...Growth Through Ambition Ambition is often viewed as a key to success a driving force as to which the human experience becomes lackluster without this idea is exemplified by the way that we act throughout life, from the lessons that we teach our children to our lifelong journey for excellence the idea of setting a goal and striving for it is central to the human experience because no matter what we want to succeed and this is where ambition is key the precognition to pursue what we want is an idea that is taught to us at a young age and defines our future. In Mary Shelly’s “Frankenstein” ambition is what leads one of our characters and the first facet of this frame story one Robert Walton to endeavor to make a harrowing journey to the north pole in the hopes of being inducted into the annals of history as a great adventurer this ambition is exhibited in his quote “Do you understand this feeling? This breeze, which has traveled from the regions towards which I am advancing, gives me a foretaste of those icy climes. Inspirited by this wind of promise, my daydreams become more fervent and vivid.(L1,9)” this quote shows that he has settled on this undertaking being his greatest ambition and while it can be argued that it is foolish but if he does not do it who will?, this is why ambitions are...
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...our seamark, Mount Neriton’s leafy ridges shimmering in the wind.” (Homer 212). Through the acknowledgment of his own flaws and the value of his homeland, Odysseus embodies the theme of human vulnerability and resilience. In this moment of triumph, Odysseus breaks the stereotype of his mortal limitations and embraces his humanity, reaffirming the universal truth of the human condition and fulfilling his hamartia. Through Odysseus's journey, Homer offers a timeless reminder of the inherent vulnerability of human nature and the universal struggle to reconcile our aspirations with our mortality. Through the trials faced by the protagonist, the Epic of Gilgamesh explores the complexities of human vulnerability, the consequences of unchecked ambition, and the transformative power of redemption. During his tyrannical rule of Uruk, Gilgamesh is narrated to walk “around in the enclosure of Uruk, like a wild bull he makes himself mighty, head raised over others. There is no rival who can raise his weapon against him.”...
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...“Greedily she engorged without restraint/And knew not eating death” (Milton Book IX 790-791. This quote by poet John Milton perfectly describes Victor Frankenstein from Mary Shelley’s gothic novel Frankenstein, and his unbridled ambitions. Frankenstein sought to create a new species of superior beings by together bodies and imbuing them with life, but soon realized his mistakes which cost him the lives of friends and family. Prior to his first successful creation, Frankenstein set himself up as God, and later his creation found that it resembled Adam. In a tale about the genesis of a race, it is natural that it would be rife with religious allusions, and indeed Shelley brings up John Milton’s Paradise Lost, an epic poem about the creation of...
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...playing into just how terrible a human is capable of being without the restraint of ethics, morals or true human compassion. The monster epitomizes the darkest sides of our nature in his simple lack of morality or concern for human life. Perhaps Frankenstein has remained so popular for the many pieces of human nature that it shows...
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...Frankenstein Essay Assignment For this essay, you will choose a focus in the novel, Frankenstein, and create an original argument based on it. Your writing may be strictly literary analysis or it may take the form of a compare/contrast essay that works to connect an aspect of the novel to concepts or events outside the book. You are free to choose whatever focus you like in the novel. A good starting point is to consider what aspects of Frankenstein interest you most as you read it; for example you might be particularly drawn to the monster’s development, the relationship between Victor and Walton, Victor and the monster, the role of women, the nature vs. nurture debate, the importance of companionship, or the role of nature in the book. Here are some topic ideas that you may choose if you would like to connect the novel to outside sources: 1) Psychology/Identity formation- research child development, nature vs. nurture, and connect what you find to the monster’s development in the novel. What does Shelley’s novel seem to suggest about how identity is formed? Compare and contrast Shelley’s views with your research. 2) Philosophy- Shelley was heavily influenced by Locke and Rousseau, two major philosophical thinkers. Read excerpts of their works, and apply concepts from their writings to the novel. 3) Shelley’s biography- If you are interested in learning more about the writer behind the story, this is a good option for you. It won’t take you long to see...
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...Nine English AEP Frankenstein/Science Fiction Essay (Reading and Writing Task) Topic: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is the Science Fiction text that allowed all other examples of the sub-genre to follow. Discuss this proposition with specific reference to the Drama Script and Film versions of the novel, along with any other relevant Science Fiction texts you have read or viewed. * Your essay should especially consider Shelley’s context and that of other writers you refer to, as well as your own context as a reader. * You should make specific reference to the texts you are discussing via both direct (quotations) and indirect (explanations) evidence. * Be sure to plan your response so that each paragraph has its own unified idea. A sample paragraph structure might look like the following: 1. Introduction – Thesis: e.g.: “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is the first text which uses scientific experimentation as the basis of its plot. In doing this, it paved the way for all Science Fiction which followed…” 2. Body P1 – Author context + sub-genre features – what changes have occurred over time as a result of context? Consider Mary Shelley, H.G. Wells, Ray Bradbury 3. Body P2 – Discussion of Frankenstein 4. Body P3 – Discussion of other text e.g.: War of the Worlds (make some reference to Frankenstein as well) 5. Body P4 - Discussion of other text e.g.: There Will Come Soft Rains (make some reference to Frankenstein as well) 6. Body...
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...General 1. Title: Frankenstein 2. Author: Mary Shelley 3. Date of publication: Jan 1, 1818 4. Novel type: horror, Gothic, science fiction and tragedy Structure 1. Point of view: Throughout most of the novel it is a first person narrative. The main narrator s victor Frankenstein however there are 2other narrators too; Walton and the monster. Walton’s narration is through letters. 2. Relationship to meaning: The first person narration helps the reader see things from the character point of view and also helps create doubt over what really happened or why something really happened. 3. Plot structure: A. exposition: Walton narrates how he has encountered a man named Victor Frankenstein while on his voyage through ice caps. The reader also sees the creature for the first time here. B. inciting incident: The stories conflict starts of here, Walton explains to Victor how his search for knowledge is worth any amount lives and this is where victor realizes Walton will lead the same path as he did in life and he decides to tell Walton his life story. C. events contributing to rising action: Victor begins to start his research to create a monster and then is finally successful in creating his monster. The monster runs away and begins to live in a forest right by the De ‘Lacey family and he learns to read and speak. The monster begins to feel lonely because most of society and his creator have shunned him. D. climax: The monster goes into the De...
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...The role of science is the modernization of the world, thus possessing a lot of power. The outcome and use of scientific progression depends solely on the scientist’s intentions of its use. Humanity should fear the power of the creator or the creation’s behavior due to its social, physical, mental and environmental health effects, if it is not used for the better of the community. In Frankenstein, Mary Shelly argues that the beast is dangerous because it symbolizes scientific technology; implying that the beast can impose threats to civilization. The author warns, that the beast can form independent consciousness and then turns upon society in an apocalyptic rage. Society becomes afraid of the monster and as a result, rejects it. This fear...
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...Reading Between the Lines: An analysis of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, or, the Modern Prometheus, using Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto as an example of male discourse about women Louise Othello Knudsen English Almen, 10th semester Master’s Thesis 31-07-2012 Tabel of Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................................ 3 Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 5 Historical Context .............................................................................................................................. 10 The View on Women and Their Expected Roles in the late 18th and 19th Century ....................... 11 - Mary Shelley disowns herself .................................................................................................. 11 - Mary Shelley’s Background .................................................................................................... 12 Women’s Role in Frankenstein ..................................................................................................... 13 Men’s Role in Frankenstein ........................................................................................................... 13 - Women in Society and Women as Writers .........................................................
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...Frankenstein as a Gothic Novel Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein is considered as a Gothic novel but it can be seen as a compilation of both Gothic and Romantic because of the significance of the sublime. Certain events and settings in the novel present the gothic themes. Shelley uses the different themes in her novel to evoke feelings of horror and terror in the reader. Frankenstein engages in a quest in pushing the realms of science to their limits which leads him to playing god and creating an unnatural being using science. One of the themes Shelley uses in the novel to create the gothic presence is the theme of Forbidden Knowledge. Mary Shelley introduces the ideas that science is capable of being very dangerous and has consequences through the character of Victor Frankenstein. Shelley’s time was described as the age of unprecedented scientific discoveries, which influenced her in writing of Frankenstein. The process of the creation of his creation was influenced by the Italian physician Luigi Galvani who discovered “animal electricity” which manifests with the twitching of nerves and muscles when an electric current is applied. Frankenstein seeks to find “the secrets of heaven and earth” to fulfil his quest. He calls them secrets; he is aware they are not to be known and should not be found. Frankenstein knows that acquiring such knowledge would not be easy as he states “how dangerous the acquirement of knowledge”. Frankenstein is aware of the uneasy task of seeking...
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...“Chapter Four Is The Most Gothic Chapter of Frankenstein” How Do You Respond To This View? To try to judge the extent of a single chapter’s gothic values and then measure it outside of the context of the entire work is an absurd notion. One chapter cannot be more gothic than another. Yet, if forced to select a chapter that contains the most gothic elements, chapter 4 most definitely does, not only having all the major gothic elements of Frankenstein like horror, transgressive desires, extremes of emotions and other generic gothic features but also depth regarding these elements other chapters lack. This depth is shown in the common theme common to Frankenstein of transgressive desires, firstly legally transgressive. In order to create his ‘creature’ Victor had to use the body parts of corpses, this meant he had to dig them up, known in the time as bodysnatching and was illegal. Yet these actions are also socially and philosophically transgressive, Victor felt he ‘must observe the natural decay and corruption of the human body’. Contextually this was a current issue at the time Shelly wrote the novel but also the idea of watching bodies decay is unnatural as socially one should respect the dead and this subverts that completely. To Victor ‘a churchyard to [him] was merely a reciprocal of bodies’, this complete lack of any religious morals is contextually and contemporarily shocking and taboo. Not only does it imply the absence of God and actively disrespects his land...
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...“IT’S ALLIIIIIVE!!!” Everyone knows the famous line from pop culture’s Frankenstein where, surrounded by fantastical science equipment, Dr. Frankenstein, aided by his hunched assistant, Igor, zaps life into a grotesque monster within medieval castle under the cover of a dark and stormy night. At the epicenter, a creature awakens while the mad scientist cackles maniacally. It would be equally shocking for most, however, to find that Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the original, poses a quite different, almost anti-climatic, scene–void of any shouting, Igors, and with no clear depiction of the creature’s endowment of life-giving forces. In fact, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein contrasts heavily to the pop culture Frankenstein in many aspects, namely,...
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...gender politics for this essay. Jane Austen and Mary Shelley, writing at the beginning of the nineteenth-century, joined their female contemporaries in a growing generation of authoresses who forged careers in discipline of male authority. In this respect, they are inescapably engaging with gender politics. Margaret Kirkham comments that ‘this burgeoning of the female talent...was bound to have a profound effect upon any young woman beginning to write once it had occurred’, suggesting that, regardless of whether the female intended to represent female concerns within their work; a female, in becoming ‘an author, was, in itself, a feminist act’ (Kirkham 33). With the status of the authoress in mind whilst analysing Northanger Abbey and Frankenstein, this essay will focus how Austen and Shelley engage with gender politics through characterization and narrative form, and the female concerns they address, both implicitly and explicitly, throughout their texts. Austen predominately engages with gender politics through her protagonist Catherine. Catherine is presented as the unlikely heroine; ‘no one...would have supposed her born to be a heroine’ (Austen 3). Austen subverts the expectation of an heroine as Catherine possesses ‘feelings rather natural than heroic’, provoking a reading of Catherine as a satire of the passive, unnatural, gothic heroine. When Catherine embarks...
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...Passion in a right place The late eighteenth century’s American author Christian Nevell Bovess quoted, “The passions are like fire, useful in a thousand ways and dangerous only in one, through their excess” which says that passions are good enough to help people o achieve what the want; nevertheless, they can still bring harm or destruction when they are excessive. Successful people usually have had enough passion to make their dreams come true since they knew how to manage their ambitions. However, when people are not able to think of other things because they are overly into one particular thing, passion becomes evilly obsessive. In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley tries to convey that passion is blinding and perilous when people no longer control their desires over one thing in a reasonable way. A major character, Victor Frankenstein’s powerful passion towards science brings total ruin on his life, putting his beloved people in death of dangers through his creature. As he sees a complete creature, Victor runs away, shocked by its disgusting appearances even though he was filled with joy and delight when he creates it. Irresponsibly, Victor abandons his creature, and the creature starts to become drastically evil, causing deaths of Victor’s family and friend: Victor’s young brother William, dearest Justine, true friend Henry, his lover Elizabeth, and his father Alpfonse. Ironically, due to the final product of great passions, Victor almost lost all the beloved people...
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...The Cost of Playing God in Frankenstein In today’s age, advances of in the fields of science, technology, and medicine are being made every day. From the invention of the computer to stem cell research, the human race is becoming more and more aware of ways in which it can improve its way of life and make living easier. As a species, the goal is to move forward, to keep making discoveries. However, this is the same drive that prompted a young Victor Frankenstein to attempt to create life in Mary Shelley’s novel with disastrous results. Shelley’s novel was more than likely not meant as encouragement to any would be scientists of her time. Rather, Shelley’s novel explores the dangers that come with extreme ambition and the act playing God while...
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