Chubby fingers grasp the brightly colored surface of the unfamiliar “thing”. You stare, eyes filled with innocence and delight. The material crinkles emitting a noise you somehow find funny… but then, you find everything funny. Everything in this mysterious place is so strange, but at the same time, so fascinating. You press the “toy” to your nose and rub the soft fabric against it. Toy, that’s a new word you learned. The creature with the large hands that give you everything in life, has taught you this.
“Do you want to play with your toys?” it constantly asks in a gentle tone. You don’t know why, but you have some growing attachment to this creature. You want your own creature to take care of. You pretend the toy is the furry thing that
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You can barely remember why you were upset. You expect Mommy to join in. Whenever you laugh, she smiles. Her smiles always prompt you to smile back. At first she does smile; she doesn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. But a small whimper, then a bark break the moment. She focuses on the small lump on the floor, picks it up, then holds it close to her face and examines it, her hands shaking. The creature blinks up at her with round eyes, unmistakably familiar eyes. She inhales quickly before setting the creature down. Garbled speech, incoherent and not really resembling any words you’ve ever heard spills from your mouth. You want to share your discovery with Mommy. She always makes you feel happy. You point to the toy, then wave your arms like the wings of a bird, though you’re sure you’ve never seen the dog with wings. You want the dog to become less frightening, and more appealing. You have another toy that you love. It is even more colorful; it has brown, red, orange, blue, and green. You want the dog to be more like that toy. That bird.
Mommy stares at the creature, frozen in shock. You are sure she wants to play peek-a-boo. You cover your eyes, emit a sound that could pass for “peek-a”, then reveal your giggling face while shouting,
Merriam Webster’s Encyclopedia of Literature highlights Frankenstein as the work of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, published in 1818, and it brought into the Western world one of its best known monsters. Elements of gothic romance and science fiction help in telling the story of young Swiss scientist Victor Frankenstein, as he creates a horrible monster by putting together limbs and veins, leading to destruction and his later regret. The creature is left alone in the world, even by his own creator, for his hideous appearance, and through watching humans he learns their ways of living. Haunting Victor due to his loneliness, he forcefully makes Victor agree to make him a female companion, but Victor’s regret and misery enables him to tear up his
In Volume 1 and 3 of Frankenstein, Victor’s reason for creating the “monster” changes drastically; however, ultimately leading to the same consequence of suffering and depression. Through this change in Victor, Shelley argues that all humans have an instinctive notation of right from wrong and learn from their mistakes. Victor left his friends and family to go to college; when there, he had no friends and social life. His top and only priority was his schoolwork; he read all he can about the sciences, especially chemistry and anatomy. When finished with his studies, Victor is ready to start his creation when he confirms his proceedings aloud, “Winter, spring, and summer, passed away during my labours; but I did not watch the blossom or the expanding leaves-sights which before always yielded me supreme delight, so deeply was I engrossed in my occupation. The leaves of that year had withered before my work drew near to a close; and now every day shewed me more plainly how well I had succeeded.
abandoned; this made him feel as if he was the only person with out no
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein explores the downfall of certain human characteristics, set to the backdrop of creation, destruction, and preservation. The subtitle denoted by Shelly herself supports this idea, by relating the fact that the title can be viewed as either Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus. One scholar, Marilyn Butler, also maintains this by noting, "It can be a late version of the Faust Myth"(302). Shelly uses the story of the main character, Victor Frankenstein, to produce the concept of a dooming human characteristic of which Frankenstein states, "I have . . . been blasted in these hopes"(Shelley, 152). The reader finds, as a result of his thirst for knowledge and infatuation with science, Victor creates a living being by whom he has "suffered great and unparalleled misfortunes"(Shelley, 17). Eventually, Victor realizes this self-destructive trait, but he is not able to save himself stating, "I have lost everything, and cannot begin life anew"(Shelley, 16). Although everything in his life that is dear has been lost, Victor is able to convince one in his same position--Robert Walton--to not "lead [his crew] unwillingly to danger"(Shelley, 151). While addressing the concept of characteristic and self-discovery, it is possible to realize that the monster also possesses the characteristics held by both Victor and Walton; except in his learning, the monster is driven to continue to cause destruction. Most important about the thirst for knowledge is that, as a form of human characteristic or downfall, it leads to large, critical pieces of self-discovery. In obtaining these critical pieces, Frankenstein finds satisfaction in j...
Susie’s mother opened the door to let Molly, Susie’s babysitter, inside. Ten-month old Susie seemed happy to see Molly. Susie then observed her mother put her jacket on and Susie’s face turned from smiling to sad as she realized that her mother was going out. Molly had sat for Susie many times in the past month, and Susie had never reacted like this before. When Susie’s mother returned home, the sitter told her that Susie had cried until she knew that her mother had left and then they had a nice time playing with toys until she heard her mother’s key in the door. Then Susie began crying once again.
Continuing with the thread of human development, we see the creature's acquisition of language. The creature most craves this sort of knowledge:...
because of the way he is just abandoned by Victor and the way in which
terror but I couldn’t understand why my creator was horrified at my sight I was devastated all I remember was charging at him My farther was running for his life when my farther thought I was dead he left town without me keeping his secret in his attic.
he retains the innocence and naive characteristics of a child. The creature’s grasp of human-like qualities allows the
...d they continue to hear it for years to come. However, that still doesn’t explain to me why infants find the game of Peek-A-Boo so amusing. After all this research I’m starting to think that they laugh and say to themselves inside their heads, “look a this fool, she thinks I don’t know she’s there when she covers her face. What a joke she is.”
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein or; The Modern Prometheus, published in 1818, is a product of its time. Written in a world of social, political, scientific and economic upheaval it highlights human desire to uncover the scientific secrets of our universe, yet also confirms the importance of emotions and individual relationships that define us as human, in contrast to the monstrous. Here we question what is meant by the terms ‘human’ and ‘monstrous’ as defined by the novel. Yet to fully understand how Frankenstein defines these terms we must look to the etymology of them. The novel however, defines the terms through its main characters, through the themes of language, nature versus nurture, forbidden knowledge, and the doppelganger motif. Shelley also shows us, in Frankenstein, that although juxtaposing terms, the monstrous being everything human is not, they are also intertwined, in that you can not have one without the other. There is also an overwhelming desire to know the monstrous, if only temporarily and this calls into question the influence the monstrous has on the human definition.
The monster took his first breath and opened his eyes. Victor stood paralyzed in fear of his creature. The creature was not what Victor had expected at all; He was absolutely hideous. Victor felt a sense of responsibility as the creature’s creator and decided to treat the creature as if it were a newborn baby. Victor helped the creature take his first steps and brought him to a chair to sit down. “I’ll be right back” Victor told the creature as he went to get the creature a drink. He showed the creature how to drink and told him it was called water. Victor kept pointing at the cup of water and saying “water” until the creature finally repeated him. Victor spent the rest of the day teaching the creature basic words. Victor was amazed that his creature was capable of learning, let alone learning as quickly as the creature was.
Before I get started, just stop and think. In majority of the books and movies that have been made, the hero always defeats the villain and everyone celebrates. With this in mind, have you ever stopped and thought about how the villain feels, what their backstory was, why they became evil? Did anyone ever show sympathy for the villain and not just the hero in a book, or a movie. In the next few paragraphs, I will be talking to you about why the reader might feel sympathetic for Dracula, who is the blood sucking villain in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and Frankenstein, who is the horrid, murderer of many, in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
Mary Shelley in her book Frankenstein addresses numerous themes relevant to the current trends in society during that period. However, the novel has received criticism from numerous authors. This paper discusses Walter Scott’s critical analysis of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in his Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine Review of Frankenstein (1818).
This was the topic given to my group in the first presentation we gave. Well, while looking at the topic for the first time, the image of my pet at my home flashed on my mind. I won’t use “it” to refer my pet. He is one of us! The way he is with all of us, loving, cute, understanding, showing intelligent responses that always surprises us and makes us happy. Yes! He does understand our language (Telugu), he shows his interests/likes through his actions, he cries/shouts when we leave him. He always wants to go roam outside, when my mom says “come, we will go out” in Telugu it comes running with mouth wide open with happiness to her. When sometimes, I myself don’t know what is being