Frankenstein - Episode #3 - The maker and the monster meet and discuss morality, philosophy, the meaning of life and daddy issues!
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Frankenstein - Episode #3 - The maker and the monster meet and discuss morality, philosophy, the meaning of life and daddy issues!
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Hi, I\\u2019m Christy Shriver.
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And I\\u2019m Garry shriver, and this is the How to Love Lit Podcast.\\xa0 This is our third episode to discuss Mary Shelley and her masterpiece Frankenstein.\\xa0 In Episode one we basically talked about her life, as well as discussed the title and the quote on the title page.\\xa0 Episode 2 we discussed chapters 1-5 and introduced the setting of Geneva and Ingolstadt as well as some of the main ideas we should be thinking about as we go through the book.\\xa0 WE discussed Mary Shelley\\u2019s interest in Rousseau\\u2019s perspective on the nature of man and the role of education.\\xa0 We also discussed the role of science and the current events of the day as they played a role in her creation of the book.\\xa0 And finally we discussed how Shelley used many of her personal experiences, including giving birth to children as well as her post partum depression to\\xa0 develop roles and experiences of child birth as it plays out in chapter 5 of the book and as well see- all the way to the very end of the book.\\xa0
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That\\u2019s right and although we got into chapter 5 a little, we didn\\u2019t get far.\\xa0 We left off\\xa0 where Victor makes the monster then he turns and flees.\\xa0 Shall we see what this noble, omniscient ever charming man does\\u2026\\xa0
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Before we do, I do want to ask a question?\\xa0 Isn\\u2019t it strange that Shelley, a feminist, has made both her main character and the monster men?\\xa0 Are we supposed to make something of all of that?
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HA! Well, there seems to be no way to run away from the gender politics in this book.\\xa0 And I will not claim to be an expert in this field.\\xa0 Like everything else in this book, there are so many layers.\\xa0 What I guess is the best way to do this is just lay out the layers and let everyone, just as Shelley intends, make of them what they will.\\xa0 So, let\\u2019s go..first of all, the first thing to notice in this book is that Nature is female.\\xa0\\xa0 Nature is called by female pronouns- Victor says, \\u201cI pursued nature to HER hiding places.\\u201d\\xa0 As you read further and further into the book this becomes more evident and occurs often.\\xa0 Another point to make is the connection between nature, femininity and beauty- there are a LOT of descriptions of nature and they are beautiful truly truly beautiful. \\xa0It makes me want to visit Mount Blanc specifically.\\xa0 \\xa0But in a sense this too is a little bit of a reflection of how Shelley perceives the imbalances that exist in the world as they relate between the sexes.\\xa0 Her female characters are always described by their physical attributes- both Elizabeth and Justine are portrayed as beautiful, even as Justine is about to die, Shelley mentions how pretty she is- an odd thing to say.\\xa0 And I\\u2019ll get back to that when we get to that part- but if we look just at the creation of the monster- he specifically tries to make it beautiful too- very intentionally-what critics have said about this is that what Shelley is saying is that men or at least Victor- we won\\u2019t bring you into this Garry, is trying to create a world OF MEN FOR MEN where there is no need for a woman as entities but as adornments or accessories but not as full particiants in life- and I guess you can see how well Shelley thinks this kind of world goes- it\\u2019s kind of a bust from the beginning.\\xa0 Nature is NOT an adornment that is meant just for our enjoyment.\\xa0 Nature has a will.\\xa0 Nature is powerful.\\xa0 Nature is dominant.\\xa0 You can say the exact same thing about women.\\xa0 And here is where, at least for me, I find myself remembering that Mary is still very much an 18 year old girl in very sexually charged relationships with unhealthy balances of power.\\xa0 In her own life, she\\u2019s been viewed very much like this, but where SHE is also bearing all the responsibility of the (meaning she\\u2019s the one who\\u2019s been pregnant three times) both physically, emotionally and in terms of how the world holds her entirely accountable for these children.\\xa0 I don\\u2019t see that she\\u2019s been silenced the way we see the women in this book being silenced, but that may very well how she perceived herself.\\xa0 She definitely didn\\u2019t have the life/career opportunities she would have had had she been a man.\\xa0
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NO- there\\u2019s little doubt she felt this way.\\xa0 Remember, she published her book as if she were a man.\\xa0 She got Percy to write the intro.\\xa0 Many women were doing that during this time period.\\xa0 At this time period, remember, once a woman married she was legally the property of her husband.\\xa0 She could not testify in court.\\xa0 She could not vote.\\xa0 It was commonly believed women did not have the biological capability to have rational thought.\\xa0 So, just my impressions- she\\u2019s not acting angry, although she probably is, she\\u2019s making observations and perhaps laying out logical arguments at to the natural consequences to what she perceives as a perverse arrangement between the sexes.\\xa0
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There is more to say- and there is room to think about this a very very long time- but I agree- Mary has observed this patriarchal society where men are given education, power, responsibility and women are considered playthings, adornments, plus get saddled with the tedious tasks of caring for responsibilities men don\\u2019t want- and I think she perhaps is saying- this sucks- and not just for women- it sucks for men too.\\xa0 This type of societal construction is imbalanced.\\xa0 There are a lot of critics that take it even farther to say that what they see is that- Shelley seems to be claiming that men are afraid of women, afraid to give power to women, and this type of relationship between the sexes is unhappy, it\\u2019s fraught with dangers and leads to unhappiness for everyone.\\xa0 Frankenstein has transgressed against the feminine principle inherent in nature of creating life as well as the theological one God ordaining the women to have the power of life\\u2026and so what will be the consequences.\\xa0
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.\\xa0 Well, that was the short version?\\xa0 Dang.\\xa0 I\\u2019m glad I didn\\u2019t want the long one.\\xa0
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I know- now to begin.\\xa0 Frankenstein has run away, he\\u2019s out and about and he runs into this childhood friend- Henry Cleval \\u2013 such a coincidence that he shows up exactly at the same time.\\xa0 Now, we\\u2019ve met this character before, he is from Geneva and they grew up together.\\xa0 Cleval is another foil of Victor\\u2019s.\\xa0 He\\u2019s everything good- a really idealized character to be honest. In some ways, his purpose in life, as seen by Victor, is to take care of him, and he does fulfil this role.\\xa0 Frankenstein immediately loses all thoughts of the monster, exept when he takes Cleval to this house and hopes the nonster isn\\u2019t there- and Cleval pretty much waits hand and foot on Frankenstein for months on end, and he has joy in doing it.\\xa0 It\\u2019s like it\\u2019s his purpose in life.
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I do want to point out that as close as they claim to be, Frankenstein is never even tempted to tell Henry what he\\u2019s been up to.\\xa0 He sayis this, \\u201cI have lately been so deeply engaged in one occupation that I havenot allowed myself suffienct, rest as you see: but I hope, I sincerely hope, that all these employments are now at an end, and that I am at length free.\\u201d
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Well, I know it\\u2019s taking us back to feminism and we need to move on- but there are a lot of comments like that, like when he jumps up and down like a crazy person when the monster isn\\u2019t in his house.\\xa0 It\\u2019s like he can pretend it just never happened.\\xa0 He can wish it away- neglect it and it will sort itself out- and everyone mother knows- that\\u2019s simply just not true.
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In chapter 6 and 7, we see Shelley do something I find interesting- because for me, it\\u2019s in chapter 5, where I begin to question whether or not I trust the perspective of Victor.\\xa0 He\\u2019s full of garbage.\\xa0 And in chapter six, Elizabeth gets a voice, and in chapter 7 the father does.\\xa0 Elizabeth is not a feminist; that\\u2019s evident.\\xa0 She\\u2019s the ideal woman- she\\u2019s beautiful and see\\u2019s her role in the role solely to provide for the men in her life.\\xa0 She introduces us to darling William, too.\\xa0 William is their little brother, and he seems pretty much perfect as well.
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Victor read her letter, and wanted to finally write back.\\xa0 However, and, I love this the exertion of writing her a letter, and I quote, \\u2018greatly fatigued me\\u2026he manages however, to recover, go on vacation and life seems good for everyone\\u2026for one minute..and then letter number 2\\u2026William is dead. Elizabeth blames herself\\u2026but what is most important in my mind is that the murderer has left a mark, \\u201cthe print of the murderer\\u2019s finger was on his neck.\\u201d\\xa0 This seems to be enough to convince Victor to go home so after six years, he shows back up in Geneva.
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And again, we see Shelley using those conventions of horror tterrifyterrifytterrifyterrifytterrifyterrify her readers.\\xa0 It\\u2019s completely dark when he arrives, there\\u2019s a story, a \\u201cviolent storm\\u201d. \\xa0/Instead of going to his house, he walks around in the dark and, I read, \\u201cI perceived in the gloom a fufigure which stole from behind a clump of trees near me; I stood fixed, gazin
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