Spring has officially started on my balcony. First planting for this year: thyme, parsley, lemon balm, and million bells.
Dear all,
As I was reading the novel, I asked myself a lot why did Frankenstein refuse to give his creature a female companion, besides what he states. In my opinion, he could have avoided all this misery and the monster would finally have a friend (yes I'm definitely on the monster's side). If you were Frankenstein, without taking in account his excuse for not doing it, what would you have done ? Would you have given the creature a female companion ? Would you have trust his word ? C. Dear all, you give convincing proof that Victor wants to be a creator and nothing less. The novel is explicit about it, indeed, although at one point the overcoming of death, motivated by Victor's loss of his mom, seems to be the highest goal. But as you well show, it's not. More is at stake: the desire to be the creator of a new species. This answer begs another question, which my perceptive friend asked in a very direct manner "why did Mary Shelley make her protagonist so ambitious; why does she have him play God rather than Jesus?" It's tempting to answer this through Shelley's biography, but I wonder how we'd answer it, if this were an anonymous novel (and there were plenty of them in Shelley's time). So just taking the novel as our only resource, why do you think this novelist (let's say we have no clue that she's a woman, and one called Mary Shelley) finds the creator figure more enabling than a story about overcoming death (one dead body brought to life). In other words, what ideas does the novel convey through this creator-figure that cannot be equally explored through a more straightforward story of resurrection?
I once was asked by a friend of mine, a first-time reader of Frankenstein, and, although an admirer of science-fiction, not a student of literature:
“If Victor wanted to find the principle of life and defy death, why didn't he infuse life into a dead body instead of putting himself through the gut-churning business of collecting dead body parts and stitching them together?” What would you answer to this question? "Italia! too, Italia! looking on thee,
Full flashes on the soul the light of ages,
Since the fierce Carthaginian almost won thee, To the last halo of the chiefs and sages
Who glorify thy consecrated pages;
Thou wert the throne and grave of empires; still, The fount at which the panting mind assuages Her thirst of knowledge, quaffing there her fill, Flows from the etemal source of Rome's imperial hill." "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage", Canto III, Lord Byron |
Details
AutorArchiv
May 2018
Kategorien |