Family Ties
The idea of using a family based theme in literature has been around for a long time. When an author is writing a novel or even a play, it is very easy to include a strong family dynamic to it. The family is something that nearly every person can relate with in one way or another. This comfort springs forth emotions in the reader or viewer that make the story easier to follow along with. There are many examples of this throughout this course, but this paper will focus on how three of them use the family dynamic to connect with the reader: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Kafka’s Metamorphosis, and Brecht’s Mother Courage and her Children.
One does not have to read far into Frankenstein to get a feel for this idea. The beginning of the story is a series of letters between an explorer named Walton and his sister, Margaret. These content of these letters suggest that Walton was very close to his sister. The first letter simply goes into details about his upcoming voyage, but the second letter reveals that Walton is becoming very lonely without a true fried to share his visions for the great voyage that they are about to take. The fact that he is sharing this with his sister in his letters home, will allow the reader to infer that Walton still wants to go through with the expedition, but he is also starting to get a desire to be back home with his family. In one of the letters Walton writes, "A youth passed in solitude, my best years spent under your gentle and feminine fosterage, has so refined the groundwork of my character, that I cannot overcome an intense distaste to the usual brutality exercised on board ship (Shelley)." When reading through these letters, the reader can easily get emotionally attached to Walton, es...
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...te to Mother Courage as she too is a single mother and is working for the family’s survival. In everything that one reads that uses the family dynamic as a theme, it is quite simple to be able to tie at least one of their situations to one’s own family life. This further solidifies how important the family is in almost everyone’s lives, whether in real live or in a piece of literature.
Works Cited
Komisaruk, Adam. "`So Guided By A Silken Cord': Frankenstein's Family Values." Studies In Romanticism 38.3 (1999): 409. Academic Search Premier. Web. 25 Apr. 2014.
Patterson, Joan. "Integrating Family Resilience and Literature ." Journal of Marriage and Family 68: 228-245. Web. 24 Apr. 2014.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein Or, The Modern Prometheus. New York: New American Library, 1963. Print. 24 Apr. 2014.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein: the original 1818 text. 2nd ed. Ed. D.L. Macdonald and Kathleen Scherf. Peterborough: Broadview, 1999.
In this essay I am going to answer ‘how and why does Mary Shelley make the reader sympathise with the character of the monster in her novel Frankenstein’.
In the novel, Frankenstein, the author, Mary Shelley, implements a prevalent nineteenth century structure called epistolary within a frame narrative to introduce a sublime story. Through Robert Walton’s letters to his sister, Victor Frankenstein’s life story, and the monster’s interjection, the author provides multiple perspectives to the plot. By allowing each character to share their story that all contain differing point of views, it enables the readers to remain interested and informed. Through the three contrasting narrators, Shelley strengthens the roles of the characters as they respectively convey their emotions and input their personal thoughts.
Works Cited Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein: A Norton Critical Edition. ed. J. Paul Hunter. New York: W. W. Norton, 1996.
After learning about the life of Mary Shelley, I have grown to appreciate the novel, Frankenstein, even more since the first time I read it. She led a life nearly, as tragic as the monster she created through her writing. Mary seems to pull some of her own life experiences in Victor’s background, as in both mothers died during or after childbirth. Learning about Mary’s personal losses, I have gained a better appreciation of her as an author and a woman of the 17th century. She had association with some the most influential minds of that
The idea of duality permeates the literary world. Certain contradictory commonplace themes exist throughout great works, creation versus destruction, light versus dark, love versus lust, to name a few, and this trend continues in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. The pivotal pair in this text however, is monotony versus individuality. The opposing entities of this pairing greatly contrast against each other in Frankenstein, but individuality proves more dominant of the two in this book.
Her family life is depicted with contradictions of order and chaos, love and animosity, conventionality and avant-garde. Although the underlying story of her father’s dark secret was troubling, it lends itself to a better understanding of the family dynamics and what was normal for her family. The author doesn’t seem to suggest that her father’s behavior was acceptable or even tolerable. However, the ending of this excerpt leaves the reader with an undeniable sense that the author felt a connection to her father even if it wasn’t one that was desirable. This is best understood with her reaction to his suicide when she states, “But his absence resonated retroactively, echoing back through all the time I knew him. Maybe it was the converse of the way amputees feel pain in a missing limb.” (pg. 399)
As Victor Frankenstein recounts his informative tale to a seafaring Robert Walton, he makes it known that he was a child of nobility; however it is sadly transparent that, combined with insufficient parenting, Victor’s rare perspective on life pushes him towards a lifestyle of conditional love. Children are considered symbolic of innocence, but as a child Victor’s arrogance was fueled by his parents. With his family being “one of the most distinguished of the republic,”(Shelley 17), Victor’s parents saw him as their “plaything and their idol, and something better-their child, the innocent and helpless Creature bestowed on them by Heaven, whom to bring up to good, and whose future lot was in their hands to direct to happiness or misery, according as they fulfilled their duties towards me,”(19). “The Social Order vs. the Wretch: Mary Shelley's Contradictory-Mindedness in Frankenstein Sylvia Bowerbank.” Bowerbank, "The Social Order vs. the Wretch", knarf.english.upenn.edu/Articles/bower.html.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus. The 1818 Text. New York: Oxford UP, 1998.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus. Edited by: D.L. Macdonald & Kathleen Scherf. Broadview Editions. 3rd Edition. June 20, 2012
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus. Edited with an Introduction and notes by Maurice Hindle. Penguin books, 1992
New York: The Berkley Publishing Group, 2001. 212-217. Shelley, Mary. “Frankenstein” New York: Bantam Dell, 1981.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Ed. D.L. Macdonald and Kathleen Scherf. Orchard Park, NY: Broadview Press, 1999.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus. Edited with an Introduction and notes by Maurice Hindle. Penguin books, 1992
A common trend of the romantic era was the focus on emotional behavior. Throughout Frankenstein Shelley deals with some aspect of emotion, from the adoption of Elizabeth in the beginning of the novel to the death of Victor's mother. This focus on