Literature and Composition

“Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.” This quote was preached to me throughout my childhood. Like most children growing up, parents, friends, and school teachers were among many of the people who would reassure me of my physical looks. Receiving compliments on a semi regular basis, I would argue, shaped my actions, thoughts, and character growing up. Beauty instilled a confidence and power that reflected through my actions. Because I was ‘beautiful’ I walked taller, spoke louder, and exuded confidence. 

In volume one Mary Shelley sets up the creation scene of the monster. Alone in his laboratory, Victor Frankenstein is completing the arrangement of his monster. He is perplexed by his creation and contradicts his comments on its overall appearance. He squanders back and forth describing his creation as ‘beautiful’ and then contrasting by criticizing his ‘yellow skin.’ Furthermore, Frankenstein continues to criticize the monster’s appearance describing his overall appearance as, ‘”watery eyes, that seemed almost the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.” The constant criticism of the monster’s overall looks by Victor was setting it up for severe emotional damage. Much like how I found confidence through compliments, the monster that was created was beginning its life with a detrimental feel of self worth. I believe this lack of self worth allowed the monster to act with violence and have a motive for revenge after Victor flees from his creation.

In volume two chapter three the monster is recalling his first memories from when he woke up in Victor’s laboratory. He recalls feeling ‘desolate.’ This thought of desolation is something I find very intriguing. The monster, before he even knew it, was criticized for his appearance. Victor fled from his creation out of fear and disgust. The feeling of desolation that the monster experiences, I believe, is a direct result of his ‘wretched’ appearance. The monster craved love and affection and that was stripped from him. The feeling of desolation haunts him and the monster sets out to seek what he is missing.

Later in the chapter the monster had fled Victor’s lab and was on a journey plagued by destruction. He recalls chasing a man off to steal his breakfast, infiltrating a village just to be criticized for his appearance, and finally stumbling upon the De Lacey family while trying to find shelter. The De Lacey family perplexes the monster. He recalls seeing them show love towards one another and this act of empathy towards one another causes him to be confused. He says,  “I felt sensations of a peculiar and overpowering nature: they were a mixture of pain and pleasure, such as I had never before experienced … and I withdrew from the window, unable to bear these emotions.” This quotation from the monster exemplifies his feelings. The fact he had to leave the window to isolate himself directly correlates to his deep rooted feeling of desolation that has been instilled in him since his birth. The monster had never been shown love, and witnessing love first hand from the DeLacey family causes him to revert to his desolate self. The lack of love in his life due to his foul appearance causes so many internal conflicts for him. His lack of beauty destroys his self worth.

I believe that Mary Shelley makes a case for beauty throughout her novel. The recurring theme of physical appearance is present in all three volumes. Specifically in volume two, I believe that the lack of love the monster receives is directly correlated to his physical appearance and causes him to act out and become violent. To grow up unloved would cause severe emotional damage to any child, and I believe that maybe Mary Shelley was attempting to make a point to not judge a book by its cover. We know that the monster shows sympathy and reason and is smart, but all the people he encounters cannot see past his appearance.

There is no doubt that Mary Shelly’s novel is nothing short of confusing. Multiple narrators, the presence of various texts, and colorful language to name a few complications any reader will inevitably face. All that aside, the problem of this novel, it seems to me, is that Mary Shelly is trying to emphasize the power of dedication. Through further analysis I believe thus far that Frankenstein not only emphasizes dedication, but also highlights the cost of dedication such as obsession and a sense of abandonment. 

A keyword that continually appeared in my notes throughout the first volume was obsession. Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein begins with a series of letters written by Robert Walton. Initially, I was very confused why she would begin a novel with an unknown character writing to his sister, but throughout these letters we begin to lay the groundwork of Walton’s dedication in his life.

I got my first glimpse of obsession in letter 1. Walton is seeking to break boundaries through his exploration of the sea. His father, who is briefly mentioned here, had warned him not pursue a career as a seaman, but Walton spends years preparing for his voyage neglecting his father’s advice. Prior to his aspiration of becoming a seaman, Robert was a failed writer. The drive he experiences, of wanting to break boundaries, is characterized through an obsession of expanding his knowledge. The sadness that overcomes him, I believe is a deep rooted issue he harbours from his failed writing career. He further explains, “My education was neglected, yet I was passionately fond of reading. These volumes were my study day and night…” This quotation is further emphasizing Mary Shelly’s argument for dedication. A neglected education allowed for the ambition for Walton to expand his knowledge. A dedication of studying volumes was instilled in him from an early age and stayed with him throughout his life.

Walton also experienced an obsession for finding companionship. In letter 2 Walton goes into depth about his search for companionship and proclaims to his sister, “But I have one want which I have never yet been able to satisfy; and the absence of the object of which I now feel as a most severe evil. I have no friend.” The use of the words “I have one want” emphasizes the obsession Walton is feeling, but I also believe that the use of the word absence plays upon an idea that obsession leads to isolation, which we saw in Birkett’s “The Gutenberg Elegies”. Walton, embarking on his sea voyage, is isolating himself for months. This isolation leads him to find the companion he has been longing for, Victor. Though I have read the entire first volume of Frankenstein I chose to focus on the first initial letters of the novel. I believe a foundation for the entire novel is built off of many of themes proposed in these letters, and Mary Shelly exemplifies dedication through these letters. I am curious to find out how the introduction of the third narrator, Victor Frankenstein, will complicate or coincide with the characteristic of obsession that seems to be harbored in all the characters thus far.

The world we live in is changing rapidly around us, and as humans we have been taught to “live in the now.” This idea of living in the moment often conceals our view of the changes occurring around us. In the ‘Gutenberg Elegies’, Sven Birkerts is interested in the change occurring in the replacement of text through electronic mediums.

Birkets is arguing for the claim that reading has fundamentally changed. He finds this argument so significant and voices his concern that people are not paying attention to this change. Key points he emphasizes are the way books, in his experience, allowed him independence and allowed him to be an individual. In the electronic age, however, he makes the claim that we lose that independence and become dependent on others.He is making an argument that contrasts the social experience of the electronic age with the solitary experience of reading.

The key word that impacted me most was solitude. On page 39 he says, “If reading was worth guarding and being secretive about, there had to be genuine power in it.” Birkets talks about being a young reader escaping into books and further explains that reading was frowned upon by his father and he obtained a  “genuine power” when he isolated himself and read. 

Reading for him is combined with parents and gender. It is associated with things that remind him of his mother and it’s contrasted with the masculine physical word his father lives in. This tension of the love for reading conflicted with the desire to please his father allows me to sympathize with him. I am sympathetic with the psychological pain he endures by living in a divided home, and I think many people can relate to his struggle of wanting to please their parents. However, I feel as though this experience of obtaining this “genuine power” is only tailored to him. Not all children grow up with fathers or mothers who frown upon reading. The power obtained through his isolation is very personal for him and not something you can assume will apply to everyone else.

An example of evidence that I found persuasive  was the following quote on page 49, “The classroom setting did not kindle my imagination; if a book was on a syllabus, I lost interest.”I connected to this line because I myself once found joy in reading books I was interested in. As I grew older I found that a resentment grew for reading once I was forced to have to indulge in texts required by my teachers. I can relate to having once been an intensive reader, but there is a loss of that urge to read which supports Birkets original argument.

Although this doesn’t correlate to electronics replacing text it does highlight a problem with schooling. In this way Birkets and Graff find a common ground with the issues of school. The experience of becoming a reader changes when you enter school. Suddenly you are forced to read rather than choosing to read. It becomes a task and no longer an escape. 

Sven Birkets voices his opinion in a rather lengthy autobiography. He supports his thesis fairly well but makes me wonder how he will follow up his autobiography. Will he focus in on supporting his claim? Or will he go on another lengthy tangent which, in all honesty, wasn’t that compelling!

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