Nicholas Schweers

LTC Ticen

12/16/18

Review of ERH- 421WX – One Text: Frankenstein

 

Review of ERH – 421WX – One Text: Frankenstein

 

Being able to take an entire semester to focus on one work of literature has truly been a blessing. I had read “Frankenstein” for Lieutenant Colonel Ticen’s “British Literary Traditions” last spring, and that honestly made me a little bit nervous for this course. When I read “Frankenstein” for the first time in that course, it was long, intricate, and I found the descriptive nature of Shelley’s writing to be both confusing and tiring. So I came into ERH 421 both excited and scared about the work load. So when Lieutenant Colonel Ticen started off the course with an information sheet on how much we all knew about “Frankenstein”, I was not sure where to start. Having a basic understanding of the text, I knew most of what to expect when it came to reading the course. While I was worried about the reading load of the course, I also wrote about the cultural context of the text, including the gothic and romantic elements. While these are two accurate aspects of the course, both of my ideas were changed throughout the semester. First off, while the reading load was, at times, quite intense, I found that it was at best manageable for me to complete all of the work. But the most extreme change in my knowledge of “Frankenstein” came from my understanding of the meaning and culture of the text.

Coming into this course, I only had a general idea behind the culture of “Frankenstein”. As stated above, I had focused only on the style of the book, primarily the gothic and romantic elements. But the main thing I learned from the course was the warnings that Mary Shelley offered, and how they have remained relevant for two hundred years. In every assignment in ERH 421, I evaluated and wrote about these warnings. I focused on the context in which she wrote, and the current context that the course can be taken. When she was writing “Frankenstein”, she was living in a society of political and scientific change. Feminism and industrialization were spreading through Europe. Mary Shelley’s own father and mother were progressive activists, writing on philosophy and feminism. Shelley’s husband, Percy Shelley, was also a progressive philosopher. Needless to say, Mary Shelley’s mind was open to the ideas that teach you how to best treat others and to improve the world and society as a whole. So it is no surprise when she writes a warning for future generations in her story.

In “Frankenstein”, Victor Frankenstein uses a combination of many varieties of sciences, new and old, to stitch together a human being from several corpses that he exhumed. He was so concerned with having a creation that is totally his, and that he never stopped to question the morality of what he was creating. So when he finally brought his creature to life, he realized that he had created a creature that was not wholly human. He was terrified by the gruesome appearance of the creature, leading him to run away and leave the creature alone and afraid in the cruel world that he lived in. While the creature did educate himself rapidly, he had little to no formation on what it meant to be a good person. Without a parent or teacher to teach him morality, and while living in a world that constantly abused and took from him, the creature turned to the one thing that he understood naturally, vengeance. Therefore, Victor was responsible for any actions that the creature took, both because he did not conduct his research with morality in mind, and that he did not guide the creature to be a good being. Shelley uses this situation to instill in her readers the understanding that if they do not act responsibly towards others, and do not take responsibility for their actions, some evil will come because of their irresponsibility. This understanding of responsibility has helped me understand culture as a whole. It leads to an understanding of the cause and effect nature of our world, and has helped me analyze cultural occurrences in many situations.

Developing an understanding of responsibility helps in daily life, and also helps you understand what causes people or groups to take specific actions against others. This helped me analyze the creature in “Frankenstein in Baghdad”, and the way that it was written. Being able to analyze the cause and effect nature of our world is very useful, as seen above. It has helped me analyze other texts that I have read, as well as to understand the contexts of issues such as arguments with others in my personal life. Due to this, I would highly recommend anyone reading this to take a good long time to analyze Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein”. To those people who may be considering taking this course, I would say that you must keep an open mind. You must read ahead of time and do work far before it is due (that is just for your own benefit so that you do not get swamped with work). Finally, you must strive to see the deeper meaning behind Shelley’s works, particularly when it comes to responsibility for your actions and for your creations.