Upon reading the poem, Discourse on the Logic of language, it reminded me of the efforts Frederick Douglass put through to master the English language. As said repeatedly in the poem that English to the slaves is a mother tongue and also a father tongue at the same time, although being both a mother tongue and father tongue is contradictory, it is in some senses true; many slaves like Frederick Douglass was born in America and English to them should be the mother tongue, yet their masters forbid them to master English in order to keep them oppressed and subject to slavery, so English to the slaves is a father tongue because they could not learn English when they were a child. Just as language are important for human beings to exchange information, knowledge, feelings, passion, freedom and all other essences of being an civilized human were reduced to ashes in the practice of slavery. When Frederick Douglass in his journey to freedom, he has became aware of the monstrosity and deformity of slavery both upon the slavers and slave holders themselves, and I think it is very difficult for us in modern era to picture slavery in practice which words are becoming insufficient to describe the horrific scenes of the whipping and the demonic smiles on the masters to enjoy torturing its own species. When I finish reading the poem and thinking back about the life of Frederick Douglass, I feel a sense of sympathy and strong anger on what had slavery do to society, and yet, even till today the state of a superior group of people dominate over the inferior, or, the majority over the minority, still exist in our world in the form of society, economy, and politically.

Kiara Marmolejos

The way in which Marlene Nourbese Philip’s poem “Discourse on the Logic of Language” and Frederick Douglass’ Narrative are similar is through their reflection of the self in the face of oppression. In Douglass’ narrative, we view how learning to read and write empowered Douglass to identify himself even though his identity was stripped away at birth. In the first couple of pages in his work he claims “A want of information concerning my own was a source of unhappiness to me even during childhood.” He describes his pain when he thinks about his unknown history. This is directly related to Phillips poem in which she states “ English is my mother tongue. English is my father tongue. A father tongue is a foreign language. Therefore English is a foreign language not a mother language. I have no mother tongue, no mother to tongue, no tongue to mother, to mother-tongue me, and therefore must be dumb tounged down” She expresses how the English language is a constant reminder of how her true identity was ripped away from her just like Douglass. Her pain is shown when she says “I have a dumb tongue, tongue dumb. Dumb dumb tongue”. This line of the poem shows how Phillips exists as a reflection of the oppressor. Phillips uses wordplay but her poem goes beyond literature technique. This “search” for words can be related to her “search “ for her identity or mother tongue. She searches for the origin of the word mother in order to find the origin of the self. She continues on to repeat “mother tongue, mater tongue, moder tongue, ma tongue”. These words are not broken words, rather they are different ways to say mother in different languages such as Latin(mater) and chinese(ma). Aside from the pain expressed in this poem and in Douglass’ work, the positive side of the language can also be seen. The way Phillip uses many different languages in the poem can be seen as a unifying concept and the way in which Douglass uses language to uplift himself is another positive outcome of the English language. Both Douglass and Phillip use the English language in a powerful way to express emotions buried within the self and about the self identity that they have had to form all on their own. This is extremely emotional because they have had to develop and express themselves in the language of the oppressor in order to finally have a voice.

Shelley’s creature is obviously more like the tiger in Blake’s poem. They both are dangerous, but I would say that even thought the tiger seems like a scary creature, violent, dangerous with the fire in his eyes plus a “hard” heart, dread feet and hands, it does not seem like the author tries to tell us that the tiger is an ugly creature. “Did he smile his work to see?” this line is perfect for both  Frankenstein and the tiger. Victor was overloaded with fear and disgust when  he created his project, and the creator of the tiger wouldn’t probably be happy about what’s he created either.

“The Lamb” by Blake talks about how beautiful the Little Lamb is; and how he is also being taken care of. It’s something Shelly’s Frankenstein was wishing for. And maybe he was like that as we know he told Victor if he’d take care of him he’d be a regular human being.

I really wanted to follow the format and choose one of the two “animals” that Blake uses in his poems to compare to Shelley’s Frankenstein yet I found that both of them fit so well, but also contrasted so greatly.

Blake’s, “The Lamb”, begins with a child asking this soft and gentle creature questions about its spiritual nature, such as who are you and who made you. This seemingly innocent child begins asking all of these profound questions that really correlate not only to realistic human nature, but to the questions that probably circulated The Monster’s head after his birth. Phenomenally so, the child actually answers his own questions, almost as if portraying both the child and the lamb. Yet what is most striking is that he answers back in a riddle, not giving the child a direct answer but making him consider it. I liked this as a comparison because the Monster himself had to answer his own questions of who he was and about his creator since there was no one around to do so for him.

Let’s not forget. The major contrast between the Lamb and the Monster is mainly in their physical form, for the description of there appearances couldn’t be any different. The Lamb is described as having a “tender voice” and providing “clothing of delight” from his soft wool. As we know, lambs are also generally considered soft, gentle creatures of nature. Contrastingly, Dr. Frankenstein describes his Monster as having “yellow skin [that] scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath…watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set…a shriveled complexion and straight black lips.”

But what about Blake’s “Tyger” and Frankenstein? Right off the bat, we find our first comparison – both the Monster and the Tyger are considered creatures of an “immortal hand or eye.” It is clear that Blake is saying that the animal in question is created only as a reflection of its created, something more apparent in relevancy to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, not Frankenstein. Yet, when one stops to consider Dr. Frankenstein as a monster himself for positioning himself as G-d, they can see him for another person – a man who took all that was inside of him and breathed it into another life form.

None of our answers about the Tyger’s existence and nature are answered in the poem, yet in Frankenstein, he explains his reasons for creation as the book continues. Although the Tyger seems to question evil in the world blinded by the notions of beauty (relevantly thinking as materialism), its correlation is perfect to why Frankenstein created the Monster in the first place. Although he thought he was doing something beautiful by discovering a new form of science, he actually was opening Pandora’s Box to the wickedness of secrecy. Clearly he didn’t understand the quote some things are better left hidden.

Conclusively, it’s clear that Frankenstein actually pulls strong connections to both poems by Blake, neither of the two being any stronger than the other. I believe that the strongest connection of all is actually placing the three in a venn diagram and using their equal parts to make a better point.

The film was quite different from the book. I noticed that Victor’s name was changed to Henry. Also in the film he has a hunchbacked assistant named Fritz when in the book he doesn’t have an assistant at all. Another major difference that strands out the most is when in the movie Henry (book’s Victor) creates the monster he is kind of proud and take it as his big accomplishment. In the film Elizabeth and Victor come to Henry’s laboratory that’s when they see frankenstein for the first time. Also the little girl is being murdered at the wedding.
In the book the main guy’s name is Victor and he, as I said before, doesn’t have an assistant but he does have a close friend who helps him to go through the huge “failure” of his. Elizabeth and his dad, all his family do not communicate other besides sending each other letters, and when Victor was so deeply indulged in his experiment he wouldn’t write to them at all which got everyone worried. Victor was deeply upset at his creature. He aimed to create a human being but instead he created a yellow-eyed, pearlwhite teeth monster. Also in the book the youngest brother gets murdered and Elizabeth is blaming it on herself.
While reading the book I got a complete different image of Victor then from when I saw the film. In the book he was one of those good people, really passionate about science and his project; who also seemed to me very kind and a peaceful person it really became clear when the monster became alive and he was was terrified of what he’s created unlike that guy in the film when he was amazed and happy by what has come out.

I chose to pick the 1994 Dir. Kenneth Branagh’s version in contrast to Mary Shelley’s text because immediately after watching it I knew that it was not right. It presented to me an illustration completely exastrabated from that which I got from the book. The other version of the clip the 1931 version had some mistakes as well for example there where spectators there with Frankenstein as he animated life into his creature which is not true. He also used the electricity of the thunderstorms to animate his being which is inaccurate as well because Mary Shelly clearly says on page 35 in the text “I collected the instruments of life around me”. But what threw me off about this version was that it was a dark and rainy day just as stated in the book on the same page “It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle nearly burnt out..” on page 35. It had some type of similarity, which brings me back to the 1994 version that to me did not. In this clip Dr. Frankenstein looks like a healthy young man running around his laboratory turning switches. His shirt was wide open and his long curly locks of hair were swiftly moving as fast as he did all around the scene. In the text he was a miserable person. He was suffering from anxiety and had been working on this project for nearly two years. Shelly continues to mention in the first line of page 36 that he was neglecting himself of sleep and health which would depict the exact opposite of what the young man in the scene was doing. Instead we would see the scientist as a scruffy, broken down person probably moving at a very slow to moderate pace to get things done. In addition, It is true that Dr. Frankenstein was intrigued far beyond what was normal by his experiment but as soon as he got the chance to witness what he had created he was horrified. In the film this is not what is portrayed, the last words he exclaimed were “yes, yes, yes!” as if he were excited or happy about bringing his creature to life. Although in the text on page 36 Mary Shelly states “… but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart.” She goes on to say how he wasn’t able to even sleep thinking of the horrible mistake he had made, he even had nightmares. In the text, Frankenstein starts to feel a very negative way about his creation immediately after it is brought to life. He feels as if he created a monster and Mary Shelly makes this clear to us in lines such as “I beheld the wretch-the miserable monster whom I created.” This in addition to not being able to sleep or feed himself appropriately made him very fatigue and debilitated so I do not understand why the young man they chose to play him had so much energy in the clip that I watched.

Frankenstein Text Versus Film

In the text by Mary Shelley, Frankenstein seems horrified of his own creation. He sparks life into his creation “with an anxiety that almost amounted to agony”. This gives the reader the impression that he was so involved in his work that it was actually bad for his own health . Immediately after making his creature , Frankenstein claims that his emotions ran wild and his success turned out to be a “catastrophe” . Overall his tone is quite negative in Mary Shelley’s text. He says ” Now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished , and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart .” He continues on to say that he immediately rushes out of the lab and goes to his bed, unable to sleep due to his anxiety. The theatrical film adaptation from 1994 shows a doctor Frankenstein with alot of anxiety. However , the anxiety is coming from the Doctor’s excitement as he runs around his lab trying to synthesize his human being rather than guilt. This 1994 film was nothing like the text. Frankenstein was shirtless,loud, and had long hair. The theatrics were also grand because he used electric eels as his source of electricity which is absolutely ludicrous. Surely someone who was working for two years on an experiment would have come up with a simpler and more direct source of energy . The theatrics made the entire scene feel more comedic or light hearted . The 1931 film adaptation seems much more dark and displays a maniacal doctor Frankenstein. In this adaptation Frankenstein actually has a lab coat which relates to the text more . However this time he is surrounded by three spectators which is very inconsistent with Mary Shelley’s text. Frankenstein was supposed to be working alone and hiding his monster , not showing it off . To add to this egotistical agenda, the Frankenstein in the 1931 adaption yells out “now I know how it feels to be god”. Instead of horror, he displays pride and absolute excitement at his success . According to the text , Frankenstein was supposed to feel shame from his own experiment not hubris. The only similarity noted was the setting – a lab on a rainy night . Another similarity was the way the monster awoke -with convulsions . Overall , the film adaptation may have been very different because they show Frankensteins reactions at the exact time of his creation success . Meanwhile Shelley’s text displays Frankenstein’s emotions after the fact as he recants his story to Walton.