I need help on my homework,

it on frankenstein chapters five to seven.
the question are:

1)Discuss the use of suspense and foreshadowing that occurs throughout the text. Does the foreshadowing reveal too much to the reader?

2)How does victors pursuit of knowledge become dangerous? Are his discoveries part of his conflict of conscience?

3)Victor creation is called a "monster" throughout the novel, yet it is evident that Victor himself has a "monster" within himself. Discuss this idea with two examples

4)Are the use of letters and written communication useful to the reader? why or why not?

5)Do you sympathize with Victor's "creation"? Is the "monster" he created, truly a monster in the eyes of a modern reader? why or why not?


thank, bee

Well, I have a couple of problems with this subject. First, it has nothing to do with poetry. Second, the poster seems to feel we should provide the exact answers to a particular homework assigment. Still, some help can be provide to perhaps send the petitioner off to places where his/her own answers can be better formulated, or stimulate a personal response. I have not read the little gem in decades, but I would think it would be easy to pad acceptable responses to such questions as given.

Foreshadowing seems to be used in the sense of how Mary Shelley manages to suggest that disaster will befall those who tinker in such areas? Suspense means she gets the reader interested in and anticipating the experiments and their likely outcomes? Or, does foreshadowing mean the author uses the words 'fate' and 'omen' too often, thereby becoming redundant? In-class discussions might point one in the right direction for the correct response.

Does her foreshadowing go too far, and reveal too much to the reader? One could support either conclusion, but the success of her novel would likely lead us to say she did well with the storytelling. Whether she was successful with any particular reader would be up to that person to say.

Victor's particular pursuit of knowledge is fooling with God's work, no? So that would have been seen as very dangerous in Shelley's day. Nowadays, when we see advances in gene therapy and stem cell research, we are tempted to think back to Herr Doktor F. and his experiments. He also was trying to benefit mankind, no?

Does Victor really have a monster within himself? (Note that today the word Frankenstein has come to mean the monster created and not the creator's name.) I would again argue that Victor was really just a scientist in pursuit of knowledge that might benefit man, and his tinkering with things better left alone was his only sin.

Well, I am rambling here, and have lots of things to do today, so I will leave other questions to other posters. But, as an interesting aside on plagiarism, did the teacher of the class referenced above commit such an offense by borrowing ideas from SparkNotes?:

[www.sparknotes.com]

I went back and read Wollstonecraft-Shelley's creation again last week, and it would appear I remembered a lot of it wrong. First, Victor had not achieved his doctorate, but was merely a student at the University of Ingolstadt (in Bavaria, to which he travelled from Geneva). Second, the author never really explains how/where Victor got or created the body parts for his eight-foot-tall monster. It seems he visited some 'charnel houses' [en.wikipedia.org], where I am guessing he got the bones for his 'human frame'. But whence he obtained such organs as heart, liver, lungs and the like is less clear. They would appear not to have deteriorated badly while V. was working. Also unexplained is how the creature could be brought to life - apparently the idea just flashed into Victor's head, much like a present-day light bulb. He declined to explain any more, noting that the listener/reader would understand his reasoning after knowing the whole story.

Then, after the monster is seen to come to life, Victor simply abandons his creature! He walks out of the room and goes on with his life, with never a single thought as to what will happen to this large, but new-born babe. Not really believable, Mary.

When the monster wanders off into the Bavarian countryside, he somehow knows that berries will sustain him, and that water is good to drink. Just how he came to that knowledge is unexplained. Apparently a quick study, the tall fellow learns to make fire and picks up French, German and English in quick fashion, the first language while hiding in a hovel and listening to inhabitants on the other side of a wall.

The hifalutin' language is most difficult to read nowadways, every other sentence being a superlative of some sort or other. Shelley cannot just say something, she has to dress it up with drawn-out and flowery explanations. Yeah, that was common technique in her day, so she is forgiven. Perhaps she intended a sequel? The monster is allowed to escape at the end, and we are left with no idea as to what his next adventure will be.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/31/2006 11:53AM by Hugh Clary.