TO RIGHT: Luzern, Switzerland
The bizarre thing about Switzerland is this: every single view is postcard-perfect. It's almost freakishly beautiful in terms of aesthetics.
... and the Swiss have fantastic desserts.
TO LEFT: A view of the Rhein River in Germany...
... Germans, also, have excellent desserts. I suggest the pastries and cakes.
More on Frankenstein:
- After the Delaceys reject the monster, he rejects humanity. He also seeks out Victor F, to request a female counterpart so he won't be lonely. Victor wants to make the second monster before he marries Elizabeth, but destroys the unfinished monster to prevent it from reproducing with the first.
- The monster extracts revenge on Victor through his family - he kills Elizabeth, in addition to the murders of William and Justine Moritz, and Clerval.
- What if there is no monster?? Are Victor and the Monster one and the same person? Is this a possible argument for the novel? If so, why does Victor wants his loved ones to die - why does he want to kill them? (2 research questions)
AGAINST: Why would Victor kill, in the guise of the monster, these people he loves so much?
FOR: The following are quotes from Victor; each uses the word "wretch", which the monster applies to himself just as often.
"During the whole of this wretched mockery of justice I suffered living torture."
"I passed a night of unmingled wretchedness."
"I, a miserable wretch, haunted by a curse that shut up every avenue to enjoyment."
- Is this wretchedness Victor achieves on purpose?
- Why would a person want to be completely alone? Is it part of a person's possible believe that others could hurt him?
- Even the monster wants a mate - people are social animals, and if even a manufactured human being wants a mate that is its equal, how can Victor really want to be alone? Could he just want an equal, and could he feel he is too horrible for as innocent and virtuous a woman as Elizabeth?
- Look at the times when Victor calls himself satanic, and see how Walton, and even the monster, worships him. This satanic hero is willing to defy limits put to him by authorities and G-d to the death and the loss of everything you love - is this admirable or genuinely heroic? Or is Shelley saying there's something suspect about it? Is the kind of neglect Victor inflicts on his family good? - is this connected to the novel form, to sci-fi? Victor is daring, independent, unafraid of voicing his opinions, and a force in character (see how often Walton remarks on the impression he has of Victor's person). Whether or not one agrees with his actions he gets what he sets out to get: when he decided on an education, he left home and dove into a chosen field. When he felt set on the project, he pursued the project until its awful conclusion. When he decided the monster had to die, he never wavered from that plan. How many people in his life die through no fault of their own, though? A lot. Victor's life and talents are wasted in a pursuit anyone would have called insanity, and not just because it was seen as impossible. His G-d complex gave him a disregard for others the like of which I haven't seen often in literature (and that's saying something, considering literature is filled with similarly great, egotistic characters). I prefer to think Shelley thinks this kind of behavior very suspect - especially when compared with other, more sedate, less radical characters, like Elizabeth and Victor's father, who both suffer their personal grievances in quiet so as to support the family unit. They put themselves last on their lists, while Victor always put himself first.
Assign: Google "Hero Machine"; make a hero out of one of the characters in Frankenstein.
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