Great Works of Literature Fall 2014

In Volume III, Victor promised the ” Monster” that he would create a mate for him, so he would not feel lonely anymore. But victor fears that maybe his new creature would reject  and repulsed by his appearance. it was really interesting how the monster showed his desire of having somebody else like him in order to not feel reject anymore. He confronted victor and asked him if he dared to break and destroy his hopes and that if he dare to do that he would ruin and attack him on the date of his wedding. Victor was really worry about it, because he did not want to traumatize Elizabeth and also he did not want Elizabeth to see the monster and see how the monster kill him.

It touched my heart how the volume ends, the monster confessed Walton how he is feeling about killing his creator and also how he is felling about bring pain and sorrow to those who love victor. He also told Walton that he just wanted to be happy and feel loved. he asked the question ” Am I to be the only criminal, when all humankind sinned against me?” .The monster is really upset and he wants to end with his life .

1. Why victor thinks that she (new creature) would reject the monster?

2. why the monster wants to end his life at the end of the volume ?

In the volume I of the Frankenstein by Mary Shelley the story let us know the motivations of the experiment of Victor Frankenstein and the horrible creature created as a result. First, we see Victor Frankenstein gathering the information for his scientific cause the “creation of life”, looking for information from teachers at the University of Ingolstadt and developing his skills for to accomplish his experiments. After two years of study and labor Victor Frankenstein success in the creation of the creature. We can perceive Victor Frankenstein as an insecure person incapable of assume the consequences of his
experimentation’s because he hides from his creation letting the living being abandoned. In a moment of remorse for his actions Victor Frankenstein try to get back to Geneva to his family and friends finding that his brother William has been killed.  For this Justine Moritz a servant for the Frankenstein house was accused, condemned and executed by mistake.

On the second Volume of Frankenstein, we can perceive the sense of guilt of Victor Frankenstein for not to reveal the truth about the dead of his brother and the execution of an innocent person. On Mouth Blanc, Victor Frankenstein met the monster and we start reading the story from the point of view of the creature. He describes the process and the difficulties that he experience from the moment of his birth. He describes his first moments on this world, his senses and his fears.  During this Volume the Monster tells Victor about how he has to develop an ability for to survive, how he discovers fire and how he uses for to cook his meals, one of the parts that really cached my attention was when after the creature learned to read and started questioning about his existence and his origin, he realized that he was like Adam (p.105) created by a god with no link with other living creature.  This is the point where the creature discovers the papers from the Frankenstein’s laboratory in his pocket and interprets the symbols and the notes given.  At this moment the creature decides to approach the family looking for protection but only he finds rejection. As a consequence the monster decides to run after his creator and starts his journey to Genève where he tastes the pain of being shot as a reward for saved a girl.

The Volume II coming to an end when the creature relates to Frankenstein the reason why he killed William Frankenstein in the woods. During this transition to the Volume III the mood of the creature changes, it’s no more the innocent creature from the beginning of the Volume II, he is full developed in his senses and his objectives are clear: he doesn’t want to be alone in this world anymore and he wants revenge from his creator.

Victor Frankenstein in the Volume III stars a journey across Europe. The motivation for this journey according to Frankenstein is to prepare and gather the information for the preparations destined to the creation of the female companion to the creature. For this porpoise Frankenstein takes his time, travels across Europe and stars feeling hesitant about the accomplishment of his promise to the creature. He expects that the time past and something random could happen to the living being. He starts guessing about the creation of a new female creature and the possible bad outcome to this process. Frankenstein feared about a new race of uncontrollable “devils” (p.138). The creature that have followed Victor Frankenstein during his journeys saw the destruction of his female being and promised revenge on the night of Victor’s wedding: “I shall be with you on your weeding night” (p.140). After abandon his project Frankenstein decides to leave to Switzerland and start his fleeing in a small boat in the middle of the night. The boat is carried away to a near island where he is imprisoned, accused for the dead of Henry Clerval. After a couple of moths Frankenstein is cleared of the homicide of his friend and benefactor and goes back to Genève in company of his father. In Paris he receives a letter from Elizabeth and he decides (no matter the promise of the creature) to marry her. On his wedding night Frankenstein hears the scream of his wife and he found her dead, killed by the creature. The notice of the dead of Elizabeth leads to the dead of his father. As a consequence Victor Frankenstein began the chase of the creature for all across Europe and ended in the Arctic Ocean near Russia where he dies from sickness. The creature appears in front of his dead body and had a conversation with Mr. Walton where he reflex about his motivation for his crimes and end with his vengeance and then vanishes in the ice.

The character of the creature really gained my sympathy from the beginning of the story. From the point of his creation the creature really suffered but he was adaptable to difficult situations. The creature has unique characteristics that made him a super human or more human than his creator: He possessed physical abilities like he’s supernatural strength; he’s rapidly learning skills and he’s ability for to resist extreme weather conditions. But the creature share with the humans their emotions and his emotions where augmented as his physical strength that may be made the creature not to reason clearly and commit the homicides. For me the creature was born well but the society and the human world molded him and turned him evil.

1. Every time when Victor Frankenstein are supposed to take responsibility for his actions during the story he got sick. Do you think the lack of responsibility of Victor Frankenstein was a decisive factor in the story?
2. According to the text the human beings are created according with the characteristics of his creators. There are similarities between Victor Frankenstein and the Monster?

The speaker of this poem begins by talking to a start like he normally talk to a person, and he actually calls this star by a name. But what exactly was he trying to say to this “bright star”? at the beginning of the poem, the lines would describe the meaning of the words where he was trying to say how he would like to be like this certain star. He says “Would I were stedfast as thou art”, which it actually means “I wish I were as steadfast as you are”. This could might make you think that the speaker is a person who travels a lot and he’s desire is to be at one place only.

However, as you keep on reading he tries to change up his words around by saying how he would not like to be like the star, huh?

Furthermore, he uses the word “Emirate”, which it was use as a fancy way to the word “hermit”in the seventeen century, and it means loneliness. There, he is revealing why would he not like to be like the star. Why would he start by saying that he would like to be like a star and then changes his mind?. As you can see, later on the poem he starts to reveal what exactly the star is gazing on from up there. Then, he sees that although this star is steadfast is still too far away from others, and this is why he lays on his girlfriend breast feeling a relief of having her near him. Therefore, he says “still steadfast, still unchangeable”, where I believe that what he is trying to say that he might want to be as steadfast as the star, but not change anything that already is surrounding him.

1. What difference do you think the order of the words make? Which order do you prefer? why?

2.Why do you think he changes his thought of wanting to be as steadfast as the star?

To stay silent is a situation that leads someone sometimes to consider guilty, sometimes creates confusion and others leads to controversy for his sayings or his actions. However, in the other hand, to remain silent probably is the only way to express the pure reality and hides the only truth that someone has inside him. In the story of Anne Carson ‘’ Variations on the right to remain silent ‘’ the classic author represents exactly this of two substances morph of the silence. Here we have three stories that are mostly represented, and each of them is a different case, but all of them have the same denominator witch is the silence of their words or the silence that covers painting, or the silence that it is hide behind the translation of words.

In the first case something that caught my attention was a word (mwly) the Greek from mythology word that is it is very difficult to translate in English, but even more is difficult to translate and to give the real meaning or the real story that is behind this word. Even if we try to do that this word that for the ancient Greek mythology was something important, will lose this religious power that it has. Furthermore, Francis Bacon has also a silence painting. He wanted to convey the sense through of his painting without to give more explanation, because then, if do so its painting will lose its magic and real meaning of what he wants to convey with his painting. As this article was ending Anne Carson try to translate some fragment poems and she did that in a funny way, because she was trying to translate them with wrong words or with meaning totally different from its original. Emphasizes in this way how much difficult is to translate, and she underlines that some words has to remain silent in order to stay with their truth and real meaning.

The subject that makes me to struggle more and creates me a lot of senses of sadness and of injustice was the story of Joan of Arc. This particular came to the point to prove that we are unable to translate everything and to give to them en exact meaning. She refers to her ‘’voices’’ in her trial, that guided her personality as a God in her life.’’ Voices’’ which she does not want to give physical substation, she does not want to explain how these voices were for her in what shape or what form. She wanted to let them as an abstract which if someone explains it loses its meaning and loses their power. This decision that she took to do not explain clearly the meaning of the voices and to translate them in the real world, by letting them in silence was finally her condemnation in the court, it something that makes me thinking that a silence make really troubles, and brings injustices. That point leads me to think even more about the title of this article ‘’ variations on the right to remain silent’’. Her right to remain silent and to do not explain the meaning of these voices gave to other people the right to make her guilty.

Questions 1 ) : The title of the article is ‘’ Variations on the right to remain silent’’, how this right to remain silent it is expressed and responds in the stories of the article.

Question 2) : Do you have ever think in the way that Anne Carson thinks about the silence of the words that are untranslated? Do you have ever think how much power has an untranslated word or action?