Re-imagining Frankenstein

HUM 2052: Civilization IISpring 2015Dr. Perdigao

February 25, 2015

Frankenstein (1931, 1994)

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Frankenstein (1931, 1994)

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Postmodern Play

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HS0XceWlGAs

A Monster’s Education?

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/10-Books-that-Screwed-Up-the-World/Benjamin-Wiker/e/9781596980556/?itm=1#TOC

Table of ContentsIntroduction: Ideas Have Consequences     1Preliminary Screw-UpsThe Prince     7Discourse on Method     17Leviathan     31Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality among Men     41Ten Big Screw-UpsThe Manifesto of the Communist Party     57Utilitarianism     73The Descent of Man     85Beyond Good and Evil     99The State and Revolution     115The Pivot of Civilization     127Mein Kampf     145The Future of an Illusion     165Coming of Age in Samoa     177Sexual Behavior in the Human Male     195Dishonorable MentionThe Feminine Mystique     211Afterword: A Conclusive Outline of Sanity     227Acknowledgments     233Notes     235Index     251

• Krempe (47)• Waldman (49)

• De Lacey• Agatha• Felix• Safie

• “Was man, indeed, at once so powerful, so virtuous, and magnificent, yet so vicious and base?” (122).

• The Comte de Volney’s Ruins of Empires: philosophy of history

• Plutarch’s Parallel Lives (100 AD)• Goethe’s Sorrows of Young Werther (1774)• Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667)• “Romantic cyclopedia universalis” (271) (130)

• “Who was I? What was I? Whence did I come? What was my destination?” (131)

CIV Readings

• “I observed, with pleasure, that he did not go to the forest that day, but spent it in repairing the cottage and cultivating the garden” (114).

• “I had admired the perfect forms of my cottagers—their grace, beauty, and delicate complexions: but how I was terrified, when I viewed myself in a transparent pool! At first I started back, unable to believe that it was indeed I who was reflected in the mirror; and when I became fully convinced that I was in reality the monster that I am, I was filled with the bitterest sensations of despondence and mortification. Alas! I did not yet entirely know the fatal effects of this miserable deformity” (117).

• De Lacey’s and Safie’s stories (125)

• Persecution of Safie’s Turkish merchant father because of “his religion and wealth rather than the crime alleged against him” (125) in Paris

• Perpetual exile for the De Lacey family due to involvement in plot—exile to Germany (128)

• Justice system—inhumanity (Justine, Safie’s father, De Laceys)

Lessons

• “Unfeeling, heartless creator! You had endowed me with perceptions and passions and then cast me abroad an object for the scorn and horror of mankind. But on you only had I any claim for pity and redress, and from you I determined to seek that justice which I vainly attempted to gain from any other being that wore the human form.” (141)

• “My vices are the children of a forced solitude that I abhor; and my virtues will necessarily arise when I live in communion with an equal. I shall feel the affections of a sensitive being, and become linked to the chain of existence and events, from which I am now excluded.” (150)

A sequel?

An equal?

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• Henry Clerval—as Romantic (161), idea of India

• Victor’s ennui

• Idea of the female creation— “thinking and reasoning animal” (170); destroys her (175)

• “Slave, I before reasoned with you, but you have proved yourself unworthy of my condescension. Remember that I have power; you believe yourself miserable, but I can make you so wretched that the light of day will be hateful to you. You are my creator, but I am your master—obey!” (172)

• Elizabeth’s death (199)

• Retells story to magistrate (202), “Chinese box structure”

• “he or I shall perish in mortal conflict” (206)—as Beowulf?

Revisions

• Rewrites the story (213)

• “When younger. . . I believed myself destined for some great enterprise. . . From my infancy I was imbued with high hopes and a lofty ambition; but how am I sunk” (214).

• “Seek happiness in tranquility, and avoid ambition, even if it be only the apparently innocent one of distinguishing yourself in science and discoveries” (220).

• Description of creature (221)

• “Evil thenceforth became my good” (222): Milton

• “I cannot believe that I am the same creature whose thoughts were once filed with sublime and transcendent visions of the beauty and the majesty of goodness” (223).

• “I shall collect my funeral pile” (225).

Didacticism