This week, we completed our coverage of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Using your notes of this week’s lecture and your reading, write approximately 250 words summarizing and highlighting those points that stand out the most in your mind and in your notes.
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Some things I have noticed is that the creature does live up to what he says because he ends up killing Elizabeth. Victor then goes to the authorities and tells them about the whole situation regarding his creation. While the authorities are pondering what Victor told them, Victor is set on getting revenge on the creator because of what he did to Elizabeth and his past family members. Victor ends up leaving Geneva to go track down the creature. He ends up in the Mediterranean Sea on a big ship going to the Arctic. The weather gets worse and they barely have enough food but Victor is very close to capturing his creation. Robert even encourages him to keep going because he is so close. Victor ends up becoming unwell and close to death. narrative shifts to Walton, who is trying to prevent his death. Sadly, Victor did not survive, While Walton was there, the creature also appeared and noticed that Victor is dead. The creature feels grief over his creator’s passing. He also came to realize that humans will never accept him. This leads the creature to stay in the arctic until he dies. He also tells Walton he is not going to harm him or his crewmates. This is kind of like the end of the creature as well because Victor is gone and his goal of revenge is gone and he has nothing else to strive for. He leaves the ship and disappears. Some things from the lecture that connect with this is the creature and what he has done to him were the unintended consequences of his actions. Victor did not take time to consider the negative consequences of what creating the creature would do. He also did not consider the ethical controversy for what he did. It was also mentioned in the lecture that Victor did not take responsibility for his creature. He neglected it and the creature became what it is.
In the novel of Frankenstein from chapter 18 – 24. Victor goes on the hunt for the creature after the creature murdered Elizabeth after the wedding night, and other people he loves. Victor’s pursuit for the creature becoming more desperate as they are running around all over Europe, and they ended up in the North Pole. That is where Captain Robert Walton and Victor Frankenstein met, and telling Captain Walton the story. As the weather getting worse and cold in the arctic, Victor eventually getting sick from his exhaustion from chasing the creature, but sadly Victor didn’t make it to the end. After the death of Victor, the creature appears to his bedside pay a final farewell to his creator while Walton is witness it. The creature feeling grief after Victor died, and he realize that mankind will not accept him among us, then the creature decided to stay in the arctic and kill himself in the cold, when Walton’s ship decided to turnback around.
The connection from the lecture and to the readings are Victor is lack of responsibility from his own creation. The creature was angry and furious on Victor after he abandon him. Prof Ellis said, “Things can turned out a lot differently if Victor accepted his responsibility from what he had made”, this means, if Victor stays with his creature and help him and educate him then there won’t be any death to the Frankenstein family. This taught us being irresponsible there will be a price to pay, the creature that Victor created becomes a curse, a nemesis to hunt him.
In the novel of Frankenstein from chapter 18 – 24. Victor goes on the hunt for the creature after the creature murdered Elizabeth after the wedding night, and other people he loves. Victor’s pursuit for the creature becoming more desperate as they are running around all over Europe, and they ended up in the North Pole. That is where Captain Robert Walton and Victor Frankenstein met, and telling Captain Walton the story. As the weather getting worse and cold in the arctic, Victor eventually getting sick from his exhaustion from chasing the creature, but sadly Victor didn’t make it to the end. After the death of Victor, the creature appears to his bedside pay a final farewell to his creator while Walton is witness it. The creature feeling grief after Victor died, and he realize that mankind will not accept him among us, then the creature decided to stay in the arctic and kill himself in the cold, when Walton’s ship decided to turnback around.
The connection from the lecture and to the readings are Victor is lack of responsibility from his own creation. The creature was angry and furious on Victor after he abandon him. Prof Ellis said, “Things can turned out a lot differently if Victor accepted his responsibility from what he had made”, this means, if Victor stays with his creature and help him and educate him then there won’t be any death to the Frankenstein family. This taught us being irresponsible there will be a price to pay, the creature that Victor created becomes a curse, a nemesis to hunt him.
After completing Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, I want to point out something that I emphasized in my notes that has to do with Victor. While the monster has caused significant damage in Victor’s life and others, who is to blame? I noted that Victor is the one to blame. Victor, since his adolescence, always was driven to the field of science and nature. His drive and curiosity, led to the creation of the creature. Rather than destroying the creature, like he did to the second creature he created, he created it and then let his guilt get in the way of accepting it. The creature was responsible for the deaths of many indivdiuals in the novel, however I noted during the time Victor got arrested in chapter 21, I foreshadowed that they might have caught the creature and rather than charging the creature for murder, they accused Victor. As we know, that turned out to be wrong but the thought that Victor was the cause for the destruction that occurred in his life and to those around him, cannot go unacknowledged. Another point that I want to make is that the creature did try to be happy himself. He seeked to form bonds either with humans like Victor or through another creation of a creation. It was constantly Victor who led the creature to perform acts of evil. From this week’s lecture, Professor Ellis mentions that Mary Shelley tries her best to help us identify with the creature. This is important to point out because this unnatural birth of the creature is similar to the natural birth of mother and child. In the novel’s case, Victor is the mother since the creature is his creation and he simply dies and tries to run away from the creature rather than accept it for who it is, ultimately leading to the creature being evil and a murderer.
Lecture four was a summary of Frankenstein’s story, in other words known as ”The modern
Prometheus”. Throughout the story we found the main character Victor Frankenstein, who was a
scientist that created a big monster, that looks like a large man with the ability to talk, walk, read and
write. Victor abandoned his creature. Afterwards, the creature chose vengeance against him killing
Victor’s younger brother William. For this crime an innocent person, Justine was accused of committing
the crime. Victor traveled to Scotland to create a female version of the monster, but he changed his
mind and stopped his work thinking that the new creature would have been a big risk to the humanity,
same as the other creature. So, Victor destroyed the new creature before giving her life. Then the
creature killed Victors friend. This didn’t end up here. Victor married Elizabeth in Switzerland and after
this marriage the creature killed Elizabeth and other people he loved. Desperately Victor started chasing
the creature trying to stop him and he ended up to the Arctic when he met Walton. He told all the story
to him. He was so close to the creature, but unfortunately Victor couldn’t make it and he passed away.
When the creature saw Victor dead, decided to stay in Arctic and he died too, according to Walton.
Everything Victor did in his life was a good lesson to him. Starting from the beginning when he wasn’t
happy with his studies and moving to something bigger, learning the thanatology and galvanism seeking
to be a great scientist, more like a myth to be remembered. In my opinion he reached his goals
somehow, but at the same time he had to face with horrible consequences. With great power comes
great responsibility.
Lecture four was a summary of Frankenstein’s story, in other words known as ”The modern Prometheus”. Throughout the story we found the main character Victor Frankenstein, who was a scientist that created a big monster, that looks like a large man with the ability to talk, walk, read and write. Victor abandoned his creature. Afterwards, the creature chose vengeance against him killing
Victor’s younger brother William. For this crime an innocent person, Justine was accused of committing the crime. Victor traveled to Scotland to create a female version of the monster, but he changed his mind and stopped his work thinking that the new creature would have been a big risk to the humanity, same as the other creature. So, Victor destroyed the new creature before giving her life. Then the creature killed Victors friend. This didn’t end up here. Victor married Elizabeth in Switzerland and after this marriage the creature killed Elizabeth and other people he loved. Desperately Victor started chasing the creature trying to stop him and he ended up to the Arctic when he met Walton. He told all the story
to him. He was so close to the creature, but unfortunately Victor couldn’t make it and he passed away. When the creature saw Victor dead, decided to stay in Arctic and he died too, according to Walton.
Everything Victor did in his life was a good lesson to him. Starting from the beginning when he wasn’t happy with his studies and moving to something bigger, learning the thanatology and galvanism seeking to be a great scientist, more like a myth to be remembered. In my opinion he reached his goals somehow, but at the same time he had to face with horrible consequences. With great power comes great responsibility.
in the conclusion of “Frankenstein, the modern Prometheus” Chapters 18-24, I found it really fascinating how the ideology of one individual who overcomes the impossible and his own creation goes against him. Victor’s story reminds me a lot of current events and how much the big tech giants wanted to create something revolution as young college dropouts and now are the most hated millionaires in the world with an insane entanglement to American politics and international diplomacy. Victor started to discuss his marriage arrangements to Elizabeth with his father, while he stays in paranoia and fear of the creature’s wrath. His journey to the UK with Charval makes him reflect on how long Victor has spent in solitude and what social isolation and withdrawal have done to his friendships and relationships. Not only, but at the request of the creature, Victor attempted to create a female companion for it but changed his mind. The rage that the create felt, he would appear on the surface as evil and vile but with the context, he grew to be in, abandonment and rejection turn any living or nonliving thing to a dark path. Many of the significant creations in the world, such as NASA, SpaceX, satellites, and the internet that dominated the world started as an ambitious goal and became the most powerful thing in the world. Just like the creature. However, there was no care nor capacity to the consequences of these creations, and therefore the creature turned out to be a murderer just as our internet has turned into the most politicized research source with extreme levels of bias used for propaganda to manipulate people. In many cases, just like the creation, the propaganda of the internet has killed many people. Nonetheless, Victor’s decision to prevent the creature from having a female companion has led to the creature giving Victor a foreboding message to the things that will happen on his wedding day. The creature’s murder of Chervil has led to him framing Victor. As a result, Victor had been imprisoned. While in prison Victor tried to communicate to his father that he is responsible for the death of Clerval, Justine, and William. However, his father did not believe Victor. He returned to Geneva and rekindled his on with Elizabeth and they got married. After they got married, the creature murders Elizabeth to fulfill his promise to Victor that there would be trouble on Victor’s wedding day. Victor vowed to get revenge but the magistrate failed to respond and help Victor. In the end, Victor hunted the creature down to the Arctic and met Walton. The creature murders Victor and tells Walton he will commit suicide and disappears.
In this week’s lecture, we conclude Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. The professor starts by saying what’s the novel about and talks about the plot points of the novel. Shelley’s 1818 novel is about Victor Frankenstein, who turned away pseudoscience and alchemy and pursued the sciences of chemistry and galvanism, anatomy, to figure out how to give life to inanimate matter. The major plot points of Frankenstein starts with Victor creating the creature and later abandoning it in horror and disgust. The creature uses reason, observation, and trial and error to learn how to survive and become human. Then the creature gets angry at humanity for his appearance and chooses vengeance. Victor then goes and tries to make a mate for the creature but destroys it during the process of it. Thus angering the creature and causing him to kill everyone close to Victor. Ending in Victor’s death by trying to find the creature and meeting Walton in the journey. The professor also mentions that Mary is guiding the reader to identify with the creature because the creature was born unnaturally. Professor Ellis compares his birth to a natural birth with a mother. When a baby is born it has an instant bond/connection with the mother but in the creature’s case, Victor ran away from him. Taking no responsibility for his creation. Victor is a selfish person. He was ignoring the people around him. He was not thinking about them, thus having them die from his creation.
By the end of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, it is clear that there are various themes depicted throughout the novel. In lecture 3 you discussed tabula rasa and whether people are born with inherent information or a blank slate. Even though Mary Shelley would have been labeled an empiricist at the time, in the novel she expressed both empiricism and rationalism because yes, the monster was “born” with a blank slate, but he still has a desire to learn things and be accepted into society. The main difference being the monster was “born” an adult while people come into this world as babies. The theme of unchecked ambition being dangerous is the most prominent in the story. Victor ever since a child, was always eager to learn and always trying to find the answers to the big questions. He tries to find a source of creation and wants to stop at nothing to get there as discussed in lecture 4, he wants to be regarded as a genius amongst his peers. This passion is ultimately what killed him and everyone he loves in the end. This novel to some extent parallels Victor’s creation of the monster with the creation of man in a Christian biblical context. Victor wants to reach immortality, so he decides to bring a dead thing back to life and ended up creating a being in his image. He essentially was playing God because he had the resources and knowledge at his disposal. He later abandoned his creation and let it wreak havoc on the community all while Frankenstein gets sicker and sicker out of guilt. This is a bit similar to how in the Bible, man was created in image of God and like the monster, human beings have a mind of their own filled with desires and fears and an ego.
*spoilers ahead*
This also reminded me of a movie called “Mother!” (2017) which is a psychological horror that attempts to portray the creation of people in the Bible. In the movie “The Creator” creates a woman out of ashes, his wife, and she basically spends the entire movie trying to get unwanted guests out of her home. The movie tries to make a point that people always end up bringing about their own ruin, like how Adam and Eve broke the rules and got themselves kicked out of the Garden of Eden. At the end of the movie, it seems that this birth and downfall of human beings is a cycle, “The Creator” comes off as sadistic because whenever people destroy each other and burn down the house he just creates a new one and starts all over again with a whole new set of creations.
The new chapters begin with Victor’s troubled feelings over the misfortunes of his family as well as his agreement with the Creature over the creation of a female companion. He realizes he must travel to England, even if this means that he has to postpone his wedding to Elizabeth as he does not want to further endanger his family until he is rid of the Creature. His companion, Henry, follows him to England and Scotland where Victor begins his work. However, Victor becomes overcome with thoughts over the possible consequences of his creations. Just like the professor said, he realizes that the female creature will have a will of its own just like the first creature and so he promptly destroys his work while the Creature is observing from outside the workshop. The Creature vows revenge. Victor leaves his workshop and disposes of the remains of his second creation before making his way to his friend, though after an eventful night where he is almost stranded at sea and blamed for the murder of Henry Clerval, Victor becomes ill as well as imprisoned by the townspeople who put him on trial. They let him go eventually as there is no evidence of his involvement and Victor returns home with his father. In Geneva, Victor marries Elizabeth but as he promised, the Creature murders her leaving Victor grief stricken once again. He decides to leave Geneva in search of the Creature and as we have seen, the path takes him North where he meets Walton. After Victor’s death, Walton finally meets the Creature who was seen weeping over his creator’s death, and the two talk about the regrets over the life the Creature has led.
The Creature eventually departs.
I have much empathy for the creature, even though I understand that his actions are unforgivable. He is but a lonely creature who wanted to be loved, like any other human being. I find humanity in his heart, though some might argue that he is not a human, a completely different species. After reading the book and knowing their death, I do not want to cast blame on the creature alone because I think Victor Frankenstein has faults of his own. In my eyes, the creature is a child of Frankenstein, but he was abandoned after birth and hated by others. I kept wondering while I was reading the book; what would happen if someone kindle their kindness and spread it to the poor creature? Just the minuscule amount of love and attention to him, all the tragic events can be avoided. Are we really such cold-hearted beings like the characters in the book? If I were to be the creature’s situation, I shudder to think what I would do. Would vengeance enthrall me too? Or would I end my own life before anything else? These questions hang in my head and gnaw at it.
“Your scientists were so preoccupied over whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” I find this quote to be thought-provoking. Though it is not a novel idea, I think it’s a really apt question to ask, with regard to the book. Victor Frankenstein didn’t ask the question; he just did it to see if he can create a life form out of corpses. Such arrogance becomes his downfall; the novel also serves as a warning to the future scientists about the harm that science can produce.
Victor Frankenstein decides to pursue the creature the same way the creature pursued him. In equal vengeance, we find peace in their equal deaths. Victor dies in the Arctic in pursuit of the monster and the creature dies with him. I believe we create our own monsters, the creature was only an extension of Victor. In classic horror, humans create demons, ghosts, and everything satanic: when we output evil into the world. Victor wanted a power reserved for the greatest and when he was able to achieve his dreams, he was punished for it.
In my previous post, I mentioned the connection to the superhero Vision. Vision is an android with advanced technology that can program brainwaves into its body. In Vision’s biography it mentions “The result was the Vision, a synthezoid driven by logic but possessing emotions and able to achieve emotional growth”. We create monsters when we deal with the “unnatural”. By breathing the “breath of life” we somehow create our own monsters. I believe the android touches on the tabula rasa through artificial intelligence. In computer science, tabula rasa refers “to the development of autonomous agents with a mechanism to reason and plan toward their goal, but no “built-in” knowledge-base of their environment.” AlphaZero is a computer program developed to master board games based on learned intelligence. It generated self-playing games that taught it how to win the board. The creature was able to learn quickly on the “blank state” because it had no prior influences like family, childhood, etc. similarly as an AI learns without family, childhood, trauma, etc.
After agreeing to the creature’s request of making a mate for him, Victor heads back home to Geneva. His dad, catching on to Victor’s anxiety, tries to comfort him thinking that he is thinking of his coming marriage with Elizabeth. Victor decides to head to England with the excuse of it being a trip in order to start work on the new creature. He starts traveling alongside Henry, but impatiently starts work on collecting materials while traveling. He leaves Henry in Scotland and goes off to a small nearby island in Orkneys, where he sets up a laboratory.
During the final stages of the project, Victor reconsiders the things he should’ve thought of when he made the first creature. He wonders what this will new creature with a conscious of its own think of the promise of “staying away from humanity forever” he was given previously. He also worries how the pair will result in the unnatural creation of an entirely new race that might terrorize humanity for the rest of time. Victor destroys all his progress, which is witnessed by the monster. Angered, the creature swears he will take revenge and promises he “will be with him on his wedding night.”
Victor discards of what remains of the project in the ocean. However, due to unforeseen weather he is stranded out in the water the whole night. When he wakes up on shore the next day he finds himself suspected of murder. When shown to the body to see his reaction, it turns out that the creature had killed Henry.
The creature later goes on to killing Elizabeth on the night of the wedding as promised, which also leads to Victor’s father’s death. Unable to bear the anger anymore, Victor tries to seek help by telling the story, only to be rejected by the absurdity of how it sounded. With nothing else to loose, Victor decides he will dedicate the rest of his life on hunting the creature.
The hunt eventually leads him to the present events where he was found by Captain Walter and his crew. Victor dies some time later, and the creature appears. Lamenting his creator’s passing, he promises that he too is ready to die and disappears.
According to H.G. Wells in his story “ The Time Machine,” He writes about a man that builds a time machine and how is his indescribable journey to a remote future. He describes how the moon pass for its different phases and how a plant started as a seed and finish as a big tree. Then, he gets to a remote year in the future in the same place that he started his journey. After he got there, he started to notice that everything was different and started to get near him a small people that speak a different language not intelligent at all and got disinterested easily. Later, he started to notice that all of them slept droves in a big building and they were afraid to the dark. In his day four he know that there were creatures that have afraid to the light but they could be dangerous and our traveler at the end of this story got back to his real present.
According to E.M Fosters in his story “ The Machine Stops,” he writes about a woman named: Vashti who lives in a place that everything is manage for a machine. She has a house where she has a lot of buttons for different thinks such as: to bring food, to turn off or on the light, to clean, to move her chair and so on. She can speak with Kuno her son through a brilliant plate which as a rudimentary form a cellphone. Then, she says to him that she wants to meet him and he says that he would not go to see her because is too far and it is the same that she go to meet him. At first she did not want and even git sick and after she went in the journey to meet him in very technological transports.
Week 4 lecture professor Ellis ties everything together with the ending of the novel Frankenstein. Informing us that Victor didn’t want to be something small he wanted to be remembered but he creates his own downfall. What I think it’s an important highlight throughout the novel is the Monster demonstrates that he has learned a great deal over the course of the book. He has outgrown anger, envy, and vengefulness. He regrets what he has done. While Frankenstein dies feeling disturbed that the Monster is still alive, the Monster is reconciled to death so much that even he tries to commit suicide. The Monster’s decision to kill himself also confirms the importance of companionship. He recognizes that with Frankenstein dead, he is alone in the world, and he believes that without a companion there is no point in living. For some readers, the fact that the Monster grows and changes while Frankenstein continues in his destructive behavior to the end suggests that Frankenstein is the villain of the novel and bears ultimate responsibility for everything that has happened. However, other readers have pointed out that Walton doesn’t actually see the Monster kill himself. We know that the Monster is clever and persuasive, it’s possible that he announces his intention to kill himself so that Walton won’t pursue him. An important part of the lecture is when Professor Ellis compares the creature’s birth to a regular human being’s birth with a mother. Usually, the mother holds and bonds with the new life but the creature was left alone by Victor.
With the conclusion of the week 4 lecture, we also finish what we will be reading on marry Wollstonecraft’s Frankenstein. This lecture started off with a brief summary of the most interesting events in Wollstonecraft’s Frankenstein. When victors body is discovered by Frankenstein the creature was left in a state of confusion a sorrow. Wondering what to do next as he realizes that he will never be accepted into humanity and seen only as a monster. Not only is his appearance monster like but his actions alone could define him as a monster. He murdered people in an attempt to get revenge on his creator. Frankenstein after seeing his creator dead informs victors crewmates that he will not try to harm them and instead will live out the rest of his life in the artic and will cease his search for human approval. In a way victor still got what he wanted. His goal was to destroy his creation and while he might not have killed Frankenstein, he did protect the rest of humanity from the problem he created. After the summary on Frankenstein, we reviewed the research assignment and how it can help outside of school. Recording yourself give a presentation of your research assignment is aa effective way to show communication skills which are essential to almost everything in life.
This week’s conclusion and lecture of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus goes to show how much Victor and the creature were alike at the end. The creature vows revenge against everyone who has done harm against him including victor for not creating his mate so that he can be happy. After being released from jail for Clerval’s death, Victor promises to fight back against the creature when he comes back on his wedding night as the creature promised. Victor created the monster and let him fend for himself and experience all the cruelness of society because of his own attitude in gaining scientific knowledge. In reflection, the creature is the image of Victor, his own hubris ways led to the destruction that the creature caused. Had victor thought about how the construction of the creature would have affected himself, his community and the product he created he could have avoided losing people he loved and at last his own life. The creature was unable to experience any pleasures due to what he looked like and all he wanted was a mate and Victor denied him from having anything. Even though the murders and deaths were caused directly or indirectly from the creature the real person responsible was Victor. Victor could have experimented gradually until he fully understood what it was that he was doing and taking into consideration what society would think of such experiment. He created something that he knew would have no life beyond his lab and it ended up getting the best of him.