances breathed smiles
  of consolation. But it was all a dream no Eve
  soothed my sorrows nor shared my thoughts I was
  alone. I remembered Adam's supplication to his
  Creator. But where was mine? He had abandoned me,
  and in the bitterness of my heart I cursed him."
  ,

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The Monster Rejected

• By the marginalized and the weak De Lacey Family

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The Story of De Laceys Exile

• Influences on the Monster
• similar positions of being marginalized
• the lack of justice (// Justine, Frankenstein
  when Cherval is murdered)
• Parallel to the main story
• The rescue motif Safie as a gift to Felix
• her mothers absence
• examples of Orientalism

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The Monsters Need for Companion

• A human need expressed by
• Walton ? Victor,
• Felix ? Safie
• Elizabeth ? Frankenstein
• Part of his attempt to make peace and solve his
  own problems when being rejected.

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Rejection and Regaining Hope

• 1) The villagers and discovery of his appearance
  ? learning the language to approach De Laceys
• 2) De Laceys rejection 135 ? declares war (136)
  ? tranquility gained in sunshine ? decides to
  return (137) ? the family gone ? has the feelings
  of revenge (138)
• 3) To search for his creator (139-) ? travels in
  autumn and finds pleasure in nature (again 140)
• 4) Rejected by the little girl he saves and a
  rustic (141) ? vows eternal hatred and revenge to
  all mankind ? fails to appreciate nature (141-42)
• 5) Tries again to approach William (142) -gt
  rejected ? kills the 1st victim ? attracted and
  softened by the portrait temporarily (143) ? in
  rage again and seeking revenge with Justine
  (143-44)

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Frankensteins Respones

• To the Monsters Request

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Next Week

• Revenge and the Learning of and in Nature
• The contrast between Henry Clerval and Victor
  Frankenstein in their responses to Nature and
  natural philosophy
• Is Victor justified in breaking his promise?