...What motivates and creates the patchwork of experiences that make up people? In her pinnacle of writing, the gothic horror novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley explores various themes and motifs among them nature versus nurture. She does so through a man attempting to create life named Victor Frankenstein and the Creature he creates. In Frankenstein, Shelley gives examples of the consequences of a spoiled upbringing, the effect on people of their surroundings, the idea of innate goodness, and the idea that people are blank slates upon which their experiences are etched. In the debate of nature versus nature over why people are good or bad, nurture is by far the more influential. A privileged and unrestrained upbringing by overly indulgent parents...
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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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...dependency, and uncontrollable rage” (Berman 58). Narcissus and Frankenstein are both disoriented by ostensible renditions of their own internal conflicts. The creature’s acts of violence are external representations of Victor Frankenstein’s internal rage. It is ironic that his own self-replication in the form of the creature brings him to his eventual demise. Another element that correlates with the Narcissus story pertains to the escapes and pursuits that are present in the novel. “Since Mary Shelley’s novel employs the element of flight (Walton to the pole, Victor from the Creature, the Creature in pursuit of Victor), Frankenstein embodies an additional element of the Narcissus complex” (Kestner 69-70). The grandiosity of his creation and pursuits end in a chase to eliminate any evidence of his mistakes. Jeffrey Berman summarizes all of these examples in comparison of narcissistic personality disorder: Victor exhibits, in fact, all the characteristics of the narcissistic personality disorder as defined in DSM-III: a grandi- sense of self-importance; preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success; exhibitionism; cool indifference or feelings of...
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...Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein grapples with the long-contested issue of nature vs. nurture, which explores the concept of how much a person’s behavior and personality are mostly the outcome of nurture, genetics, or outer influences such as environmental factors. Within the text, nature vs. nurture is modeled by the Creature and one could argue that Shelley uses the Creature to emphasize that he was not born inherently evil, but rather his violence was a direct outcome of his abandonment and lack of nurture growing up. To begin, the Creature is a living being regardless of his genetics. He was “born” with no knowledge of the world around him like any other “child” and Victor Frankenstein was the “father” who was meant to guide him through his life. Instead, he went through life alone, confused and afraid. The Creature himself states how he was stripped of those rights and how “’No father had watched my infant days, no mother had blessed me with smiles and caresses’” (Shelley 91). He had never known the nurturing side of people and had only ever been shown rejection and violence. For example, when he first meets his “father” figure, Victor runs away in...
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...Nature vs. nurture is one of the oldest philosophical debates in history. The argument is whether your life experiences or the environment you grow up in has a lasting effect/influence on the type of person that you become or if your development is predisposed in your DNA. Both nature and nurture play important roles in the development of a human being, but it is not known which one causes the majority of the way a person turns out. In Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, I believe nature vs. nurture is a theme that she raises. Would the creature have turned out differently, even good, if Victor Frankenstein raised him and didn’t abandon him when he was first brought to life? She is arguing in favor of nurture and saying that the creature behaves...
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...can a baby be considered a monster? Many might argue how an innocent newborn can be compared to something as gruesome as a monster. In the novel Frankenstein, author Mary Shelley, writes about a monster and its creator. The creator who was Victor Frankenstein, just like any person went to college and studied, natural philosophy, chemistry, and alchemy. Later on during his studies, he tries to figure out how to bring alive a body, that is cut from a dead persons’ corpse. After his creation, he becomes very overwhelmed and scared of such a horrid creature. After the creation, the monster brings nothing but sadness, sickness, and destruction into the life of Victor Frankenstein. Now, how can a child be considered a monster? And what led the monster to go bad. The monster had characteristics that were opposites of a child. The monster is said to be unlike a child because of its appearance and creation, lack of parental guidance and abandonment, and it became dangerous because of his rejection by his creator. The birth of a child in today’s society is perceived as a very memorable moment. The beauty of the child, the joy of the parent is what makes that moment more memorable. However, in Frankenstein, the birth of the monster is not what one would expect, to be a way a child is born. The monster that was created by Frankenstein took body parts from dead corpses and put it together to create the monster. This is totally the complete opposite of how a child is brought into...
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...In Frankenstein it could be said that the monster represents the id. The monster wants to have his physical and emotional needs met without taking others into consideration. The monster is willing to kill anyone until he gets revenge on Victor for creating him. This is also apparent when Victor decides not to make the monster a companion, so the monster promises to take life away from Victor. This shows how the monster is impulsive and willing to take from others when his emotional needs aren’t being met, without really caring what the consequences might be. “... my rage returned; I remembered that I was forever deprived of the delights that such beautiful creatures could bestow” -The monster (p.122). The second piece of this theory is known as the superego.This is responsible for our morals and judgements about right from...
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...Biological Determinism 1. According to the author of the article "All in the Genes?", there is no intrinsic causality between genetics and intelligence. The author analyses different aspects of biological determinism, and supplies many examples, which illustrate aspects of this problem that are being discussed since the time when these ideas became popular. He does not agree with biological determinist that the intellectual performance of a person depends on genes inherited from his parents. There are a lot of different theories about intellectual capabilities. All these theories reflect different points of views, depending on the period of time the authors of these theories lived. The author argues for the theory that in the nineteenth century , artificial barriers in social hierarchy prevented people from achieving higher intellectual performance. In the end of XX century, in most places these barriers were removed by the democratic processes, and nothing artificial can stand between the natural sorting process and social status of the people. These changes can not be considered as historical because the age of democracy is just two hundred years , and the time when inequality between classes and between people was a natural situation is almost as long as the history of the world . The author insists that there is no connection between environmental differences and genetics. In support of his idea the author state that any Canadian student can...
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...To begin with, both the inventors of CRISPR and Victor Frankenstein have good intentions. Frankenstein wants to understand life and death partly because of his mother’s early departure from his life. “Whence, I often asked myself, did the principle of life proceed? …. To examine the causes of life, we must first have recourse to death.” (Shelley 41) His original purpose of creating a creature is to understand the basic mechanism of life and death so he could bring back the dead one day. Similarly, CRISPR is mainly for prevention, detection and treatment for disorder and improve the overall health of the population. Frankenstein also acknowledges the adverse changes his creation could cause to society. He asks himself, “shall I, in cool blood, set loose upon the earth a demon whose delight is death and wretchedness?” (Shelley 173) Although CRISPR itself doesn’t have the ability to murder with purpose, its side effects to the society could not and should not be ignored. To summarize, both Frankenstein’s creation and CRISPR are double-edged swords. As he recounts “the promise of virtues which [the creature] had displayed on the opening of his existence and the subsequent blight of all kindly feelings by the loathing and scorn which his protectors had manifested towards him” (Shelley 150), Frankenstein realizes that the creature is capable of being virtuous, but it is the environment that causes him to become this heartless...
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...Nicholas Carr’s “The Shallows”, margins are portrayed as ways in a person’s life that create space free of judgment through nature. The world can be a judgmental place, but margins in nature let people meditate and act the way they uniquely act behind closed doors in seclusion. As time changes, marginal activities, places, and thoughts change as the environment and thought process ages. Regardless of the change, margins never leave a person's life, no matter how big or small. Although some marginal activities are shunned by the world because they are not of the usual norm, nature does not judge and accepts the awkward aspects of a person. Margins through nature are necessary to let people be themselves and for their ideas and acts to develop, nurture, and grow free of judgment. In “In Praise of Margins”, Frazier writes of margins in nature as his childhood escape where he and his friends could go to get away from the world. Although he did not clearly have purpose for this escape, he realized, later on as an adult, that the experience gained from nothing was valuable. For instance, he and his friends would go “explore” the woods all day, a time during which, they would be in privacy. They were in a marginal place free of people who would criticize their acts. Growing up without people telling them what to do during their private time was important in letting them learn on their own to distinguish right from wrong and adulthood from childhood. As time changed, their experience of how...
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...Frankenstein by Mary Shelley Key facts full title · Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus author · Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley type of work · Novel genre · Gothic science fiction language · English time and place written · Switzerland, 1816, and London, 1816–1817 date of first publication · January 1, 1818 publisher · Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones narrator · The primary narrator is Robert Walton, who, in his letters, quotes Victor Frankenstein’s first-person narrative at length; Victor, in turn, quotes the monster’s first-person narrative; in addition, the lesser characters Elizabeth Lavenza and Alphonse Frankenstein narrate parts of the story through their letters to Victor. climax · The murder of Elizabeth Lavenza on the night of her wedding to Victor Frankenstein in Chapter 23 protagonist · Victor Frankenstein antagonist · Frankenstein’s monster setting (time) · Eighteenth century setting (place) · Geneva; the Swiss Alps; Ingolstadt; England and Scotland; the northern ice point of view · The point of view shifts with the narration, from Robert Walton to Victor Frankenstein to Frankenstein’s monster, then back to Walton, with a few digressions in the form of letters from Elizabeth Lavenza and Alphonse Frankenstein. falling action · After the murder of Elizabeth Lavenza, when Victor Frankenstein chases the monster to the northern ice, is rescued by Robert Walton, narrates his story, and dies tense · Past foreshadowing · Ubiquitous—throughout...
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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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...Revolution finds its roots in the minds of a select group of often extraordinary individuals. Weaponry, battlefields, and deaths are often mistaken as the revolutionary act itself, when the actual revolution comes from the mind, with conflict arriving after conception as the offspring. Ironically, the offspring nurtures the parent, until the parent has gained enough strength to create a solid foothold in the world. This is how revolution succeeds. The United States of America is one of those few successes among the vast oceans of “Frankenstein” revolutions. In a sense and looking back at the odds, America should have never became a reality, but yet it solidified itself as an ascertainable fluke in a globe ruled by pointy crowns. Declaring...
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...the novel. INTRODUCTION In the Post-Modern period, the feministic perspective has been much travelled especially in the writing of female authors or poets. The word ‘servitude’ (Fanon) in the feministic reading has been much taken in to consideration. To the Lighthouse, much discussed, debated and criticized like its length of writing in the panorama of Feminism. The writers’ efforts to portray the real woman as far as milieu and moment are concerned, is to challenge patriarchal family and treatment of woman. Reading To the lighthouse strikes researcher’s mind of various feministic test like ‘Look Back in Anger’ by John Osborn, ‘Death of A Salesman’ by Arthur Miller, ‘A Doll’s House’ by Henrik Ibsen, ‘Middlemarch’ by George Eliot, ‘Frankenstein’ by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly, ‘An Introduction’ by Kamala Das, poems of Meena Kandasamy, ‘Tara’ by...
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...critical theory today critical theory today A Us e r - F r i e n d l y G u i d e S E C O N D E D I T I O N L O I S T Y S O N New York London Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Routledge Taylor & Francis Group 270 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10016 Routledge Taylor & Francis Group 2 Park Square Milton Park, Abingdon Oxon OX14 4RN © 2006 by Lois Tyson Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business Printed in the United States of America on acid‑free paper 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 International Standard Book Number‑10: 0‑415‑97410‑0 (Softcover) 0‑415‑97409‑7 (Hardcover) International Standard Book Number‑13: 978‑0‑415‑97410‑3 (Softcover) 978‑0‑415‑97409‑7 (Hardcover) No part of this book may be reprinted, reproduced, transmitted, or utilized in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying, microfilming, and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publishers. Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging‑in‑Publication Data Tyson, Lois, 1950‑ Critical theory today : a user‑friendly guide / Lois Tyson.‑‑ 2nd ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0‑415‑97409‑7 (hb) ‑‑ ISBN 0‑415‑97410‑0 (pb) 1. Criticism...
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