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