The blank slate theory is also seen in Mary Shelley’s classic novel, Frankenstein. In Frankenstein, the monster starts out his life in loneliness and in a condition of disorientation. The creature says, “I began also to observe, with greater accuracy, the forms that surrounded me…” The monster’s experience is very representative of John Locke’s theory of mind as a blank slate. At first, he can barely perceive a leaf from a bird, but his senses gradually become regulated to his environment. He starts to distinguish the different sights and sounds based on his surroundings and the atmosphere. As the monster walks through the woods, he experiences new objects. He comes across foods to eat and drink. The monster is gaining more knowledge as he…
During the creation scene, the creature is portrayed as a malicious beast by Victor and the reader blindly accepts his perspective because in the reader’s mind, Victor is a human while the Creature is not. As humans, we have a tendency to sympathize with the human Victor as opposed to the non-human Creature. As the story progresses to volume two, Mary Shelley challenges the reader’s perspective by providing a panoramic view of the Creature so the reader can gain a perspective through the Creature’s eyes and thus it allows Shelley to challenge what the reader views as…
In the chapters 4 and 5 from the book “Frankenstein”, explains how he creates the creature and the ideas that lead him to his creation. In the beginning of chapter 4, it made it pretty obvious that Frankenstein was interested in the idea of dead people. For example, Frankenstein stated that “to examine the causes of life, we must first have to recourse to death,”(Shelley 18). This proves to show that Frankenstein was already planning on making his creature apart of death. Another process that Frankenstein used to construct his creature was when he thought about the creature as himself. To further explain, he says that “I should attempt the creation of a being myself,”(Shelley 19). Frankenstein then created the creature with characteristics…
Mary Shelley’s diction in this passage is meant to exhibit Victor Frankenstein’s joyous eagerness to complete his experiment, but there is a shift from a joyous longing to an ominous regretful tone and implications of an impending doom. The passage begins using words like “exalted” and “determination” with the constant knowing that Victor Frankenstein will “ultimately succeed” with his creation of life. His ambition in completing a living being is meant to distract from the details of Frankenstein’s endeavors which he wishes not to impart due to the disastrous consequences often alluded to. Shelly uses this diction emphasizing Dr. Frankenstein’s want and drive to succeed with his academic endeavor to create life. This allows some insight to…
Colonies in the North and South were adversely affected by differences in climate and geography which shaped the political, economic, religious, and social developments in these regions and the future nation they would become.…
She grew up around cows, pigs, chickens, dogs, cats, birds, and many, many beautiful trees. She learned through her mother and father how to respect nature. Nature is her playground, and it is also the way she connects to things greater than herself.…
Frankenstein, a book by Mary Shelley about a scientist named Victor Frankenstein, exhibits many elements and has lots of hidden symbolism within the text. My creature really shows just how unique this book is by having each body part represent some element of the book. The head of the monster is supposed to represent how quick the monster learns and how reading affected his growth. The monster learns language very quickly “My days were spent in close attention, that I might more speedily master the language; and I may boast that I improved more rapidly than the Arabian, who understood very little and conversed in broken accents, whilst I comprehended and could imitate almost every word that was spoken” (13. 12). This shows how the monster learns very fast, faster than a normal…
The bible is very male-centric. In the first chapter of the Bible, for example, God gives Adam the right to name the world around him. “…Adam said, this is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” This paper will explore how women are a muted group in one of the most widely known and influential books in history; the bible.…
Victor Frankenstein’s constant state of illness after something unpleasant occurs is his means of escape, of ignoring the critical mistakes that he slowly realized was the result of his creation. After creating the monster, Victor realized that the monster is terribly gruesome in terms of appearance, focusing on his image rather than his character: “A mummy again endued with animation could not be so hideous as that wretch” (Shelley 52). He subsequently fell ill because he could not confront his failure and tries to avoid his responsibilities: “I nearly sank to the ground through languor and extreme weakness” (Shelley 52). Victor is weak for being unable to process and accept what he had done. This is continuous throughout the novel, revealing…
Abandonment is an area of parenting that you never want to hear about. Throughout the novel, the main character Victor, shows bad parenting styles by abandoning his creation when he sees the two years of hard work fail and turn into a nightmare. The result of abandonment shows up as the monster that’s been created tries to get revenge on Victor and punish his family by killing them, teaching the monster to learn how to do things on his own and how their friendship struggled throughout the novel.…
“Destiny was too potent, and her immutable laws had decreed my utter and terrible destruction” is the monster’s destiny to be evil? Mary Shelley wrote “Frankenstien” which she later published in 1818. The novel was based on a crazy scientist who saw lighting strike before his eyes. This gave him an idea that he can bring someone back to life. He spent many years creating this creature! Later after creating this creature he abandeed him causing the monster to seek revenenge. The monster did this by killin of victor’s family. could society and abandoment cause the monster to act out ? does society play an important role in the monster life? Is the monster heart broken or just looking for love? Does society make you evil or are you just born evil?…
The sheer power of words is all too often taken for granted. Albeit an integral part of human life on any scale, we’ve grown so accustomed to having it at our disposal that we forget how much it can accomplish, basic communication aside. Words, when strung together in certain ways, have started wars. Words have spawned enmity, and ended it. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and more specifically the passage specified, words provide a testimony directly from the monster as to the reasoning behind his actions and emotions. Shelley, when writing in the monster’s voice, uses a combination of tone, diction, strategic syntax, and rhetorical devices with the purpose of elucidating to the reader the monster’s intelligence and capacity of rational thought.…
Shelley describes the creature's birth in two different points of view, she writes about Victor`s and the Creature`s points of view. When the creature is talking about his side of the story he starts by saying “A strange multiplicity of sensations seized me, and I saw, felt, heard, and smelt at the same time; and it was, indeed, a long time before I learned to distinguish between the operations of my various senses.” (Shelley 207) The creature is talking to Victor about when he awoke he knoticed that he the same sense`s that every human has. Next the creature goes on to say that he closed his eyes after he first woke up, because the light was so I bright. After that when he opened his eyes again he knoticed that Victor was nowhere to be found. So he got up and he learned that he knew how to walk. He then went to Victor's room where again Victor ran away. After that the creature just sat down and cried. He was cold and was lonely. This reminds me of when babies are born into the world they immediately cry out. They do this because they have senses that tell them they are cold so they let out a cry, just…
For many, it is difficult to consider that death and life coexistence with each other in an enviable union. Day after day people mourn death and celebrate birth. There is a common innate fear due to the uncertainty that death will bring, and while most people avoid any dangers or acts of self-destruction, some run towards it. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the main characters fear not death but life due to their horrific past, ongoing trauma, and building guilt.…
The lens through which readers encounter monsters is often a skewed one. This lens could be that of the author, who seeks to embody a monster as a horrific, non-human entity that will cause havoc in an area. Similarly, this lens could be that of a character in a piece, one who witnesses the monster’s wrath and destruction firsthand and hopes to avoid the cruel savage being. Monster narratives rarely unfold from the perceptive of the monster, and, as such, audiences must rely on other sources as to the monster’s course of action. Such voices can carry a bias with them. As in the case of the author, the omniscient perspective provides descriptions of the monster without directly interacting the monster. This perspective could easily fail to report…