Monday, May 30, 2011

Frankenstein and Macbeth

Further points of comparison

1. The main characters –

- they both had a kind of ambition for power – what kinds of power? – they both wanted to “take” or usurp God’s power in some way –

- challenging the Natural Order –

- they both suffer for their ambition – both have a mental breakdown of some sort

- both lose their families

- both are disloyal – Macbeth goes against his own king, and his responsibilities as a thane, and as a host, and a kinsman (relative)

Frankenstein goes against his own creation (child) the monster, he rejects it, and refuses to take on the responsibility of guiding, teaching, etc

-     he doesn’t take responsibility for his creation’s murders and he takes no steps to help his own family when they are “under attack” from the monster

-     Victor could have accepted the monster and been a good “parent” figure, which would have stopped the monster’s rampage

-     Victor could have followed the monster’s demands for a “wife”

-     they both suffer from HUBRIS -  which means they both had a huge sense of their own importance (pride) and this is why each challenged God – this means that they are both TRAGIC HEROES

-     Tragic hero – a protagonist who creates his own torment and downfall by the sins of his/her own hubris – there is a little process at work in a tragedy that must be followed

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-     The Pattern of a Tragic Hero

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-     1. Establishment of his power and character flaw

What established Vic’s and Mac’s power?

What was each man’s tragic flaw? Pride -> Ambition for power -> selfishness

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-     2. The reversal of his fortune

What is the reversal of fortune for each?

How does it go from good to bad in their lives.

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-     3. Catharsis

Catharsis means purging or cleansing – there is a moment in each tragic hero’s story where they have a complete realization of what has gone wrong and why

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-     4. Restoration of social order

After the main(s) are dead, or finished, the world is “fixed” and goes back to a normal state –

Much more difficult to see in Frankenstein

2. Another good element to compare would be to compare the depiction of female characters across both stories

- in Mac – females = manipulative, powerful, evil, smart, controlling the males around them – Lady Mac brings out the worst in Mac,

- in Frank – loving and gentle, they suffer from the sins of the male characters, Elizabeth brings out the best in Vic,

The women in both are associated with nature, which is a good point to focus on –

Compare the use of the Natural Order in both – ie women know “their place” – strange – Mary Shelley was an early feminist

3. Depiction of Evil

- How does each book deal with evil characters and events? How is evil shown, defined, used or presented in the books?

Compare these differences and consider which is more valid or realistic or modern, or something else?

Define evil – think about what it is, what it means, how it comes out and how it affects the world and characters of the story

Think about the key differences in each

Frank – Victor – refusing to take responsibility for one’s actions, he wants over Life and Death, blasphemy, not speaking out (think The Holocaust), in each case you need to examine what it is that is evil, show how it is, explain the effects, and maybe give your interpretation of it in modern thinking

Mac – regicide (the killing of a king or queen), infanticide, orders the deaths of his best friend and son, consorts with demons and spirits of evil, appears to use incantations, commits treason against his country, lies, cheats, plots,

4. What is a monster? (higher difficulty rating)

Comparing the actual monster in Frank with the men in Mac and Frank who commit monstrous acts – what is it that truly makes a monster?

This is a little more interpretive and has some room to play around.

Rambling Possibilities for FrankenBeth Essay

Compare Funkenstein and Macbeth in terms of the “going against Nature” thing

Have some “external” reference to help you to examine the issue from a real world perspective…

Wouldn’t that be a good idea?

An Area of Inquiry – what are some key differences between Science and Religion?

1. Science is based on a process that observes, tests and concludes – The Scientific Method – see something, find out why or how, come up with an hypothesis and that hypothesis remains until it is disproven by some other series of observations, tests and conclusions

Religion is based on Belief or FAITH – this is not necessarily a good thing to try and prove in the same way – why not? – it leads to a basic problem at the very root – which is, okay, where is He?  - this is a thorny issue for some, and one that ultimately cannot be solved by science, even if it is, I might say – the issue is not about that, it is about FAITH in spite of saying where is He?

2. Science is more about results in some ways, whereas Religion is about the process in some ways

Think about both lead characters in the stories

Both Frankenstein and Macbeth were so focused on the end result that they sacrificed their thinking and moral codes and lost the importance of checking what they were doing – Science can lead to this too.

Consider this line: “What shall it profit a man if he gains the world and loses his own soul?” (or something like that)

Religion forces people to consider the things they are doing and weigh them vs some kind of moral standard – this is important and it is also a key part of both stories

In both, we see the result of “gaining the world and losing your soul” – horror, torment and death

Some scientists become so focused on their conclusion that they do harm on the process – consider the Large Hadron Collider, nuclear bombs, grey goo, etc.

This drive to get to the EFFECT or the RESULT no matter the cost is the same drive that powers Mac and Frank.

HOWEVER, religion has some problems as well – if we get paralysed by considering the moral and/or Bibilical ramifications of everything, then we may not be able to progress or change or evolve. Religion is not very good at bringing in new ideas and allowing their “rules” to change to fit the new ideas – (some do, so don’t judge me as a heretic)

The push-pull between science and religion is a very complex and difficult to resolve area – there are layers of issues

Religious beliefs can be wrong as well – slavery was “backed up” at one point with religion – what is right? What is wrong?

Maybe the strong man SHOULD take over and rule? Maybe we SHOULD fight death?

Was the monster a monster because of his “blasphemous” origin or was he a monster because of his treatment by his “creator”?

He was a good man, intelligent, kind, caring, loving and very angry at his “lord”.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

What would be awesome for your Frankenstein Chapter Teaching Moment?

-     maybe come up with:

-     1. Questions for the class

-     2. A little presentation to project

-     3. A little game or challenge of some sort

-     4. Some graphic or multimedia thing to show some aspect of the chapter

-     5. Maybe a little collection of images or some kind of depiction

-     6. Some digging in and getting deeper into meaning

-     7. Finding symbols or looking at allusions or references

-     8. Taking the meaning from the chapter and spinning it out into the real world (like I tried to do mit der Plato’s Cave Allegory)

May 19, 2011

Hegelian Dialectics

a) Thesis + Antithesis = Synthesis

b) Status Quo + Conflict of Change = Progress

c) Prometheus brought Change (Fire) to the Human Race (Status Quo) and created a big leap in Human Ability and Power

d) Frankenstein wanted to bring the power over Death to Humanity (Change) to make life better and happier (to avoid the Status Quo of sadness and grief) and that created a New Situation (to which he reacted very badly)

The Change/The Fire/The Monster/The Whole Concept is, in a way, symbolic of SCIENCE!

One way to view the monster – he is a representation of Scientific Ideas and Questions

This process is terrifying because we want to stay in the Status Quo

The monster as critic of society

From this reading and discussion, she developed an understanding of the cruelty and tyranny that may be inherent in human institutions and the social and political establishment, and this is echoed in the monster’s many critical comments on human society and individual behaviour during his conversation with Frankenstein. The monster can be seen as a type of the outsider, a creature who is regarded as inferior and for whom society has no place, just as slaves were denied any sense of individuality.

The monster as representative of the mob

In a less positive way, the monster can also be seen as representative of a dangerous force. For all her passion for reform and her hatred of the despotic Tory elite in England, like many other middle-class writers Mary Shelley was anxious about the possibility of revolutionary mob violence. It was argued that, once people began to act collectively in this way, individual differences and moral scruples disappeared and the crowd was likely to commit atrocities that few of its members would tolerate as individual. From this point of view, the monster represents a dangerous, uncontrollable and unappeasable force at loose in society.

The monster: other images

In his book In Frankenstein’s Shadow (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), Chris Baldick shows that, during the nineteenth century, the story of Frankenstein and his monster was adapted to a number of purposes. One of these was to represent the kind of monstrousness of behaviour created by the French Revolution: the crowd itself was represented as a monster, a fearsome being composed of disparate parts, a force created by the thinkers behind the Revolution, but now out of their control. In England, the image of the uncontrollable monster was attached to any large grouping threatening the political status quo, including the working classes, the Irish Nationalists, the Trade Unions and even the inhabitants of Birmingham!

Think about those THREE ways of looking at the monster and be ready to apply at least ONE to the monster’s chapter that you are covering.

Nature vs Nurture

Tabula Rasa – some believe we are born as ZERO – we are empty and we are filled as we grow up

Therefore, we literally ARE our experiences and our parents’ teachings

Eg the kid who was trained to be a racist that I taught in Woodstock

There is some evidence for this – the formation of the brain – neural pathways are literally created by experience

The alt to this is that we are born with in-built something that we bring into the world and then we grow to fit that something

There is proof for that too – genetics – or language – it turns out that we are genetically predisposed to learn language – we learn incredible complexity without being intelligent

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

What is in A Body Paragraph?

a) Statement of point

b) Reference to point in the source material

c) Discussion/analysis about how that reference shows the point AND

d) Link it all back to the thesis

How to “Read and Note” for Frankenstein Chs 11-16 (incl)

1. Who is there?

2. What happens? (key points)

3. What do we learn about the monster? (or protagonist)

4. Any observations about human universals? (theme stuff)

5. Anything jump out as “from the author”? (time period, context, etc)

Monday, May 9, 2011

Discussing the animation of the monster

Victor is struck by the enormity of what he has done when he sees the ugly creature moving – animated

It looks like a blasphemy of human life (created in the perfect image of God ie think of how we respond to images of babies) because it IS a blasphemy – it was not created by God, in the image of God

What is the monster created from? If we are in the image of God, what is the monster the image of, or the embodiment of?

-     it is the embodiment of Man’s lust for power over God – our desire to beat Nature, to beat Death and surpass the boundaries we are “supposed to” have

-     This concept is still a huge discussion point in our lives – we live in a culture where this argument is being played out every day

-      Paradox – if religion (The Bible) is taken as truth, we are created in the image of God, therefore we too are creators – we do what he did – we were designed to do this

-     Victor is grappling with the biggest issues that a human can deal with – DEATH, LIFE, MEANING, SELF, etc

-     And when he looks into the eyes of the monster, what does he see?

-     He looks into a world where too many doors are kicked open – he is shaken to his core by the reality of what he has done – he has done something deeply WRONG, totally against his humanness – ie women make babies, in a specific way, and he has broken that, broken “God’s plan”, broken “Nature’s plan” and the realization hurt him – like Lady Macbeth

-     he goes crazy for awhile in Chapter 5 – gets healed back to “normal” by Clerval

-     the monster is rejected by his God, by his mother, and he is “forsaken”

-     what we get into now is a whole new area of thought – what happens when we are rejected by our creator? By our mother?

-     This will have a cost in the monster – ie calling him a monster will have a cost – “self-fulfilling prophecy”

-     We live up to the definitions we are raised in - this will come back to haunt Victor - literally

  

Friday, May 6, 2011

Chapter 5 and 6 Frankenstein

Describe the making of the monster.

Describe the monster itself.

Describe Victor's state after the creation. Why is he like this? (class discussion on this next day)

First Assignment - for final Frankenstein project


Plot out the animation of the monster for a new movie. Plan shots, music, effects, specific as possible, include any dialogue and, if you're really feeling industrious, go ahead and shoot the scene. 

Thanks.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Frankenstein Chapter 3 and 4

1. Why is Victor’s mother’s death so important?

2. How does M. Krempe respond to hearing about Victor’s prior scholarly pursuits? Why? (this may require your own interpretation)

3.  How is M. Waldman different from Krempe?

4. Why is Victor’s meeting with Waldman a moment of great impact?

5. In what pursuit was Victor so absorbed that he did not contact his family for two years?

6. What becomes Victor’s obsession in Chapter 4? Describe his behaviour.

7. What “astonishing power” does Victor discover?

8. By the end of Ch.4, Victor describes himself as emaciated and a shell of a man. What has caused this ruin of his former self? 

These are content questions, and they exist only to test you in your reading and comprehension.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Frankenstein Character Web

Robert Walton

-      he is an explorer

-      saves Victor from the ice floe, sees a large “man” fleeing ahead of him (Vic)

-      a touch of elitism (thinks Europeans are better)

-      writes letters to his sister that give us a framework for the novel – and a “moral guide” – we have a P.O.V. for the story Victor tells –

Victor von Frankenstein

-      Swiss – his parents are kind to the less fortunate – he is a part of the upper level of society

-      Spoiled by the love and treatment of his parents

-      He is in love with Elizabeth Lavenza, a fostered child living in his home

-      He is obsessed with “how things work” the natural laws and rules of the world – ie how, why and so on

Elizabeth Lavenza – foster

-      found in a peasant’s hut – shockingly beautiful and angelic and an example of this idea that people are on the outside a reflection of how they are on the inside – which is an old prejudice – (based on the idea that a sick person looks sick – therefore this person is not a good genetic contributor)

Complementary – Elisabeth had complementary attributes to Henry and Victor – she gave them balance with her loving, warm, feminine nature

What exactly is this?

-      caring, maternal instincts for loving, nesting, all manner of warm, nice gooey soft cushy lovey sweetie kissy nicey, etc

-      why relevant? Well, what would happen if Victor didn’t have her around him anymore? What kind of character attributes would come out in him?   

Natural Philosophy, Cornelius Agrippa, Paracelsus, Albertus Magnus.

These people and this discipline, are key in Victor’s early learning, and they get him started on a path of learning –

Define and explain those 3 people and that discipline on your bloggity blog – multimedia is good, having a proper amount of content is good, having links and refs is good, copying from another site is not.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Here is where you can read Frankenstein online in its entirety:

Frankenstein

You also have your actual book, the option to get an audio version and you can probably find a bunch of movies, comic versions and graphic novels out there. There is no excuse for not reading this!

Some will claim this book is a difficult read, but you can do it because you have the potential to be awesome. Are you there yet, well, that remains to be seen. You will have to PROVE your awesomeness.

Signed,

Mr. the Lobb

May 2, 2011

Intro to Frankenstein

-      Mary Shelley published this book in 1818 and she was a teenager when she started

-      She was born after a period of GREAT change in Europe that was known as the Age of Enlightenment

-      Isaac Newton – Principia Mathematica 1687 – he was a genius, scientist, philosopher, invented calculus, outlined the concepts of gravity, and such other as this

-      What? The Catholic Church? What might this institution have thought out Newton?

-      Such thinkers challenge Biblical knowledge and church doctrine

-      At the beginning (or so) of the 18^th Century, a number of other thinkers started coming out with new ideas – the root of their ideas was called Enlightenment – Kant (a philosopher) said that it was “the freedom to use one’s own intelligence”

-      This began a whole new focus on REASON – observing, thinking, questioning, challenging, proving

-      This creates a whole new culture of change

-      Odd moment of Fact – coffeehouses – these “shops” or whatever started and people went there to talk and think and argue and it was a part of culture for people to be smart, and to do things that were interesting and write about them

-      A question someone might ask might be: why is the king the king?

-      At its core was a critical questioning of traditional institutions, customs, and morals, and a strong belief in rationality and science.

-      These beliefs led to a lot of upheaval and wacky ideas – eg Galvani and the electric frog’s leg

-      American Revolution – 1776 – Britain ran the country and the thinkers revolted – hey, why should the king get our tax money?

-      French Revolution – 1789 – the peasants rose up and cut off a lot of heads of aristocrats  - (the high class) – one of the crazy new ideas – people need to be treated fairly – hey, maybe we need to help those less fortunate! – hey, maybe the poor don’t like it like that!

-      Late 1700s – hey, maybe women aren’t property!

-      Etc. etc

-      Mary Shelley – raised in this incredible environment –

-      Total change – her mom was a proto-feminist –

-      Her dad was a brilliant writer and thinker and friend of many key players in the above

-      As she grew up, her new husband was Percy Bysse Shelley – a very famous and brilliant writer and poet

-      What kind of life is normal to her?

-      She was a brilliant, challenger of the norm, a thinker, a writer and one who supported some interesting new ideas – including liberalism

-      The writing of the book was rooted in a “coffeehouse moment”

-      A group of writers was gathered in Switzerland in a storm and they were telling ghost stories – she told one about a dream she had – the dream was about a man made of death who stalked her in her room – similar to the Jewish folklore of the Golem

-      Mary’s friends were all engaged in a challenge to write the stories of their ghost stories and see whose was best – she was 18 or 19 and she won

-      Her story was based on the dream and combined a lot of the ideas of the Age of Enlightenment –

-      It is the first Science Fiction story or any sort

-      It came out just as science had become so important

Background Ideas

Science vs Religion – is this battle over? Certainly not. We live in a time when the exact same arguments are still going on with no obvious end in sight