Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
is a true classic in literature. The fact that it has spawned so many
different parodies and run-offs just goes to show the impact that it has had on
the world. This particular version of the book – being the very first one of
the Frankenstein genre – was quite fascinating to us. To see where this
creature was “born” from is truly unique. The back story that we learned today
in class about this book’s true origin – about Shelley writing the book because
her husband and his friends bet who could write the greatest horror book –
makes the book that much better in our eyes. To know that she created this book
in order to trump her husband is just fantastic!
The book itself was a masterpiece in and of itself. The way
that Shelley portrayed Victor Frankenstein to be so wretched and horrible
toward his own creation really made us think that he (Frankenstein) was the
TRUE monster in this story. We all felt that Frankenstein’s monster was the
victim in this story because all he wanted was to be accepted by society and to
live a normal life. This is shown during “the monster’s” story when he lived in
the mountains and studied the family that lived in exile next to him. “The
monster” spent months studying these people – learning their language, studying
their actions, and just gaining an overall understanding of human interaction.
However, even after all his time over studying them and helping them out, when
he finally went to them to ask for “protection,” they screamed in horror and
starting fighting him. Although he felt despair from this, he still did not
kill them even though he knew he could have. If feels to me that “the monster”
really just wants to have the love and support of his creator – Victor
Frankenstein. This is where the dilemma comes into play though because
Frankenstein only sees his creature as a murdering monster. So it is ironic in
a way because Frankenstein is so ruthless toward his creature that he ends up
becoming a murderer (at least through association) and the monster just wants
love and connection amongst others – so he is more human than his creator is
(in some ways).
Throughout this book we all felt mixed emotions about both
Frankenstein and the monster. We didn’t really know at all times who the protagonist
and who the antagonist were. We feel that Shelley intentionally wrote the
characters out to be this way so that it left their roles up for
interpretation. We all loved that Shelley left them up for interpretation
because we all were able to interpret the book differently which led us to have
a great group discussion about it in class.
We as a group loved this book and are wanting to explore
even more into Frankenstein, as well as the author Mary Shelley. We would definitely
recommend this book to anyone who wants a good read (horror or not).
BRING ON THE NEXT BOOK!
Your post made me wonder this: is there any way that the monster COULD have made himself acceptable to Victor? Or is Shelley's theme the idea that no child can ever feel sufficiently appreciated by a parent?
ReplyDeleteIn class we all pretty much agreed that we related more to the monster than we did with the doctor. I appreciated what you said about Dr. Frankenstein being the TRUE monster of the story. It makes us, the readers, question what is truly monstrous. Is it how one appears or how one acts? The monster is the reflection of the creator, the physical manifestation of his true and hideous nature. When confronted with this reflection, Frankenstein freaks and simply can’t handle it. Although this an entirely ineffective way of dealing with the situation, it seems pretty true to life – I mean how would any of us feel to have all our imperfections and uglinesses presented to us the form of reanimated corpse?
ReplyDeleteBrooke Sutcliffe for Bromanley