Lecture notes:

Major items:

1 – Mary Shelley’s questioning of science and its new realm of power in

pre-Victorian England

A – Discussion of the Enlightenment and the emergence from it

in Shelley’s day

1. She was at the crossroads into Romanticism

2. The strong feeling of the romantics against the pure

empiricism of the Enlightenment

3. Shelley used her literature to attack science

B – The look at scientists who don’t consider the consequences of

their experiments

1. The development of the atomic weapon as future

analogy

2. Both began with the discovery of life – for us, the atom

3. We have refused to use it again as Victor refused to

make another

4. We have NOT stopped producing other devastating

weapons i.e. the hydrogen bomb and bio weapons. Have

we really learned? Does science ever learn?

C – The noble cause

1. Victor wanted to rescue the world from disease

 2. Scientists desire the same through things like anti-

biotics

3. Lives saved from things like cures for small pox, but

what about super viruses? Hospitals now quarantine

patients

D – The alternative lifestyle

1. The monster was her most sympathetic character

2. He was vegetarian as she was. No more destroying life.

3. The other was the religious life

E – Religion in the text

1. Victor is creator – thus the monster is the Adam figure

2. Eve was a gift to keep Adam from solitude – Victor offers

no such gift

3. Victor believes she would be a new destroyer – irony?

Victor himself is the destroyer.

4. The image of Prometheus – he was creator and brought

life to mankind in the form of fire

a. Compare Prometheus to Christ

b. Fire imagery and its symbolism for light

c. Oppenheimer quote about death – the “light” of

where we’re heading

 d. Fire imagery and symbol of life – Victor gives life to

monster, monster gives life to us as we’re

reminded what it is to be human

2 – The transformation of the self:

A. Victor is three people – beginning, middle, and end

1. First Victor is the loving, doting Victor

a. He is boyhood innocence

b. He is intelligent, passionate, and loving, but it

intensifies when his mother dies

2. Second Victor – intensely falling

a. His fall is dramatic - think Victorian characters

3. Third Victor – contemplative and seeking closure

a. The graveyard meeting = the death of former selves

b. He is willing to admit to his faults, which 2nd Victor

would not do

B. The monster is 3 people – beginning, middle, and end

1. First monster is like an infant in the world

a. He is confused, hungry, and searching for everything

b. Fire burns him, which is the symbol of duality in the

text

c. We have pity for the creation, but not the creator

2. Second monster is an intellectual romantic

 a. He is humanized through written language

b. He wants acceptance

c. Think of his love for spring

d. He wants what we all have naturally

3. Third monster is seeking revenge and destruction

a. He is driven by revenge

b. He wants to see people full of fear

c. He reverts to second monster after the death of

Elizabeth

4. Second monster again

a. He wanted pity from Walton, but got none

b. He is finished his chase and simply wants to leave

humanity to thrive without him

3 – Maslow and forced socialization

A. Cover Maslow’s hierarchy of needs from 1943

B. Begin with first Victor and his move up the hierarchy

1. As a child, all the lower levels were met by his parents

2. Achieved self-actualization as Dr. Frankenstein

3. Achieved it, but it was not what he expected

a. He could not receive esteem for it

b. He tried eradicate the ugly, but he instead created it

4. He begins his decent back down the hierarchy

 a. He loses his esteem because he stops practicing

science

b. He loses family and love

c. Is eventually found homeless, hungry, and cold

C. Now, move from first monster and his rise that contrasts

Victor’s fall

1. As a child, he is hungry and cold. He seeks fulfillment

where Victor had already received it naturally

2. He seeks family and is rejected by Victor, his only family

3. He finally rises as he gets shelter and food and

eventually cherishes love

4. He tries to be the best human to attract the cottagers to

him

5. He finally seeks self-actualization as a good person, but

is rejected

D. He is forced to self-actualize as the monster

1. He is only given proper esteem when he creates terror –

the people notice him

2. Society didn’t want or expect love, but instead hatred

3. He became what society wanted of him

4. No moral lines because morality belongs to Self –Act.

But he did it in a way where he achieves only if he

crosses moral boundaries

 E. How does Society force people to actualize in a way that is

anti-social?

1. Adolf Hitler and painting

2. Gang membership as fulfillment

3. For what does our society show esteem?

4. Second monster was the incarnations of society’s

wishes

5. Walton refuses the rehabilitation of the monster, but as

an actualized being he accepts is and wants simply to

escape society

4 – Revenge and the will to power of Nietzsche

A. Victor’s desire to have power over life provoked by the death

of his mother (similar theme picked up by George Lucas with

Anakin) noble idea = horrible action

B. The monster gaining power of Victor – forcing him to follow the

monster through the killings and promptings in the tree