Frankenstein-up to pg 153

This book is good, I like it, and I just stopped reading it pretty much in the peak of the good part, where Victor just got married but has not seen the monster yet.  I was wondering why Victor thought he was going to die on his wedding night, and not Elizabeth.  This was jumping out of the page at me, and I would guess that Elizabeth is going to die in the near future.  This would hurt Victor much more then his own death.  Although for as sad as Victor seems, he is also very scared of his death.  He has avoided it with the monster, and when he was in danger of dying out at sea, he was really scared as well.  I am not sure, but I would think that if you were in that much self-caused pain, that it might be weird to still be terrified of death, almost as if he likes being in this misery and turmoil.

When the monster was telling his tale, one of his actions jumped out at me, and I think it happens in real life a lot.  In sociology, they call it something like the labeling theory.  The monster wanted to be loved by his "protectors," and wanted to be good to them.  After the family sees the monster, Felix moves the family away from their cottage in fear of another encounter with the monster.  The monster then continues to light the cottage on fire until it burns downs.  The family would have heard about the cottage burning down, and thought they were right about moving away and the monster being awful.  I think this happens a lot in general.  If a teacher labels a kid a trouble maker, then a lot of times the kid figures that if he is already a trouble maker, why not be funny or whatever and cause trouble.  Or if kids in a bad part of town are not expected to go to college, then there is no consequence if they put no effort forward and drop out of school.

Are Victor and the monster the same person?  If so, why does Victor want to kill his loved ones?

-The word "wretch" is first found describing Victor by Walton when they find him n the beginning on the sled in the ice

-he describes the monster as a "wretch" as well

-he then describes that he spent the night wretchedly

-he uses the word a lot in general, now there are words like that too like "cool" ,"sick" or "gross".  That dead thing is gross, or That's a gross hoody (means cool)

-his father describes the environment (which was created by the monster) that Victor would come home to as wretchedness because William died

-when Victor is going home, he says that he is destined to become the most wretched of human beings

-Elizabeth is described as thinking that she caused the murder, and that made her very wretched

-It seems to me that the word wretch follows the murderer around, so maybe they are the same person?

This is a very interesting thing to think about.  Part of me thinks that there is no chance this is the case that they are the same person because of the fact that the monster tells about how he watched that family for a year, and things like that.  Although Victor I guess could just imagine this, and imagine in is head some part of his inner self could be scaling mountains, which seemed like kind of a stretch anyways.  The real flag to me though is his mother hurt him by dying.  So why would Victor kill other people close to him?  I do not think he would be protecting himself by killing loved ones since that is the way his mother hurt him so bad.  I feel like he fears that the most, so I'm not sure why he would do that.  I would think it would be better for him to just run away forever, or something like that.

monster's tale

How does the Monster's tale make you feel?

Initially, because of what happened to Justine and William, I hated the monster just as Victor did.  I then felt bad for the monster, though, as he was telling his tale.  I never thought about what the monster was thinking or feeling.  I guess I assumed that the monster awoke, and was just a man because of how big he was.  I never thought that when he awoke, he was essentially a baby who knew nothing, and initially could not even see, hear, or talk.  I feel what has happened is Victor's fault, but not completely because he created it, but more so because of the fact that he abandoned the monster.  If he had stayed with the monster, he could have essentially raised it almost like a child.  Instead he left the monster, and as a result of a chain of events, all the gloom surrounded Victor.

Frankenstein, 2 class

There are a couple of things in this novel so far that I really was curious about, and I'm sure I might have missed something in the book that may have explained these things that came to my mind.  Victor created the monster, and then as a result got very sick and had to be nursed back to health by his friend Clerval until the spring.  It seemed that once he got better though, he kind of forgot about this monster, which struck me as odd.  If he had been sick for months by having a nervous breakdown and had been hallucinating about this monster, I would have thought that once he got better he would have taken action in finding the monster.  Before he received a letter from his father, Victor even said, "My own spirits were high, and I bounded along with feelings of unbridled joy and hilarity."  I guess I wondered how he forgot completely about his creation, and did not try to find him or alert people of his presence.  

I also really could not comprehend why Victor didn't step up in Justine's defense and tell everyone he knew who killed his brother.  Victor said he would have stepped forward and confessed to the murder, but he was not in town and people would just think he was insane.  But I was thinking it through and it does not make sense to me.  Victor was gone for 6 years, so if he was in school for a year or two, and after creating the monster then had to get nursed back from health and also went on a trip with Clerval before going home, then I think he would have spent at least two years creating the beast.  So if Victor was working day and night on this monster for two years, I would think he would have so much evidence of his work.  He would have those spare body parts laying around and he'd have his lab or working space where there would have to be all his work.  I would guess there would be countless formulas and drawings and all of his workings documented somewhere.  Why could he not bring his work that would have been documented and showed the court this?  I like reading this book a lot, but it was really hard for me to get over this last point of mine as I was reading about Justine getting put to death.  I just saw the movie "Jerry Maguire" the other day and was having the same thoughts.  At the end of the movie, Cuba Gooding Jr gets injured in the end zone in an evening game.  Somehow Tom Cruise gets from the media area onto the field in like 17 seconds, which would have realistically taken like 45 minutes if possible at all .  He then goes from an evening football game (that typically go from 8:00-11:30), and has to fly from Phoenix to his home, gets his bags in the airport, and drive home.  He gets home and there is some sort of divorced woman support group meeting there that his wife is a part of.  There is no way he could get home before 3 or 4 AM, yet they are meeting as if it is 8 at night.  Most sports movies are kind of absurd in some way, but this ten minute period of Jerry Maguire was hard to get over.  I really like the movie, but there was blatantly just no conceivable way.  This is how I thought about some of the things in Frankenstein I said above, and especially how Victor does not help Justine.  I really like the book so far, but I do not understand why Victor thinks no one would believe him when he would have so much evidence of the creation of the monster.  I guess it could be kind of like The Scarlet Letter, in that he has this secret that he does not dispose to others and is just eating him alive inside, but it seems to me he wants to tell people but can't for some reason.

Victor vs. Walton

So far, I think that Victor and Walton are very similar characters, but have a couple major differences.  They at first seem very similar in their actions, and Walton seems like he is a younger Victor.  He is on the same path, and that is why Victor is telling him this story.  They both were in pursuit of greatness, and both basically would live in isolation, or away from family and friends, to achieve this greatness.  I think Victor was in more pursuit of greatness though because of his love of science, whereas Walton is in pursuit of fame.  Victor was intrigued by science, and it was his passion, whereas it seemed to me that Walton was just trying to find a field to gain fame by.  Victor was gone from home I think it said for 6 years, so he was probably working for 4 of those years, where Walton quit poetry after only one year, and then went on to be a discoverer.

Frankenstein intro

Walton-poet, discoverer  \         both 

Victor-scientist                  /         artists

I am very curious to see how Walton's mindset changes from the beginning of the novel to the end.  Walton has this intense desire for fame, by trying to be a poet, and now trying to get to the north pole.  He then finds Victor chasing what is assumed to be his creation, and aids him back to health.  Victor goes on to tell Walton his tale, because it is evident to see the obsession Walton has that Victor once had.  There are a lot of examples in the media about how characters obsessed with meeting some goal eventually ruins them, or produces very bad results in their life.  Although there are so many examples of this,  the example that immediately came to my mind (probably not a good thing) was an example in the TV show Entourage.  

Vince was obsessed with making the movie "Medellin".  No studio will make the movie so he buys it from a rich director.  The man who sold the rights to the script to Vince says that he saw a man with that kind of passion once, and it led to his demise.  He gave Vince the advice to not let a movie drive him crazy, that it wasn't worth it.  This advice reminded me of the advice Victor gave to Walton.  Vince sells his home to pay for the script, going broke, and letting everything ride on this movie.  It eventually ends up flopping, and he ends up broke with a struggling career and with his mom in Queens.  I'm not sure if this example is the most scholarly, especially since it's a TV show on HBO; but it was one man telling the other that his obsession will not end well.  I am interested to see if Walton heeds Victors advice, and learns from Victors story, or if Walton is ill-fated as well.

I might have missed this, but I was wondering how Victor came about all these spare body parts.  He said he had this room in the attic or something like that, and it was the place where he kept all these body parts.  I wonder where he went at night to find spare parts for this Frankenstein.  I started reading a little past where we were supposed to, and I was trying to picture the creature he made.  It seemed to me like some morbid Mr. Potato Head.  It had all these random body parts combined to make some horrible looking monster

wuthering heights-class

One source that I kinda wanted to watch, and people have not mentioned, is the movie "Wuthering Heights" made by Mtv in 2003.  It was nowhere to be found so I could not watch it, and the assignment was for a scene or the book to become more clear, when that would not be the case at all.  I'm sure the movie would be completely ridiculous, but that is kinda why I wanted to watch it, and see how closely they are related to each other.  I think it would show how society now shows most things for our generation.  It is described in a blurb about the show:

MTV takes a stab at this gothic love story in its own made for network version. And why not? It’s got all the things the kids like: true love, broken hearts, a little bit of fighting, and dash of kissy kissy. And without Bronte’s elegant prose, we’re left with a story that’s really just a glorified soap opera. And hey…attention span-problems? No problem. Bronte’s epic is slimmed down to less than 90 minutes. And if you like good production values, cool lighting and music… MTV knows how to deliver the goods.

The movie follows the book in a Cliff Notes sort of way, and psychological depth has been eschewed in favor of something more easily digestible. Heathcliff becomes “Heath" (Mike Vogel); Cathy becomes “Cate” (Erika Christensen). Now Vogel (not a stranger to remakes – see Texas Chainsaw Massacre) is no Larry Olivier, but he seems really really committed to playing a man in love and out of control. And he looks hot. So the girls will like that. Christensen is also used to playing characters out of control, from her star making performance in Traffic to her embarrassing portrayal in Swimfan.. I’d say her performance is somewhere in the middle of those two polarizing films. She’s very natural, but at the same time, she tries to find emotions and moments that just aren’t within her range yet.

Heathcliff was the main character of the book, so it makes sense he is the main character in the movie.  He is portrayed as a heartthrob in the movie because he had half the personality of one in the book, and if that part is shown he could be one in the movie.  He seemed to brood a lot, which could be good to show in a Mtv movie.  He also was in the middle of two romances, which would be good for a movie as well.

wuthering heights-last assignment

What does the article "The Unreliable narrator in Wuthering Heights" do that better helps me understand the interaction between Lockwood and Nelly, and the story overall.

I was looking for an article that discussed the two narrators of the book, and how reliable they were.  Something I did not think of until the end of the book is that most of it is told through the eyes of Nelly, and some through Lockwood; not through an author like a more traditional novel.  This became apparent to me as the book went on, and especially near the end of it. When Nelly is discussing young Catherine with Lockwood right before he leaves, she insinuate the only way to save Catherine is through marriage.  Nelly obviously cannot marry her, but Lockwood can.  She also comments on how she thinks Lockwood is/or will fall in love with Catherine.  She was not so subtly telling Lockwood to go for Catherine, then for both of them to go away together. Around this time, I also noticed that Nelly, in her descriptions of Catherine, was really forgiving of her weaknesses and really praised her. This struck me as odd because Catherine seemed very similiar to her mother Catherine, and Nelly was not kind in her description of her.  I thought young Catherine possibly even teased Hareton in a worse way then her mother ever teased Heathcliff, but Nelly makes her out to be much kinder than her mother. This occurred near the end of the book though, and I did not really catch Nelly telling subtle lies earlier in the book.  I thought it was very possible they were there, though, so I searched for an article that discussed this subject.

The article pointed out three possible reasons why Nelly was an unreliable narrator.  The first reason pointed out something that did not even occur to me.  Near the end of the novel, I was able to see a probable gap between the actual reality and her narration of it to Lockwood.  She did not blatantly lie, but told stories in a way that would benefit her goal. I thought that she was deliberatly doing this, but the author said that "her pedestrian approach to the tempestuous characters of the novel manifests her essential misunderstanding of them." This is something I think that is pretty important to think about.  She could misunderstand some events going on because of her education level or how she has been trained to act and think out of function more then reason.  She could then misdescribe events because she was confused or did not fully grasp people's thoughts and intentions rather then the fact that she is stretching events that happened intentionally in her favor.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, a critic named James Hafley believes that Nelly Dean, not Heathcliff, is actually the villian of this novel. Hafely believes that Nelly Dean is trying to gain control of both of the estates, but can only do this after Heathcliff is gone and if she has control over Cathy; or if both are gone. This is also interesting to me because Nelly used to play with Heathcliff when they were younger, but then because of some abritrary class labeling (all the class labeling seems absurd to me in this novel because they are in complete isolation; it seems worthless) she is now a servent to Heathcliff. I could see, from human nature, greed, and jealousy; Nelly wanting to gain control of both properties. This could explain her wanting Lockwood to take Cathy away as well. I think this is unlikely though, but worth thinking about.  

Another possibility the article pointed out was that Nelly only lied to benefit some characters she liked or felt sorry for.  I think this is probable, 99% of the lies I tell fall into this category.  If I go home on break, and lets say go visit a bunch of buddies, my mom might ask if I saw one friend.  Instead of explaining everything I did for 20 minutes, I might just say yes to avoid a worthless conversation.  A better example might be if your girlfriend asks if she looks good at a particular time; you always say yes.  In kind of the same mindset, Nelly lied at times to avoid conflict or improve people's feelings.  So one article discussed the possibility that Nelly just had a misunderstanding of events and the characters which led to inconsistencies, whereas another article tried to persuade us that she told minor lies to benefit other characters she was close to, and the last article talked about the possibility that Nelly was plotting her takeover of both properties which directed the way she told her story to Lockwood.

The article, then attempts to prove that Nelly is an unreliable narrator. My opinion is that Nelly is not 100% reliable; only Lockwood could have the potential to be that, because he is an outside source. He does not really have emotional feelings that could force him to sway the facts. I think it is impossible for Nelly to be completely objective because she has seen everything that has happened and been close to some characters, and despised other characters. I think human nature would prevent the possibility of her being 100% accurate. My opinion is that Nelly tells lies, but they are to benefit other people. There is history of this in the book as well. Near the middle of the book, she told Linton that Heathcliff was a kind and generous man. She also told Edgar, when he was dying, that Catherine was safe and would be home soon, when that was not the case at all. Neither of these lies really changed anything, and especially not in her favor.  They were more to make the person she was lying to feel better.  So my opinion is that Nelly is a fairly reliable narrator but does not comrehend some actions, thus she cannot retell them accurately. I think she also lies a little, but insignificant lies that save the characters' feelings from getting hurt. I do not think that she alters the story considerably though.  Although it was interesting for me to think about the idea that she was planning her dominance over both properties, I think that this is more humorous then anything near the truth at all.

wuthering heights-heathcliff and catherine

This book is fairly difficult for me to get through, and I think it is because I do not like any of the characters.  There is no real character to root for, or to hope everything works out for them.  We are talking about how Catherine loves Heathcliff more then Edgar, and I think it is both of their faults that they do not end up together.  For some reason that I cannot comprehend, Catherine chose to marry Edgar instead of Heathcliff because of class.  I would not agree with it, but I could see this logic if they were in some city, or a big community, where they were being judged by friends or had some sort of public status.  But they are secluded in this place, so it seems absurd to me to take an insignificant class status that her angry brother labeled Heathcliff with, and make her decision based on this.  Then when Catherine was leaning towards Edgar, I feel like Heathcliff could have won her over, like she almost wanted him to go after her.  I feel like if he was persistent, and told Catherine how he felt, then she might have chosen him; maybe they would have run away together or stayed there and tried to be happy together.  But Heathcliff is always brooding and angry, and he just runs away from the whole situation instead of doing any positive action for getting Catherine.  I dislike both of these characters, and am not sure the direction I hope this novel goes.  We see Catherine die when she has the baby.  At the beginning of the novel Heathcliff is alone, and realizes the love he lost, which is evident by him pleading at Catherine's ghost.  This is almost a just enough ending for me, and do not really know what will go on the rest of the novel.

wuthering heights-class1

When thinking of the scenery of this book, I picture it very desolate and isolated, that is why Lockwood went there to retreat from where he was before, and to get away from everything.  I was wondering what would come up if I googled it, so I did and there were two different images that I thought were pretty accurate/that I liked a lot.  The first one was what I imagined the surroundings to look like.  It was plain and barren.

I really enjoyed the second image because it was so contrasting.  It is a painting where there are bare trees in a barren land quite similar to the first picture, and it is what's described in the book which is exactly how I pictured the scenery of the book being.  But instead of there being snow around the trees, it is essentially just the trees with a real pretty sunset behind it.  I don't know why I like this, maybe because it shows that any place can be aesthetically pretty, or that it is soothing, just like Lockwood wanted it to be when he came there.

 

Catherine seemed to completely change when she stayed with the Lintons.  It was obvious that her appearance had changed, she came back wearing a dress and with her hair combed meticulously.  But I think she became a much weaker person as well.  It seemed to me that she never really stuck up for Heathcliff in a manner that she would have before.  She kind of sneakily tries to help him, but she never stands up to the Lintons and everyone and come to his defense.  She then decides to marry Edgar instead of Heathcliff, because Heathcliff is now essentially a servant, and that was what really showed me the weakening of her character.  

wuthering heights-heathcliff

Heathcliff strikes me as a pretty complex character to figure out.  At first in the novel, Lockwood describes himself as being pretty quiet and keeping to himself, and that is why he is at Thrushcross Grange.  But when he meets Heathcliff, Lockwood is obviously more interested in human contact then Heathcliff, and I almost wondered to myself if Heathcliff had some sort of minor disability or if something like that was wrong with him because of how weird he acted.  After Lockwood comes home from the disastrous visit to Wuthering Heights, Nelly tells him the story about Heathcliff, Hindley, and Cathy's childhood and young adulthood.  This was more complex because, when Heathcliff was a child, Cathy and he were wild, and would run all over the place like wild banshees.  He definitely had a rough childhood though.  He was an orphan, who was then tormented by his brother.  I am now at the part where Catherine is friends with Lintons, and starting to phase Heathliff out of her life.  Heathcliff was jealous when Catherine first came back.  Now they are spending time together, but Catherine is still spending more time with the Lintons.  It has not been stated in the book, and if it has then I obviously missed it, but my guess is that Catherine ends up choosing Linton over Heathcliff, and then Heathcliff's heart grows cold towards humanity, and it builds up a lot of animosity towards others.  Probably why he won't let anyone get close to him as well.  I can tell this is a very deep subject for him because, after Lockwood says he saw a ghost earlier on in the book, Heathcliff is calling out for Cathy.  It will be interesting if Heathcliff opens up to Lockwood, or what kind of transformation his character undergoes as this book keeps going.

class 2/4-wuthering heights/ideology

On my blogs, I have just been writing my thoughts/opinions, but have not been writing those based on ideology.  "The main purpose behind an ideology is to offer change in society through a normative thought process. Ideologies are systems of abstract thought (as opposed to mere ideation) applied to public matters and thus make this concept central to politics" (Dictionary.com).  Now, I'll try to think of that more while writing.  Also, these blogs are not like papers, where a lot of planned thought is worked into it.  The thoughts presented here are given more "on the fly," so some words or phrases are not the best that could be used.  I hope it does not offend anyone.

"Wuthering Heights" is a fairly tough read for me, but not impossible.  So far, I like the story, but the language makes it hard at times to get at what exactly is going on, and I found myself reading a lot of things twice.  Some books flow really well when I am reading them and the book goes really fast, but it takes work to get through this book.  I almost have to muscle through it in a way.  The relationship between the characters is hard to figure out because they are both complex and hard to figure out in general, and some have the same names.  

Something interesting just mentioned in class is that Bronte is compared to a women Shakespeare.  This is the second author (also Woolf) compared to Shakespeare.  I don't know why this leapt out at me.  I immediately just Wikipedia'ed Shakespeare and a thought was that Bronte was pretty close in time to Shakespeare, but they were separated by a couple hundred years.  These female authors were British writers like Shakespeare, and he is known as the best ever, so it is natural to be compared I guess.  I guess what I was really wondering is if these female writers were happy/felt acclaimed by this comparison, or if they were trying to get out of a man's shadow and show that they are great authors and are women.  The media is always trying to appoint the next Jordan (in the NBA), and it seems to annoy the players because they want to be known as being great in their own way, not the second-tier version of someone else.  I guess that's what drew my attention to this, and I wondered if these writers were honored by this comparison, or wanted to be known for their own great works instead of being called a low-grade man.  I wondered if, by being compared to a man these women were being cut down in a way, or being highly esteemed.  Maybe thats dumb to think about, but for some reason it really drew my curiosity.

classroom discussion:rape in cyberspace

In comparing rape to cyberspace, there are some things that are the same?  What?

I think one big similarity could be the victims might both feel a kind of shame.  The cyber victims were violated in front of all their peers and could do nothing about it, while victims in real life, it appears, sometimes might feel that way.

Last night I was searching for a term and couldn't grasp one, but heard it today; the people in the MOO were "emotionally invested".  I have read books, or even far away news, or other things that I have gotten emotionally invested in, and then when something other than what I wanted to happen does happen, then it is easy to get sad or mad or whatever emotion they feel.  The same with movies.  A lot of people get really into movies, and leave happy or disgusted after it is over, and cry or cheer during the movie.  When people do get emotionally involved in a book or movie, it is easy for that to stay with us for a while, good or bad.  There have been some movies, books, and even stories that have lasted me for a while in a bad way, but on the other hand there have been movies and books that have stayed with me much, much longer, some even until today that are positive.  I like cycling a lot, and one of my best buddies does as well.  He had a quote that "pain is just weakness leaving the body," and during a grueling ride sometimes that quote or things from movies like "Rocky" or "Remember the Titans" just naturally comes to mind.  So I guess I'm saying that I think it is easy for people to get emotionally involved in books and movies and to be affected both positively and negatively.

rape in cyberspace

Did Bungle commit rape?

I think that this a subjective question, but in my opinion he did not commit rape, although I think he caused emotional strain or inflicted pain on his victims.  I'm not really into computers, and am not exactly sure what this virtual cyberspace is.  I've never heard of a MOO before class on Friday, so I guess what they were talking about in the article is very similar to the example in class on Friday.  When reading the beginning of this article, I at first thought it was kind of silly that people got so emotionally invested into some imaginary place where everyone is strangers.  But I guess it is a lot like a chat room, and verbal insults can definitely hurt people's feelings.  I found it interesting in the article when someone said that "the mind is the body" and that is why it was so hurtful to those people Bungle attacked.  It might sound unsympathetic, but the whole situation kind of reminded me of a video game for adults.  It seemed like people got a little too into what was going on in that "community".  I can understand how those girls were hurt by Bungle's comments.  But the whole part about a bunch of the members deciding to be radical and toad him and all that stuff seemed to go a little overboard.  I don't mean he shouldn't have been kicked out, but I mean the extent of how emotionally involved people were in this community was a little extreme.  It kind of reminds me of fantasy sports as well.  I have a fantasy basketball team, and it's fun to look at and chirp at my buddies who I am beating, but some people get extremely into it.  I really think they have somehow convinced themselves that they are real general managers because of how serious they've let themselves take it.  The main reason I do not think that he committed rape, though, was that I could not help but think what an actual rape victim would think when reading this article, and then when asked this question.  I'm not exactly sure about this, but I would think that a woman who was raped would think of what they went through, and almost be aghast that these women would consider themselves rape victims as well.  I'm not sure that this would be the case, maybe I am completely off, but when I think of what a real rape victim had to endure, and what these victims endured in this cyberspace, I would not consider it equal.  I do not mean to sound insensitive, because I feel bad for these people that Bungle hurt, but I would not consider them rape victims.