Now that we should be finishing Frankenstein, and we´ve seen Victor and his creation´s fates, what is the point anyway? Why is Victor (notice his name and what it literally means) such a big Loser? Where does the monster go at the end of the book and why? What is Walton´s role in all this? What is Shelley trying to say here about the world, and how does that relate to Romanticism? What does the subtitle of the title mean (look at the title page of your book, and you will see: Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus)?
Respond to whichever of the questions interests you, or all (they are connected). Also, make sure to read and respond to each others´ ideas, because that is the point of this!
Reminder: For Tuesday, buy Pride and Prejudice!
Respond to whichever of the questions interests you, or all (they are connected). Also, make sure to read and respond to each others´ ideas, because that is the point of this!
Reminder: For Tuesday, buy Pride and Prejudice!
17 comentarios:
-To start off, the point of the story I imagine is that ambition and drive aren't always good when exploited excessively. Victor did not know his limits and this ended up with the worst creation/knowledge he imagines anyone could acquire.
-Victor is not particularly a loser, but human. He doesn't have extreme bravery. He also doesn't notice the consequences of his actions. He seems more naive than a loser.
-The monster jumps off the boat to commit suicide! :( The monster has issues though. He purposely tortures the one person that could possibly understands him to death and then is sad about it all. Melodramatic, if you ask me.
-Walton has received a forewarning of his actions from Victor. He is as well used as the perfect set up of Frankenstein's story. Walton is there to tell the world of the misfortunes of perseverance?
-The novel relates to romanticism in a way that Victor rejects his work of sciences and fears the idea of knowledge after the monster is created. He finds his haven in nature where life is pure. Shelly is trying to tell the world the dangers of overdoing itself and becoming more obsessed with science than natural state.
-According to wikipedia, Prometheus "is a Titan known for his wily intelligence, who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to mortals for their use". Zeus later punishes Prometheus by slow torture. I think the title is brilliant! It is a about a man who interfered with God basically and his powers, and then get punished for it. Frankenstein is your Modern day Prometheus.
-Bayzha
-The monster goes to Waltons ship to see Victor dead. I guess he believed his game with Victor ended and thats when he tells Walton he wants to die. He probably thinks his life has no more purpose without Victor in it.
-Walton's purpose is to learn from Victor, but also to carry on his journey to find and destroy the monster once Victor cant anymore. Walton also gives us a perspective of how people could view Victors actions(creating the monster...)
-Victor's name is particularly ironic because of the way he behaved while confronting every situation. He was never capable of taking responsibility for his actions, and he was never completely aware of everything that happened with the monster.
-The way VIctor attempted to play God is what ultimately lead him to his own destruction. This relates to the subtitle of "The Modern Prometheus". According to Greek Mythology, Prometheus was a Titan who defied the gods when he stole fire from them and brought it down to Earth. Both Prometheus' and Victor's actions were initially done for the improvement of mankind, but they backfired for both of them.
I think that shelley is trying to say one of the things that is affecting the world the most. that is, that scientists, because of their ambition and wanting to have fame and to be known are entering into the unknown and they are doing all this without caring for the consequences. they really know what they do and what can happen but they are trying to hide it and they can end up with the world. the creator of the atomic bomb really did know what he was doing and he didn't measure the consequences of his creation. cloning is becoming a very alarming subject lately and they can really end up with a frankestein...we will destroy ourselves...
This book, i believe, was written to show how some people can actually have NO limits in their ambition even if it means destroying someone else. I know he didnt intend on all this happening, but he was also aware of the consequences this might bring since he was traveling into the unknown. Bayzha is right when she says that Victor doesnt know the consequences of his actions, but he knew someone was already dead for what he had done and therefore knew a consequence and was told by the monster that he would keep killing people and he did nothing until it was too late!.
Walton is about to become what Victor was and was just being told his own story, as in foreshadowing maybe.
I believe it relates to romanticism in a way when he feels "safe" or things like it when he's alone in the mountains and just surrounded by nature. I mean i have no idea, but that's what i would think..
i just worte the last comment, but it went off as Alejandra's ajjajaja it's not hers:P
I think in this book they try to tell how science somehow had damaged the world as we said today in class albert einstein if he knew that the atomic bomb will cause so many damages to the world he would had probably never invented it, and as this example they are many scientist that are running experiments that later on they would probably regret so they all have to be careful and most importantly responsible for the acts as in Frankenstein, Victor was not responsible and that probably affected more since if he had stayed and educated the monster the story would probably even a lot different. I believe as its already mention limits are important even though you want to achieve your goal, your ambition should always have limits
t the end of the story the monster commit suicide and I think the monster realize that revenge took him anywhere , he didn't feel better with himself after the destroyed Victor's life. This book also tells you this that revenge doesn't make your life any better. For Walton this was an example not to make the same mistakes in life to always have limits and he would probably show the world what has happened and Victor's story.
In my personal opinion I believe the message that the book is trying to transmit its reader is to be pleased with what you have and not keep wanting more and more- to the point of wanting the impossible. The story proves that this unlimited desire for success ruined Frankenstines life and likewise can destroy the lives of other ambitious people- bringing their loved ones and even themselves to a painful death.
Shelley's message also brings the importance of love into subject. Throught the book, we come to notice how love is essential in everyones life -from a monster, to an animal.. to a human! we all need love and affection. The lack of such, at the same time, can lead us to become hateful and harm people around us, or take away life from ourselves. the author emphazises inderictly that life has no meaning without love- without such creatures have no reason to stay alive - no motives to survive- no desire to live!
there was something the monster intended to say, something about being happier when you are ignorant. I truly agree with that, yes prabably you wouldnt know anything about life but apperently the more you know the more problems come to your life. When you are baby you see life in the purest form because you dont know anything about it, the only thing you get to experience is the love that is transmitted to you and as you grow up and you experience in life you start stressing over everything, competing against everyone, feeling ansiety to know the unknown and realizing that people are likely to let you down. This is what happened to creature as a "baby" (recently created) he saw the world in the purest form as an excellent place to live in beutiful in every way but no one transmitted love to the moster, he saw how people transmitted love between their own specie. then as grew up he started stressing because he was horrible and no one was around to love him, he felt ansiety for the unknown meaning he wanted to feel the sensation of being love, in some way he compitited against victor in their little game of "who gets to be more miserable" and also realize that people let you down when victor broke his promise. so that proves that he was happier when he knew nothing about life.
this has nothing to with any of your questions, but it was a comment i wanted to share :)
people in life are not satisfied with what they have, they are always seeking for better things. in some aspects it is good, you acknoeledge more, become more experience and you could achieved happiness through your knowledge; but it is also bad, you risk yourself to the unkown expecting the unexpected and hoping everything would go the way you thought. Victor risked himself and faced the unexpected. I dont believe he is a loser because he just has curiosity for the unknown as most of humans have. He really wasnt lucky, but i really think that he reacted to everything that had happened to him in better way than other human would have react.
-marce
I believe, like most people have said, that the point of the book was a warning to the people, that we must not overstep the bounds of humanity and start playing with things that are completely out of our control (in the book, the power of creation, in life, cloning, extending life, etc).
But I also believe that by calling her book "The Modern Prometheus", she is trying to say that even though Victor was playing god by trying to create life, there was still an underlying ultimate good which he strove for, just like Prometheus when he stole the fire for the good of humanity. Frankenstein really thought that by giving the knowledge of creation to humankind, he would be helping us in who knows what way, but it is in his never ending ambition that he does wrong and goes out of the right path, not realizing what he's done until it is already too late.
I also found it funny how Victor, during his stay at Walton's ship, first started his story in order to stop him from "going to far". Yet, Walton tells us that sometimes Victor helped him gather courage to continue, like when he motivated the scared crew to continue on the voyage, even though what he said he wanted was for that voyage to stop so that Walton would not go through what he had to. On that same note, even though at the end we get the idea that Walton actually listened to what Victor's message was and turned back fearing the same consequences as he. But I believe that given the circumstances (say, if his crew had wanted to continue), Walton would surely had ignored Victor's warnings and continue his quest for knowledge, maybe with a little more caution, but with the same drive that he started with nonetheless. I strongly believe that both Frankenstein and Walton were on the right tracks, but they seriously needed companionship in order to cope with the reality of what they were doing, for if Victor had had someone by his side, maybe he wouldn't have run away in fear but talked it over with his friend and surely come to a better conclusion than what happened.
Victor was driven by ambition. To acquire knowledge he would do what ever it took no matter what. He was like i little boy that didn't care what the consequences were or worse din't stop to think if there would be any.
When i think of Victor i think of that saying that says be careful wht u wish for because he wanted it so bad that he lost everything else by getting it. He accomplished what he wanted, created a a living thing from scratch. Instead of taking care of what he had made he completely ditched it and as a consequence to his irresponsiblilty he lost everyone in his life.
The monster sees victor dead and starts crying, gets depressed and jumps off the boat in the attempt to commit suicide. I guess the monster on some level knew how Victor was his creator and saw him as a father figure. After Victor's death the monster felt as if he had no reason to live any longer.
Romanticism had alot to do with imagination and youthful perspectives. Victor was in a way innocent because he just wanted to know more and didnt expect to create such a disaster.
After reading Frankenstein, I could understand that the reason behind of Victor telling his entire story to Walton was so that he could see how your own ambition can ruin your life just as it happened to him with his ambition towards science. His aspiration towards science made him surpass his limits, creating the monster that at the end the only thing it did, was not give him happiness but which gave his life a huge sorrow since it killed all the people he felt affection for. I could see once more just like in Hamlet, that revenge does not lead you to happiness, the monster killed victors entire family and regardless of that he could never reach happiness for itself.
Victor (also spelled Viktor or Vítor) is a male name that has been used for centuries in numerous cultures and parts of the world. The name is of Latin origin (victoris) meaning "conqueror". It is a masculine given name. -God
Now that I see the true meaning of the name I think i can connect some things that i was trying to fix together in order to make a point.
-"To start off", I believe Shelley had to use an allusion to classic works in order to appreciate the magnitude of the message that those carry. The one that is best elaborated in this novel is Paradise lost, whereas we meet the creature and its Maker. She shows their relation as that of God and Lucifer, where his intentions were not bad, but he wanted a better life and through rejection his ways became ill. It shows the ambiguity of good and evil because none of the sides is completely just, due to the fact that both act selfishly and wont give in to the other. Victor represents victory, and Shelley chose this name for a reason. In the novel, Victor actually reaches the meaning of his given name, although because this knowledge that he has encountered is too great to bear, he completely breaks down and twists his mind as soon as he sees the result of his so long hard work. Victor is not a big Loser but a winning fellow how cannot deal with his reality. Due to his creation, he continually presses himself to be depressed and in that way he affect everyone around him, with him knowing that it's not wise to do so because it is hurting his beloved.
All of this relates to romanticism in the way that Shelley tells the world that we are not ready to meet new discoveries, because they may be to much fr our brains to understand correctly, for example, the atomic bomb of clones. She also foreshadows the selfishness of the human beings due to their discoveries, such as pollution of the air with all the industrialization, not thinking of their surroundings, again, with the atomic bomb, creating genocide material. And as for our representation of the monster towards the Maker, we are defying his rules, again with the example mentioned before, specially clones.
- Abigail
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