A Guide for Our Discussion

[chad]

Sorry, I wrote a rather lengthy thing at night and I didn't know if it made sense. I don't think that to say the theme "Man vs. Nature" is enough for the fact that we came from the same geophysical forces, like lightning, that created Nature herself. In fact we imitate Nature or our own language creates reasons to imitate Nature...

This is the shorter version, but I could write books...

Chad

[chad]

Hi bogey cadet-

I think I agree with everything you say- take a look at friendship- walton's search in the beginning, frankenstein and beaufort's loss of friendship, victor's loss when he went to school, the monster's need for a friend after creation, the friendships that formed between elizabeth,victor and clerval, the friendship that develops between walton and victore later in the story, etc...

Also, one twist to consider: did the monster really exist, was he created?

Chad

[chad]

Do you think the monster would have been created if Clerval had attended Ingolstadt with Victor?

Chad

[bogeycadet]

When you said that idea about the creature really existing, it reminded me of "A Christmas Carol." Did Scrooge really see the spirits or was it a dream? I think a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Victor as child is consumed with a hunger for knowledge. It is unquenchable and I think Clerval would not deter Victor from the search. As humans sate their appetite for knowledge, they lose themselves in the search. Imagination is something that distinguishes ourselves from animals, but in imagining something beyond knowledge known we lose the grasp of natural law, which we cannot escape. Ancient men put words to understand their surroundings. People brought forth gods to personify nature. Some gods were but mirrors of man in emotions like the Greek and Roman gods. Words brought concepts into life. Grog gestures himself and to Grunk and later descendants uses the word "friend" to describe the relationship. Ideas of human thoughts spring forth life when words are spoken. Men and women brings things to life in naming. I love literary criticism because puts themes into subcategories. Feminism brings forth a voice for women in an androcentric society. Remember Mary Shelley, a woman, wrote "Frankenstein." I think man as a gender is an antihero in the novel. I hope I have not gone overboard in all this mumble jumble.

[chad]

Victor is like a woman going through labor while he creates the monster. This is equivalent to the modern day situation when a single parent, a woman, borrows sperm from a sperm bank and has her own child- this is highly controversial today and I'm still unclear about the legalities. We generally feel a child is more stable with two adults. But if Clerval was present during the monster's birth, would the monster have been the same? Does Nature mandate that there be two human beings for procreation and why? Should a marraige take place? Is human procreation perfect? etc. etc.

I think Shelley was a little ahead of her time, procreation might best take place between two men, or two men and a woman, remember Elizabeth was also absent. But I think she would agree with me, or I with her, it should take place between friends always.

Best,
Chad

[bogeycadet]

your idea about same gender parents is intriguing, but you must remember that a woman wrote the novel with man as an antihero. For centuries, man-centered societies have been the norm. Feminism tries to balance the scale by lowering the podium men rule and elevating the station of women. Science is told from a woman's view. Man wants nature to step aside, so that man can supplant a woman's existence. The idea of how unnatural it is for a man to give life is extrapolated through a woman's perspective. Same gender relationships can only have procreation by artificial means like man giving birth. The idea of man subjugating nature or to imitate nature is centuries old.

[luckyme]

I like to read a lot of these books I guese thats why I write .I just writen a book of my poems its called shirley brown
book of poetry
I also would like to meet other writers who write poetry too!find me on barnes&noble.com

[chad]

I'm not sure it is about gender roles so much as it is about origins and our beliefs thereof. I loved Mary's intro. At some point, the human evolved into two sexes. Nature can be hermaphroditic or asexual. So, I guess I'm saying Victor was not imitating Nature necessarily, but that he was Nature or he was acting naturally.

Chad

[chad]

Hi Shirley!

I say lucky, lucky you if you like to do that!

Chad

[bogeycadet]

I also write poetry, but have successfully published. i have on the poetry.com website. I like humorous verse, but I do serious verse as well. I am into meter and rhyme.
There once was a guy named von Frankenstein.
He thought he could out do nature, that swine.
And try as he might.
The monster's not right.
For the creature made Victor in cold whine.

[chad]

lucky, lucky, you.

[bogeycadet]

To begin with, in my hurry to write the last note I am not published in print. I was thinking of Walton and Victor and I thought about the film "The Shining." I thought Jack Nicholson in ice at the end reminded me of Victor, Walton, and the nameless creature. Walton and Victor in their attempts at going passed the boundaries of human knowledge are brought to a cold desolate plateau. I can imagine the creature encased in ice for eternity. Victor is desolate of family and dear friends. The creature alone with no companion is like Adam without Eve in a mock way. The drive to unlock the secrets of the unfathomable have destroyed many lives. Imagine to be of this earth, but to be made of parts of others and to search for an identity or companionship. What if you were in the midst of glacier and to scream and nobody hears you.

[chad]

"Imagine to be of this earth, but to be made of parts of others and to search for an identity or companionship. What if you were in the midst of glacier and to scream and nobody hears you."

--Yes, I'm thinking that this is what was happening naturally in Shelley's mercantilistic-turning-industrial world. New peoples and new races we're being created, either through arranged marraiges or business deals, but mainly through new exposures as a result of trade, in general. I imagine many felt that they were Frankenstein's monster or knew of one. Again, "different" people might search for reasons for their own existence or sources of their own isolation and unhappiness in language. But languages were not evolving as rapidly as the newly evolving world. In fact, languages were unifying, while the world was becoming a little more diverse. "Friend" was difficult to understand.

Well, I was meaning to put up a few things about "The Franken", but the forum came to an abrupt end and I found myself just throwing up all sorts of things, so I'm glad you respond.

Chad

[chad]

Victor on being isolated at Ingolstadt from his family, after creating the monster and losing contact with home:

"I then thought that my father would be unjust if he ascribed my neglect to vice, or faultiness on my part; but I am now convinced that I should not be altogether free from blame. A human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind, and never to allow passion or a transitory desire to disturb tranquility. I do not think that the pursuit of knowledge is an exception to this rule. If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your affections, and to destroy your taste for those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind. If this rule were always observed; if no man allowed any pursuit whatsoever to interefere with the tranquility of his domestic affections, Greece had not been enslaved; Caesar would have spared his country; America would have been discovered more gradually; and the empires of Mexico and Peru had not been destroyed." p.50


Chad

[bogeycadet]

While my companion contemplated with a serious and satisfied spirit the magnificent appearances of things,I delighted in investigating their causes. The world was to me a secret which I desired to divine. Curiosity, earnest research to learn the hidden laws of nature, gladness akin to rapture, as they were unfolded to me, are among the earliest sensations I can remember.

Victor is disecting the world. He is taking apart to see how it ticks like Radio played by Cuba Gooding Jr. takes apart the clock. He felt this discernment would be "rapture." "After having formed this determination and having spent some months in successfully collecting and arranging my materials," he starts to create giant monstrosity.

Mankind is a shadow of what once was. Humans are products of culture clashing and producing a new creation. We have "dull yellow eyes."

[chad]

Right. I don't think I disagree with you on that one. Prior to his attendance at Igolstadt, I believe friends or family might have persuaded him to leave his obsessions and he obviously was once again consumed by his old influences at Ingolstadt, creating the monster.

But my understanding is that, in general, science left unchecked by ethics can lead to a monster. Religion can provide that balance.

What say you?
Chad

ps-Law can also provide a check on science, but law and religion were, I would say, a bit corrupt in the novel, probably also true of Shelley's world.

Message Edited by chad on 02-18-200705:35 PM

[bogeycadet]

When I think of science going unchecked by ethics, I think Mengler, who gives science a bad name. The cold and unabashed "yellow eye" of science detached from emotion takes away the human element. At what lengths will science go to to get what it wants? Ever hear of the phrase "let sleeping giants lie." I agree ethics are needed in science because the subject needs rights protected. The further ends of science fueled the movie "Project X," where chimpanzees are exploited. Chimps trained in simulators to see how long radiation takes to kill them to aid in astronaut safety is abominable. What of that Leopold case, where the young cousin was killed, to see coldly man's capabilities?

[chad]

I'm not familiar with Mengler- Was he the man responsible for severing and sewing different body parts of prisoners together? This is what I always heard about, but I don't know too much about the experiments. It doesn't sound like science but just pure hatred.

My guess is that, prior to the world wars, people were using each other for their body parts, through arranged marraiges or possibly through adoption of children with desirable traits, or perhaps some awful experiments, like Mengler's took place. But, people being "bred", rather than a physical removal of someone's desirable body part and sticking it on yourself, is what I think was taking place in Shelley's world and prior to...

Plastic surgery did not exist then, unfortunately for those who were discarded for unwanted physical characteristics, hopefully they would find a friend?

Chad

[bogeycadet]

I misspelled his name. It is Dr. Josef Mengele. Cloning is the reason for genetically made being made to harvest organs for people. Medical ethics talks of rights for clones. Do clones have rights or are they inferior beings to the original? The movie "Coma" is about harvesting organs from comatose patients. Science might be cold and calculating, but human scientists are social creatures with intellectual and emotional tendencies. Love is not bred in the lab and the day science can do that is the day humans cease to exist. Being an unwilling organ donor is not humanistic. Imagination has always brought people from fiction to reality. Things dreamed up in novels become reality in the future.

Message Edited by bogeycadet on 02-19-200711:09 PM

[chad]

"human scientists are social creatures with intellectual and emotional tendencies"

I think Mary would agree, but these tendencies, if they remain unchecked or "untempered", can produce a monster.

Chad