The Cenci and Apathy of Compassion

Throughout the play I realized the apathy that the characters seemed to posses towards the victims of Beatrice and everyone her father has tyrannized. The Pope who is suppoused to be the most compassionate character by definition of a follower of God shows the least compassion to any of the character's and says simply "They must die" for the crimes they committed. The lack of compassion is the catalyst for the entire play in that it's Francesco's lack of empathy that allows such evil acts to exist and ultimately brings about his death. Beatrice's unwilligness to actually kill her father and commands others to kill him was an interesting development because as the main person that he has tormented and killed her brothers I naturally assumed that she would "want" to be the one kill her father herself and her unwillingness to actually do the deed shows she still has some compassion left. This shows to us the the reader that not all characters are morally bankrupt and gives us a more sympathetic nature to Beatrice. The fact that at the end Beatrice and everyone is killed do to the need for "justice" for Francesco even though he was a absolutely horrible person shows the morally dark nature of this play and that no one is capable of truly protecting themselves. The inability of compassion in this play shows the nature of that people in this world who can't protect themselves aren't going to live very long, or that there going to pay for being weak with there lives.

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.

Frankenstein and Prometheus: Dangers of Knowledge

I found it interesting how the name of the book or another name for the book was The Modern Prometheus and realized just how similar Frankenstein and Prometheus truly were in that Prometheus steals fire from the Gods and gives technology to humanity suffering by having his liver torn out by an eagle every day. The same vein appears in Frankenstein by having Victor study such things as Alchemy and be obsessed with The Elixir of Life of which such thoughts become the thought to create the Creature. Creating the Creature is Victor's stealing of fire from God in that by trying to create life he crosses a line he "Never" should have crossed and it brings him misery of the ultimate kind. The punishment of both is severe in that Victor suffers the death of family and friends, along with innocents while Prometheus has his liver torn out each day by a large bird. The men of each suffer and strive to do something amazing for humanity and both inevitably fail spectacularly with disastrous results for themselves and the human species.

My thoughts of this was that Mary Shelley was using this analogy as way to warn society of the dangers of doing anything without considering the consequences of your actions to yourself and the world.  We used bombs to destroy our enemies, but also destroyed the lives, property, and personal safety of countless innocents people in WWII in the countries of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan and such technology resulted in a real threat of war between us and the Soviet Union for fear of being taken over if we didn't have more "weapons of mass destruction" than the other countries did. The danger of weapons that that are so dangerous in the hands of someone without a proper respect and fear of such dangerous technology is a recipe for disaster on a massive scale and Frankenstein illustrates that concept flawlessly.

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.

Reaching for More or Humanity is "Never" Satisfied

In the spirit of Kubla Khan is a poem about reaching for something beyond yourself and basicly not getting it. The problem with the narrator in I Am by John Clare is that they want to be closer to "god" or a godlike being because they feel they have nothing left so being something other than what they are is appealing. The need that people have to want something beyond all sanity is frightening in and of itself because we recognize that theirs a limit to when we just have to stop, but obsession can of course drive people to do insane things, such as bringing a dead person back to life when you "know" a person is suppoused to stay dead in Frankenstein. Humanities struggle to keep going even when your not sure where your going too is something that in the narration of the poem is explored where the narrator simply wishes to return to something or be reborn into a life where they aren't in pain or suffering from depression since the tone of the poem seems to lean that way.

Morality versus Nature

Don Juan seems to have a problem throughout Canto I with being unable to rein in his passions and act on logic something that gets him and Julia into a lot of trouble when they begin an affair and get caught. This problem with not being able to control there passions and act completely on instinct seems to be a way for Byron to explore whether man is ruled by his base instincts first and learns morality later or has personal morals that are instilled at birth. This question was something that was being studied at the time and looking at this question through the eyes of a character so obviously portraying his own morality rather than what is expected is a good idea.

The fact that Don Juan is 16 at the time was a odd choice though in that by him being so young it casts a reckless light to this character making his actions more primal in that as teenagers were more in tune with our baser emotions and allow them to rule us, not that Don Juan being a teenager excuses his actions but it does cast them in a more realistic light. The fact that this question of whether people are ruled by logic or instinct is a fundamental question for the nature of this story but there's no true way to tell whether people are born with morality or learn it.

Lamia and Geraldine

I found it odd how Geraldine was described as being a "perfect" woman and decided to look up the mythology of Lamia and found out that Lamia was a mistress of Zeus and made to either kill/consume her children by Hera. The mark of snake skin on her body a way of reminding Lamia of her sin of adultery. The fact that Geraldine is a Lamia figure and her interest in Christabel makes me wonder about whether or not Geraldine was getting friendly in order to eat her and satisfy her savage instincts. This idea is that Christabel and Geraldine are doppelgangers and why Geraldine is suppoused to represent everything that women are suppoused to strive to be her vicious behavior in her sensuality and how she seems to use that in the second act recasts her as something to be reviled and disgusted with.

Identity and Radcliffe

Throughout the novel Adeline is horrified by the actions of her father and is terrified at the fact of being sent back to him and she is terrified at the prospects of her future due to her background. Throughout the novel this sense of melancholy over her sense of identity is changed in that she is adopted by Luc who is unknown to the audience Theodore's father, making the two lovers related. This fact makes a a very complicated problem for Theodore and Adeline adding to the Gothic feel of the novel. The most important identity reveal is that the Marquis who was said to be a relation of Adeline is a fraud which adds to the mystery of whether or not her family that she was raised with actually was her family. When the fake marquis is revealed Adeline gets all the wealth making her seemingly to forget her feelings of inadequacy and live a happy life.  I think that this a big flaw in the novel in that I wish Adeline had faced her fear of her father and received some closer in this because it's a big problem for her throughout the novel and for her family identity to not be closed just seems like too big of a plot hole to leave open.

Poems of Love and Irony

Throughout reading this book I found it ironic how many of the poems portray love as something that should be avoided, ignored, or something to be wary of, and throughout the events of the story love is something that causes Theodore to be almost killed, Adeline to nearly go insane from, and for every other character, misery. In "Ode To The Passions" the character of Hope is holding a rose of revenge. I thought it was pretty ironic in relation to the plot in that Adeline's inability to hope for a good future for herself causes her to fall into despair and her lack of hope for Theodore when he's faced with the death penalty causes her to go nearly crazy, causing her to be easily manipulated into the Marquis plans of revenge. Reading the novel without the poems I think would take away a lot of the tension in the novel in that when you read them they give a sense of weight to the plot and the characters decisions that because you can't see inside their heads, and just have to believe that their sincere, the poems kind of ground the book in a more real world sense that just because you love someone doesn't mean that circumstances aren't going to turn out badly or that it won't lead to the characters death.

The Problem with A Poison Tree

Of all the poems in the songs of Experience I thought the Poison Tree was a good take on explaining how hatred and envy can destroy someone. I thought it was very odd  though how in this set of poems with such a clear message of morality would have a poem about destroying another person, even if that person is someone you don't like and killing them without it being admonished or shown in a light of horror or disgust. The only reason I can think of to do this is that it's a allegory that the foe is killed but the narrator is just as "dead" as their foe because they had to "feed" the seed of hatred with tears of fear and deceit a clear showing of that hatred and wrath change a person yet their are no ultimate consequences for the narrator. The religious symbols of a snake and a apple are clear references to Lucifer and the ultimate sin of pride and envy that got him and a third of the host kicked out of heaven, so perhaps the narrator is lucifer with the fow being humanity, a very disturbing idea.

Songs of Innocence and Irony

While reading these poems it made me think of how ironic in the Songs of Innocence a poem about a child working in miserable conditions as a chimney sweeper would be in this set of poems meant as an ode to the innocent ways of children. To me this was a deliberant way of shocking the audience with the hopelessness situation the child was in, and bringing awareness of the plight that these children were suffering. The hopeful way the boy describes life after their work, either death or a imaginary world where their all safe and happy shows the resilience that the narrator has that his life and those of his friends gives the reader, or atleast myself a sense of cynical hopefullness.

Portraying Women: Otranto vs Glenfinlas

In the tale of Glenfinlas by Sir Walter Scott, two men are seduced by a women in green who bears a striking resemblance to the mythological seductress archetype of the "otherworldly" women. This is in clear contrast to the women of The Castle of Otranto who are forced to manipulating events or quietly accepting their fate. The fact that The Lady of the Wood is in charge of her femininity, in that she is complete control of who she loves and is accountable to no one but herself for her actions. Contrasting this is Hippolita who gives up everything of herself for her husband who leaves for a younger woman. These women portray to opposite but important sides of how women were thought of by society, where as Hippolita portrays self sacrifice for the so-called good of her family the Lady of the Wood is purely unchecked desire with no thought or caring beyond what she wants.

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.