CR#2- FRANKENSTEIN
What I found very intriguing in reading Frankenstein is the fact that Justine, who was convicted of murdering William, was convicted of this crime. There was only circumstantial evidence found on her. This gets brought up when Victor is talking about his conversation with his brother where he says “…the morning on which the murder of poor William had been discovered, Justine had been taken ill,….during this interval, one of the servants, happening to examine the apparel she had worn on the night of the murder, had discovered in her pocket the picture of my mother”. What is more interesting is that her name Justine sounds very familiar to the word justice, which she was not given. On the other hand we can look at Victor’s encounter of being a suspect of Henry’s murder, which shortly after he was free of charge. We can also take a look at his name which sounds just like the word victory. Even though he was just as innocent as Justine, he was lucky enough to win over the justice system, where she was not. This aspect takes me back to the separation of men and women in this novel. Women were more passive characters, without much right to anything, whereas men were the law layers. When Shelly created these scenes, I feel like she was trying to make the reader understand how far apart in law, women were from men. This is shown by Justine not being able to defend herself even under so little evidence, but Victor being acquitted being under similar circumstances. So maybe Shelly was bringing up the issue of unfair justice system and how men and women were not treated equally.She brings up a lot of political issues that humans were facing in those times.
So there are some really cool things going on in this post. I like the reading of the names, and I think it’s interesting and important to think about the repetition between the incarceration of Justine and Victor and where they differ. I think you might be on to something about gender issues. However what concerns me is the that while you point out a specific detail this close reading isn’t quite as close as it needs to be. So I think what you have is a side by side, but you don’t really set it up that way or go deeply into that side by side. In a side by side as with an archaeological dig you have to think about the various ways the scenes overlap and diverge (in plot and language). You kind of get to the second scene (with Victor’s incarceration) associatively (ie. one thing makes you think of another), and as such once you make your observation about the name difference and connect that to the fact that Victor is acquitted, you pan out to thinking about gender. You’re not deeply in two particular passages (both of these trials span several pages); you’re thinking more generally on top of the text. Close readings have to keep going and should be addressing specific parts of the text. Like if you said you wanted to compare both of these trials that would be fine, but then you’d need to say that you want to specifically say you’ll focus on these specific passages b/c BLANK. When you go general you run the risk of overlaying an argument on top of the details. For instance, while your point is very interesting about the name, it doesn’t seem to account for the fact that Victor doesn’t seem like a victor as a whole. Like if Victor were a minor character like Justine whose central plot function is around that trial that he is acquitted for that would make sense, but he seems to lose at many other places. And all his appearances in court aren’t triumphant (think how the judge turns down his case at the end). I’m not saying that your argument doesn’t hold water; what I’m saying is that your argument is probably more nuanced, but you have to go into the text and really root your argument in the details. (Remember: If you don’t need to quote some part of the passage to make your point, the chances are your reading isn’t as close as it needs to be).