Re-imagining Frankenstein

HUM 2052: Civilization IISpring 2012Dr. Perdigao

February 22-24, 2012

Frankenstein (1931, 1994)

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Frankenstein (1931, 1994)

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Postmodern Play

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HS0XceWlGAs

A Monster’s Education?

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/10-Books-that-Screwed-Up-the-World/Benjamin-Wiker/e/9781596980556/?itm=1#TOC

Table of ContentsIntroduction: Ideas Have Consequences     1Preliminary Screw-UpsThe Prince     7Discourse on Method     17Leviathan     31Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality among Men     41Ten Big Screw-UpsThe Manifesto of the Communist Party     57Utilitarianism     73The Descent of Man     85Beyond Good and Evil     99The State and Revolution     115The Pivot of Civilization     127Mein Kampf     145The Future of an Illusion     165Coming of Age in Samoa     177Sexual Behavior in the Human Male     195Dishonorable MentionThe Feminine Mystique     211Afterword: A Conclusive Outline of Sanity     227Acknowledgments     233Notes     235Index     251

• Krempe (47)• Waldman (49)

• De Lacey• Agatha• Felix• Safie

• “Was man, indeed, at once so powerful, so virtuous, and magnificent, yet so vicious and base?” (122).

• The Comte de Volney’s Ruins of Empires: philosophy of history

• Plutarch’s Parallel Lives (100 AD)• Goethe’s Sorrows of Young Werther (1774)• Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667)• “Romantic cyclopedia universalis” (271) (130)

• “Who was I? What was I? Whence did I come? What was my destination?” (131)

CIV Readings

• “My vices are the children of a forced solitude that I abhor; and my virtues will necessarily arise when I live in communion with an equal. I shall feel the affections of a sensitive being, and become linked to the chain of existence and events, from which I am now excluded.” (150)

A sequel?

An equal?

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• Henry Clerval—as Romantic (161), idea of India

• Victor’s ennui

• Idea of the female creation— “thinking and reasoning animal” (170); destroys her (175)

• “Slave, I before reasoned with you, but you have proved yourself unworthy of my condescension. Remember that I have power; you believe yourself miserable, but I can make you so wretched that the light of day will be hateful to you. You are my creator, but I am your master—obey!” (172)

• Elizabeth’s death (199)

• Retells story to magistrate (202), “Chinese box structure”

• “he or I shall perish in mortal conflict” (206)—as Beowulf?

Revisions

• Rewrites the story (213)

• “When younger. . . I believed myself destined for some great enterprise. . . From my infancy I was imbued with high hopes and a lofty ambition; but how am I sunk” (214)

• “Seek happiness in tranquility, and avoid ambition, even if it be only the apparently innocent one of distinguishing yourself in science and discoveries” (220)

• Description of creature (221)

• “Evil thenceforth became my good” (222): Milton

• “I cannot believe that I am the same creature whose thoughts were once filed with sublime and transcendent visions of the beauty and the majesty of goodness” (223).

• “I shall collect my funeral pile” (225).

Didacticism