“’And what was I?  Of my creation and creator I was absolutely ignorant… hideously deformed and loathsome… I was not even of the same nature as man.  I cannot describe to you the agony that these reflections inflicted upon me; I tried to dispel them, but sorrow only increased with knowledge…’”

     As the monster grew more intelligent and learned more things, he became more susceptible to sorrow and pain.  The worst of these being societal knowledge founded upon his dealings with people, such as when the monster saves a girl in the forest but a man shoots at him.  This results not only in the reader’s realization of a defamiliarization, but the monster’s own defamiliarization with society.  The monster did good deeds; he shoveled snow and saved a girl, yet people reacted negatively.  In turn, this produced enough abandonment and hatred for the monster to take vengeance in his own turn.
     Furthermore, there is an underlying religious commentary. The monster has no faith in Frankenstein, his creator, therefore how can he have any faith within himself or the society which batters him?  How can he know who he is with no sense of parent or place?  All of the guilt and isolation that the monster experiences are a result of society; society’s ills, even when personified as a monster, are still results of society.

The Cenci and Violence: Victims and Despair

One nature I thought was very interesting about the play that we're reading was that this is the first time we've been in the viewpoint of a woman who "is" truly a victim, many female characters of the works we've read are victims of circumstance or by the actions of another party, but not nearly to the physical or emotional degree of Beatrice Cenci. Count Francesco Cenci, her father who is the most sociopathic character i've ever seen, and absolutely relishes, violence and milks the misery of those lives he destroys in the most twisted and brutal ways possible for all it's worth.  The violence he enacts on people is simply astonishing to see and truly makes me wonder whether he is a human incarnation of evil itself. Francesco's physical and emotional violence enacted on his entire family in nothing short of disgusting, and the fact that nobody tries to offer any assistance to the family for fear of Francesco makes this entire play a lesson in that you have noone to protect you but yourself. The fact that Beatrice and her mother are nothing short of slaves to Francesco's whims and are treated little better than servants fills the reader with a tender sympathy, but also  a frustrated  sense of anger, or atleast to me, because Beatrice nor her mother seem to fight Francesco or they waited until something truly horrible happened, but that just shows the beaten down personalities of both woman and the staff because they are so afraid they can't even voice an true opinion. This entire play filled me with a absolute and pure disgust for Francesco and personally I was glad he died, but yet I can't help but feel terrified for Beatrice and her mother, because this world certaintly doesn't feel like a kind place towards woman.

“’ I was not even of the same nature as man.  I cannot describe to you the agony that these reflections inflicted upon me; I tried to dispel them, but sorrow only increased with knowledge…’”

During our class discussion on Monday on the end of Frankenstein, I was really struck by the concept of the creature’s relation to society. In the novel, we see more and more evidence of the creature’s acquisition of knowledge. With more knowledge came more agony and misery. His dealings with society are largely the biggest creators of his learned agony and misery. After saving a girl in the forest, a man shoots at him. People react negatively to all of his witnessed actions. The creature in turn feels betrayed by society, betrayed enough to take action for his creator’s abandonment. For the creature to be entirely abandoned by his creator and society, the only natural reaction is for the creature to lack faith in humanity. All of the creatures suffering, whether it be from isolation or guilt, is directly caused by his relationship with society.

Emotional Monster

Something that has always captured my attention about this book is the emotional range given to creature. I really attribute this to Shelley being a woman, and using this creature to express a lot of the perhaps more restricted emotions. The sense of isolation in the creature is more than obvious, but the source of this isolation maybe not so much. Mary Shelley lived a life with a lot of emotional stress, having no mother, strange relationships, and we can't forget that she was a woman in the 1800s, which was not exactly the best situation. With all of that, the creature really does begin to take on this new allegorical side as the embodiment of Mary Shelley's personal struggles.

Burke’s 'Philosophical Inquiry' as applied to Shelley’s 'Frankenstein'

I was strongly taken by Burke’s “Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful”, and find that the majority of his ideas can be applied directly to Shelley’s portrayal of the sublime and beautiful within the characters of her novel, Frankenstein. 

The Creature itself embodies the terror of Victor’s sublime idea in sharp contrast to the beautiful expectation he held for it. According to Burke, the two cannot exist together in one object, for beauty stems from pleasure and the sublime stems from pain. The passions which stir a sense of pain (or danger) concern us with a sense of self-preservation, which leads to a strong sense of horror that our life could be affected by illness, malformation, or death. Something of this nature cannot therefore be categorized as beautiful- no matter its appearance. “…my first observation… will be found very nearly true; that the sublime is an idea belonging to self-preservation. It is therefore one of the most affecting we have. That its strongest emotion is an emotion of distress, and that no pleasure from a positive cause belongs to it.” (Burke)

Burke also has something to say when it comes to Victor, who is a character defined by his solitude and ambition. Victor, who chooses solitude, and the Creature- who is forced into it, both experience “The total and perpetual exclusion from all society, (which) is as great a positive pain as can almost be conceived” (Burke). Burke’s version of the ‘passions of society’ can be broken down into three large categories; sympathy, imitation, and ambition. Sympathy, as a form of substitution, places us in the place of another man. As we discussed in class, we see this occur between Victor and his Creature- but it becomes a cycle that relies on self-preservation and fear as opposed to sympathy and/or pity. Within this cycle is imitation, which the Creature both lacks (because he is shunned), but also strives for as the ‘son’ to his Creator and father figure, Victor. Over the course of Victor’s ambition towards Creation- he realizes that he has pressed too close to danger and has stepped beyond the natural. By Burke’s standards- it is this closeness that makes it impossible for him to feel any pleasure in his Creation. For, “when danger or pain press too nearly, they are incapable of giving any delight, and are simply terrible” (Burke).

monstrosity as a whole

When it comes to considering humanity as a whole in comparison to one human, the step is really wide in to the realm of monstrosity. For one thing, when one person analyzes the world, he/she would typically say that humanity is good but the world is cruel but when it comes to questioning the good or evil of humanity as a whole, people most commonly same that the world is good but humanity is cruel. And when we examine the nature of Frankenstein’s monster, we could say he too is good but the world is evil to him when it comes to analyzing the events for which he is a witness too. This in a grander scale of comparing Frankenstein and the monster as a whole of humanity would leave to the conclusion of the world being good but humanity being evil because Frankenstein was miserable and alone he wanted to bring life into something for him to have a friend but this selfishness that came by wanting to create a human being on his own led him to greater sorrow and instead of creating life he brought greater suffering to himself and his monster because of humanities cruel selfishness.   

Mirrored Characters and Obsession with Life

While reading Frankenstein I noticed Victor's constant need to create life. No set back will stop this ambitious need. The fact that this is a horror story speaks a lot about his actions as well. His self centered, single minded desire to accomplish this leads to the deaths of people he loves and much more. Another interesting thing to note is that The Creature is also obsessed with creation. He becomes a reflection of Victor's selfishness; he will do anything to get Victor to create a mate for him. Their lives parallel each other; they are both outcasts who are barely living in the first place; forced to observe life rather than to live it themselves. That is a bleak existence and I can see why someone would want to have a companion to push away the loneliness. Victor, however, had a wife; If he wanted, they could have just had a child and created life the old fashioned way.

Monsters and the Unknown

As I was reading Frankenstein, an interesting thought came to mind, and that of course is the thought of monstrosity. But more than monstrosity, it is the very notion of monstrosity and what makes it so. This specifically came to my mind after the events that happened yesterday with the bombing of Boston, which is obviously seen as a monstrous action that someone had committed. This begs to mind though, what is the very definition of monstrosity? We all talk about monsters in a very general sense, monsters hiding our beds, monsters with the sole purpose to scare us as if they have nothing better to do than waste their time making our lives miserable. Why? Because they're monsters. That's all that there is to it. But there's more than that, so much more than that. In our simplistic minds, we simply view monsters as these creatures or beings that exists only to torment, but surely something happened to them to make them so. There had to be some reason, some event, some anything that slowly changed them into the monsters that they are now. The term "monster" is so overused and undefined that it begs the notion of what a monster truly is. Just a simple search on Google presented this:

mon·ster  

/ˈmänstər/

Noun An imaginary creature that is typically large, ugly, and frightening.

Adjective Of an extraordinary and daunting size or extent.

Synonyms noun.   monstrosity adjective.   huge - enormous - monstrous - prodigious - tremendous

This can't stand to be true. Monsters truly take all shapes of forms and sizes. That's what makes it so terrifying. The monster itself could be dwelling inside the human mind, the pounding heart, the actions of a people or a being. There is one thing that monsters have shown us through Frankenstein however. The fact that the creation, Frankenstein's monster, had a mind. It had parts of humanity involved in its creation. That is the true monster, the emotions that rage out of control, the despair that became too much to handle, the fear that drives you to the end. The monster itself - it has the potential to rage through everyone because all monsters have a mind to be able to commit the things that it does. That's what makes a monster, not that it has emotions, but that it pays no attention to the control of emotions and lets go of everything that makes the person human.

Monsters: Creator and Creation

    In the world of Frankenstein, the theme of monsters is discussed with Frankenstein's creature being thought of as the worst monster but was he truly? Frankenstein by going against nature and creating his creature as an affront to God and self proclaiming science is more important than anything, even his soul though this is before he realizes what he's done is wrong and rejects his creation which fuels the creatures hatred for humanity because it's lonely. The creatures monstrosity by being "what it is" a animated body created of the dead limbs of various people would be quit horrifying for any person to accept but the monstrosity of being ostracized from society, being rejected by his creator, and the attitudes of the villagers when they see him and immediately are disgusted all serve to make you feel pity for this creature and put him as a victim of circumstance.
   
   Frankenstein's monstrosity in his flaunting of natural rules shows a pride on the level of the  devil in Paradise Lost because he believes he's justified in creating this creature because science gives him the ability to do this and why shouldn't he if it's possible than God is okay with it? This monstrosity of character only seems to drive Frankenstein more insane as the story goes. The monstrosity of human pride and entitlement serve to be a social critique of how far humanity "should" go in the terms of science and research.

Clare's Madness

After reading John Clare’s first I Am it seemed to me that he thought of himself as an eternal spirit that was not shackled by time or by body. This would explain how he thought he was Byron. Yet Clare’s Don Juan A Poem, seems to not be similar to the portion we read of Byron’s Don Juan. Both poems contain spite yet Clare’s poem seems to be more pointed and hateful. The poem seems to shift focus frequently. Whatever Clare's focus falls upon could either be praised or lambasted seemingly on a whim. Clare's second I Am seems as if it were written with a clearer head.  A man plagued by illness is locked away and abandoned by his friends and family. He longs for peace with God like the peace he knew in childhood. The selection of Clare's work is a very interesting representation of his disease. The work displays the anger, hubris, and vulnerability of a troubled mind in a way that is totally unique to me.

Prophecies & Morality

Throughout Walpole the prophecy  is displayed as being a symbol for chaos and change for the characters in The Castle of Otranto. Manfred views the prophecy as a symbol of evil in that his name and family will be brought to ruin, leaving him to slowly become insane throughout the course of the book, as he manipulates family and friends to hopefully thwart the will of the prophecy, which only ends in the end of his household. The prophecy itself is chaotic in that it wants the rightful person on the throne and has no qualms about driving people into insanity, committing murder, and manipulating people to achieve it's goals. In many ways the prophecy is a doppelganger to Manfred in that morality and compassion aren't as important as fulfilling the his goals , Manfred to continue his household and the prophecy to put the rightful Lord of Otranto in-charge. This willingness to exempt oneself from morals and compassion is shown by Manfred in his willingness to commit atrocious acts of murder and unwillingness to accept responsibility for his actions.The prophecy itself commits murders and drives people to insanity, setting  up the fall of everyone except Theodore and Isabella so the prophecy can be fulfilled.

Prophecies and Destruction

I found it interesting that the central force behind this story was a prophecy. Prophecies seem to always be the subject’s self-destruction. This story is a perfect example of self-destruction based on a character’s fear of prophecy fulfillment.  The prophecy states, “the castle and lordship of Otranto should pass from the present family, whenever the real owner should be grown too large to inhabit it". In the beginning, Manfred fears his people’s whispers of the prophecy. It seems to loom over him. After the death of his only son, Manfred goes to extreme lengths to try and secure his lineage. He still has Matilda, but due to the perceived necessity of a male heir, he ends up killing his daughter and only other heir. This fulfills the prophecy he tried so incredibly hard to disprove. He made it true by trying too hard to disprove it and ended up losing his family over it.

Repetition as a Foundation of the Uncanny and Strange

Linking the past, present and future is a key theme of ‘The Castle of Otranto’- but it is the recurrent use of time and human emotion as a link between the characters and their determined fates that presents itself as repetitive, and therefore, uncanny.

Human experience places a sense of superstition and unease around anything that repeats, mirrors, doubles or seems too coincidental to be natural. We see this in our fears and fascination regarding doppelgängers, mirrors (as bad luck), or twins as elements of potential horror plots. It all creeps us out, often at a very basic or unconscious level. Theodore seems to be a doppelgänger to Alfonso the Good, the true heir (as seen in the portrait in the castle) and causes a panic in Manfred upon sight.

At a basic narrative level the novel employs repetitive use of exclamations and shouts of terror or understanding. “The prince! The prince! The helmet! The helmet!” (18) is shouted by Manfred’s domestics upon their discovery of the young Conrad’s mysterious demise. Repetition of “the hand! the giant! the hand!” (90) on Manfred’s part also adds to the sense of something uncanny and overly strange at the end of the novel, bringing things full circle and repeating the link of past and present.  
     Readers can also regard the castle itself as a remnant from the past, and something that links the histories of two fated families. The mysterious prophecy presented at the beginning of the novel invokes a sense of determined fate, and creates a link between past and future. These recurring repetitions alongside uncanny coincidences and parallels, as well as the overall sense of the cyclical nature of past/present/future all lend toward the creation of what we call the ‘Gothic’ novel.

Names

Something I noticed while reading the novel was that the names of most of the main cast of characters are entirely opposite of what they mean when it comes to nomenclature. For example Manfred traditionally comes from Germanic words meaning "Peace" or "strength", and can mean "Man of peace". Manfred is, as we see, a very violent and irrational man at times. Hippolita, his wife, gets her name from the Greek Queen of the Amazons; implying she would be a strong female character who is not so easily ruled by her husband. Conrad means "brave, bold ruler or counsel" and from the little glimpsed of Conrad, he seems not to have been the type to be brave or bold, or really given the chance to be so considering his sickly frame.