Special Topics in English: Frankenstein

• Module 2A
• Skim the editor's introduction to our book, p. 13-40.
• Read the first volume of the novel, p. 47-110. (Be sure to take close note of the novel's title page on p. 47.)
• Lecture, Part One
• Subtitle: "The Modern Prometheus"
• Epigraph from John Milton's /emph{Paradise Lost}
• No author name, published anonymously
• Prometheus:
• Titan god
• Molded mankind out of clay
• Stole meat and fire from heaven for man
• Zeus sought revenge
• As a punishment, Prometheus was bound to a stake on a mountain where an eagle was set by the gods to feed upon his ever-regenerating liver (or heart)
• It was only generations later Prometheus was rescued
• Was Prometheus a hero or villain?
• Was his punishment justified or un-justified?
• Prometheus Bound, Jacob Jordaens, 1640
• perhaps similar to Icarus, aspiring too much
• Or is Prometheus a hero? Is he a martyr?
• Prometheus Unbound, Jean Delville, 1907
• Prometheus as a visionary, revolutionary, poet-prophet
• Prometheus as the hero of "the common man"
• Who in the novel is Prometheus?
• Parallels between the main title and the sub-title
• Prometheus is Frankenstein
• Perhaps the sub-title is pointing to the epigraph.
• Either Victor or the monster could be the I in the epigraph:
• Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay // To mold me man? Did I solicit thee // From darkness to promote me?----
• Adam speaking to God
• Connection between God and Prometheus: Both mold man out of clay
• Who is Adam's parallel in Frankenstein?
• If the monster, then Victor // God // Prometheus
• Victor is the hero like God, or Victor is the villain, trying to be like God.
• If Victor, the Victor // Adam vs. God // Prometheus
• Victor and monster as victims (of God/Prometheus)
• Epigraph inspires sympathy with Adam as well as with Victor and/or the Monster
• implicit critique of God/Christianity
• The epigraph advertises the sublime.
• religious sublime
• revolutionary sublime
• No person seems to have understood the secret of heightening, or of setting terrible things, if I may use the expression, in the strongest light, by the force of a judicious obscurity than Milton. His description of death in the second book is admirably studied; it is astonishing with what a gloomy pomp, with what a significant and expressive uncertainty of strokes and coloring, he has finished the portrait of the king of terrors:
• "The other shape, // If shape it might be called that shape had none // Distinguishable, in member, joint, or limb; // Or substance might be called that shadow seemed; // For each seemed either, black he stood as night; // Fierce as ten furies; terrible as hell, // And shook a deadly dart. What seemed his head // The likeness of a kingly crown had on."
  In this description all is dark, uncertain, confused, terrible, and sublime to the last degree.
• Religious Sublime: William Blake, God Judging Adam, 1795
• Revolutionary Sublime: Eugene Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People, 1830
• Natural Sublime: Caspar David Friedrich, The Wanderer Above the Mists, 1817
• Natural Sublime: Joseph Wright of Darby, Vesuvius
• Gothic Sublime: Thomas Girtin, Bamburgh Castle
• All have in common: Sublime Awe, J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851)
• Originally published anonymously
• clue from dedication to Mary Shelley's father
• William Godwin
• Political radical -- supporter of revolution
• first modern proponent of anarchy (involving utopian communitarianism)
• supported rights of men and women
• attacked aristocratic privilege
• atheist
• father of Mary Shelley, husband of Mary Wollstonecraft, admired by Percy Shelley
• advertises philosophy
• advertises radicalism--rights, anarchy, atheism, etc.
• many speculated Percy Shelley was the author
• Percy Shelley wrote the original Preface, but the novel is Mary Shelley's own
• (Percy contributed significantly to the 1831 revision, which made the story less radical.)
• Mary Shelley was groundbreaking!
• Science Fiction + Gothic
• 1726: Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels
• 1764: Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto
• Volume 1 Discussion - A 300-500 word post and a 100-200 word reply on one of the following prompts. Rather than summarizing the plot, explaining a concept in general terms, or attempting to address every part of the question, develop a focused argument about how Shelley creates meaning. To develop your analysis, close read at least one passage from Volume I. Analyze how one or more aspects of Shelley's language, imagery, characterization, symbolism, allusion, narrative structure, or use of the Gothic or sublime contribute to your interpretation. Support your claims with specific textual evidence. When quoting or discussing a passage, identify the relevant letter or chapter so that your classmates can locate it. Reply: Avoid simply stating that you agree or disagree. Reflect on the significance of your classmate’s interpretation, deepen or complicate the analysis, offer an alternative reading of the textual evidence, connect the argument to another passage from Volume I, or explain how another framework—Prometheus, science, the sublime, Christianity, or revolution—extends the original post.
1. The Modern Prometheus. How does Shelley develop Victor as a "modern Prometheus" in Volume I? Analyze how Victor’s pursuit of forbidden knowledge, creation of life, response to the creature, or failure to anticipate the consequences of his experiment shapes the meaning of the novel’s subtitle.
2. Science and Ambition. How does Shelley represent the pursuit of scientific knowledge through Victor's education and experiment? Analyze the relationship among curiosity, ambition, discovery, power, and responsibility in Volume I.
3. Creator and Creation. How does the epigraph from Milton's Paradise Lost shape your interpretation of the relationship between Victor and the creature? Consider how the possible parallels among God, Adam, Prometheus, Victor, and the creature complicate the roles of creator, creation, victim, hero, and villain.
4. The Sublime. How does Shelley use the sublime to explore human power, vulnerability, ambition, fear, or guilt in Volume I? Select a passage involving nature, terror, obscurity, overwhelming power, religious imagery, or a Gothic setting, and analyze the kind of sublime experience Shelley creates.
5. Science Fiction and the Gothic. How does Shelley combine scientific ideas with Gothic language, imagery, settings, or emotions in the creation episode or its aftermath? Analyze how the interaction between science fiction and the Gothic shapes the reader’s response to Victor’s experiment.
6. Revolution and Transgression. How does Volume I represent rebellion against natural, religious, intellectual, or social limits? Analyze how Victor's Promethean transgression reflects the revolutionary ideas associated with Prometheus and with the novel's dedication to the political radical William Godwin.
7. Justice and Authority. How does Justine’s accusation, trial, and confession expose the operation of social, legal, or religious authority in Volume I? Analyze what this episode reveals about truth, institutional power, inequality, guilt, and Victor's decision to remain silent.
8. Narrative and Sympathy. How do Walton's letters and Victor's first-person narrative shape the reader's sympathy and judgment? Analyze how Shelley's narrative structure influences whom readers trust, pity, admire, fear, or condemn in Volume I.
• Volume 1 Discussion: Responding to (5) The Sublime
• At the height of Victor's discovery and powers, he reflects on his sublime "engage[ment], heart and soul, in one pursuit" (81). He had just discovered his ability to "bestow[] animation upon lifeless matter" (79) and as he becomes engrossed in this singular pursuit, everything becomes obscured or overwhelmed. First, the world around Victor is being obscured. Nature around him is beautiful, and yet, his "eyes were insensible to the charms of nature" (81).
• Second, Victor's own body is being physically transformed. His "cheek has grown pale with study, and [his] person had become emaciated with confinement." His labors are physically taxing on himself. The whole endeavor almost removes himself from his own body, where says he has "lost all soul or sensation." He describes it as a "passing trance" as if some "resistless, almost frantic" force is pushing him forward.
• Perhaps even more importantly, Victor is also obscured from his human connections. His friends are disquieted by his silence. He knows how they feel and what they think, as he reflects on what his father wrote to him:
  "I know that while you are pleased with yourself, you will think of us with affection, and we shall hear regularly from you. You must pardon me, if I regard any interruption in your correspondence as a proof that your other duties are equally neglected."
  Victor understands he is being pulled away from society, pulled away from nature, pulled away from his own body, and yet he is unable to resist the overwhelming force that compels him to continue his singular pursuit.
• By describing the costs suffered by Victor in pursuing his creation, Shelley uses the sublime to create a scene completely different than how a scientist or creator would typically be envisioned. A scientist on the horizon of scientific breakthrough could be viewed as inspirational or thoughtful. A creator building a new invention could be seen as rewarding and gratifying. But Shelly's portrayal is completely different. It is dark, in the face of a beautiful summer. It is isolating, in a world where Victor has friends and family who care deeply about him. It is taxing on the body, where it could be rejuvenating.
• By framing the monster's construction in this sublime setting, Shelley prepares the audience for Victor's ultimate horror when he completes his creation. When Victor beholds his creation, "the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled [his] heart" (84). Without the foreboding and dark process under which the monster was created, Victor's reaction might not make any sense to his successful work. But having put Victor on this dark and obscure path, the audience can completely understand how the toils of his labor has created something that he now views with horror and disgust.
• Discussion Response
• I really do enjoy Shelley's narrative frame to the story. I don't view it as being used to prepare the reader for how harsh the truth is. Instead, I view it as preparing the reader for how unbelievable the story is going to be. The frame is used to make the story 100% believable. In the frame set up with Walter's letters, we find nothing that is fantastical or not perfectly believable. You do not have to divorce yourself from reality to accept Walter's version of events. He takes a boat trip. They rescue a man who is stranded on ice. The man tells him a crazy story. He writes down that crazy story. There is nothing supernatural at all. (I would not say Walter seeing the monster off in the distance is unbelievable. I think it cuts both ways: it lends credence to Victor's story while still being inconclusive and well within the bounds of the 100% believable frame.)
  I will date myself here, but using the frame to provide believability to the story reminds me of a movie I saw in movie theaters: The Blair Witch Project. For those not familiar with this movie because it is too old, it was really the first example of the found-footage horror film. It's not a movie about ghosts. It's a video tape someone found. And as a young teenager, it completely works as a believable frame. Shelley makes this whole story 100% believable by putting it in this narrative frame. I read Frankenstein the same way: it's a found-narrative horror.