Thursday, November 14, 2013

Frankenstein - Mary Shelley

Well we all know the story of Frankenstein whether its through reading the actual book or watching the movies ( but as far as I can tell there is only really 1 movie that is true to the book) 
Basic plot: man wants to create life, man creates life than abandons it and the creature he creates turns into a monster. 
Before I read the book I did not realize how much of an irresponsible jerk Dr Frankenstein was because the movies make him out to be the victim which is complete bull! Needless to say I do not like Dr Frankenstein, he got exactly what was coming to him. 
Another misconception inspired by Hollywood is that the Monster is stupid and does nothing but grunts which is completely false. The Monster is actually super intelligent and is surprisingly well spoken. In fact through out the book you follow both the Monster and Dr. Frankenstein so you get to see what both go through during this ordeal.
\The Monster is actually very tender and kind at first, all he wants is for his father to love and accept him. One of the more heart breaking scenes in the book to me is when the monster is finally alive, you know the whole "ITS ALIVE!!" moment that everyone knows. What everyone doesn't realize is the interaction between the two. The Monster, upon seeing his father smiles, and what does Frankenstein do? He flips and runs away from him. The Monster confused and hurt follows his creator and tries to be with him but he was driven away by the fear and disgust his father had at his appearance.
Dr Frankenstein, already a stand up guy!
So the Monster is left to wander on his own trying to find someone who will accept and love him the way he is but instead of finding love and acceptance he only encounters fear, hatred, and violence. So what does he turn into? A violent and angry Monster because that is all he has ever known, He also develops a special hatred for Frankenstein as displayed in this quote:
"From that moment [he] declared everlasting war against the species, and more than all against [Frankenstein] who had formed [him] and sent [him] forth to this insupportable misery" - Chapter 16, pg. 121

During this entire time Dr Frankenstein is trying to pretend that what he did didn't happen, that he did not create life that is wandering around somewhere out there and tries to live life normally but obviously that doesn't work out. The good Doctor encounters the monster a couple of times and he does the same exact thing he always does, run.
After a while of this cat and mouse game the monster finally gets a hold of Frankenstein and basically says that if Frank refuses to be the Monster's companion in life then he needed to make him one and threatens that if he doesn't create a companion for him he would kill Frankenstein's wife. So Frank agrees at first but during the creation process he cannot handle the idea of bringing another Monster into the world so he doesn't and destroys only chance at love and companionship.


"In a fit of enthusiastic madness I created a rational creature and was bound towards him to assure, as far as was in my power, his happiness and well-being. . . I refused, and I did right in refusing, to create a companion for the first creature. He showed unparalleled malignity and selfishness in evil; he destroyed my friends... Miserable himself that he may render no other wretched, he ought to die.  The task of his destruction was mine, but I have failed."  Chapter 24, pg. 199-200

So what does the Monster do? He makes good on his threat and kills Frank's wife officially making him the monster that Frank always thought he was and they end up spending the rest of their lives chasing one another.
Now obviously I am bias to the Monsters case, he did kill a couple more people in the book some were accidents and the more later on ones were on purpose (if I can remember correctly). If Frank had taken responsibility for his own crap than the monster would not have become so violent.

Moral:

So I love this book so much because there are so many dynamic layers to the plot and so many different morals. The obvious one is that we are not to play God. I think personally I got that we need to be careful of our actions to others and how we can create monsters in our own lives. Also I love the Monster and how he is like a child at first, his first encounters of life were fear and anger which only got worse by others reacting to his hideous appearance and because of this he himself turned into a violent angry person.
I think I love that aspect especially because I think we need to be careful what we are exposing our own children to. If we smack our kids for doing something wrong how can we be surprised when he smacks another kid for doing something he didn't like? He is just doing what he has been taught just like the Monster.
A question was posed to me during a college course in which we were studying this book: Should Frankenstein have created a companion?
My answer to that is an astounding yes! If he had the Monster would have left him alone, he would have been happy with a new companion that accepted him and they would have made a life somewhere quiet and secluded. But once again Frankenstein's misconceptions of right and wrong and selfishness got him into another mess, one that costed the lives of several people he loved.
In general this is very much a cautionary tell, warning us to be careful of our actions because we have no idea who or what we can create in the process.

Thanks so much for reading my blog! Tell me what you think about Frank, do you have different opinions or do you agree? Let me know!
Till next time,
Keep reading! 

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Blog Intro!

Hello friends! To those who don't know me I am Kirsta, I do have another blog that isn't super active so if you want to get to know me a little more I would suggest checking that out. And to those who already know me... Yes, I am starting another blog.

The reason I am starting this blog is BECAUSE my other blog isn't very active, I NEVER write in it. I desperately want to become a blogger so I was thinking to myself "Self, why don't you ever write in your blog?" and after some thought I realized it was because my other blog wasn't about anything and then the thought hit me "who wants to read a blog about nothing?!" and then I thought "NO ONE" then I thought "Crap..." So I was left with another dilemma: if I wanted to be a blogger then I needed to find something I was passionate enough to blog about!"  So that took a good few minutes of thought and then it came to me. BOOKS!! 
I love reading and recently I have been on a American classics list that I have been trying to get through because I have a very strong opinion that the classics have some very important lessons that have been lost in today's world of literature, also I consider them to be works of art, all are beautifully written in a language that is no longer used and the authors back then had such a way of describing things that it painted the most beautiful picture in your mind, a talent I also feel has been majorly lost now.

So because of the passion I have for the wonderful classics I decided to blog about my journey through them! I have read quite a few already and I want to write my feelings and impression on the books and get your (wonderful friends) feelings on them as well! This way I will actually have a good reason to finish these books because I will have an obligation to you all to read them so we can talk about them!
So really this is a big ploy to get you guys to help me read my book and accomplish this goal that I have had for like 2 years now ha!

So there is a list involved (created by our lovely Wikipedia) of 100 books I feel should be read by everyone to be considered "well read" I'll post the list below and the ones that have been crossed through I have already read and the first few posts will be about those books.
LIST!

Title                                                                        Author

  1. Wuthering Heights                                         Emily Brontë
  2. White Fang                                                 Jack London
  3. Waverley                                                         Sir Walter Scott
  4. War and Peace                                                 Leo Tolstoy
  5. Walden                                                         Henry David Thoreau
  6. Vanity Fair                                                 William Makepeace Thackeray
  7. Utopia                                                         Thomas More
  8. Uncle Tom's Cabin                                        Harriet Beecher Stowe
  9. Through the Looking-Glass                        Lewis Carroll
  10. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz                        L. Frank Baum
  11. The Woman in White                                   Wilkie Collins
  12. The Turn of the Screw                                  Henry James
  13. The Time Machine                                          H.G. Wells
  14. The Tempest                                                  William Shakespeare
  15. The Taming of the Shrew                                 William Shakespeare
  16. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Robert Louis Stevenson
  17. The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. Washington Irving
  18. The Secret Garden                                         Frances Hodgson Burnett
  19. The Scarlet Letter                                          Nathaniel Hawthorne
  20. The Red Badge of Courage                          Stephen Crane
  21. The Prisoner of Zenda                                  Anthony Hope
  22. The Princess and the Goblin                          George MacDonald
  23. The Princess and Curdie                                  George MacDonald
  24. The Prince                                                  Niccolò Machiavelli
  25. The Picture of Dorian Gray                         Oscar Wilde
  26. The Phantom of the Opera                          Gaston Leroux
  27. The Odyssey                                                  Homer
  28. The Napoleon of Notting Hill                          G.K. Chesterton
  29. The Moonstone                                          Wilkie Collins
  30. The Man Who Would Be King                         Rudyard Kipling
  31. The Man Who Was Thursday                        G.K. Chesterton
  32. The Man in the Iron Mask                               Alexandre Dumas
  33. The Last of the Mohicans                                James Fenimore Cooper
  34. The Jungle Book                                         Rudyard Kipling
  35. The Importance of Being Earnest                Oscar Wilde
  36. The Hunchback of Notre-Dame               Victor Hugo
  37. The Hound of the Baskervilles                       Arthur Conan Doyle
  38. The Four Million                                       O. Henry
  39. The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders Daniel Defoe
  40. The Diary of a Nobody                               George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
  41. The Deerslayer                                               James Fenimore Cooper
  42. The Count of Monte Cristo                        Alexandre Dumas
  43. The Call of the Wild                                       Jack London
  44. The Brothers Karamazov                               Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  45. The Awakening                                               Kate Chopin
  46. The Aspern Papers                                       Henry James
  47. The Age of Innocence                               Edith Wharton
  48. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer               Mark Twain
  49. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes         Arthur Conan Doyle
  50. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn               Mark Twain
  51. Tess of the D'Urbervilles                              Thomas Hardy
  52. Tanglewood Tales for Girls and Boys       Nathaniel Hawthorne
  53. Tales of Mystery & Imagination                      Edgar Allan Poe
  54. Tales from the Arabian Nights                      Richard Francis Burton
  55. Silas Marner                                              George Eliot
  56. Sense and Sensibility                                     Jane Austen
  57. Romeo and Juliet                                     William Shakespeare
  58. Robinson Crusoe                                      Daniel Defoe
  59. Rights of Man                                             Thomas Paine
  60. Pride and Prejudice                                     Jane Austen
  61. Othello, The Moor of Venice                     William Shakespeare
  62. Oliver Twist                                              Charles Dickens
  63. Moby Dick                                             Herman Melville
  64. Middlemarch                                              George Eliot
  65. MacBeth                                                      William Shakespeare
  66. Lorna Doone                                             R. D. Blackmore
  67. Lord Jim                                                     Joseph Conrad
  68. Little Women                                              Louisa May Alcott
  69. Little Lord Fauntleroy                              Frances Hodgson Burnett
  70. Les Misérables                                              Victor Hugo
  71. King Solomon's Mines                              Henry Rider Haggard
  72. King Lear                                                      William Shakespeare
  73. Kim                                                              Rudyard Kipling
  74. Kidnapped                                              Robert Louis Stevenson
  75. Journey to the Center of the Earth               Jules Verne
  76. Jane Eyre                                                       Charlotte Brontë
  77. Ivanhoe                                                        Sir Walter Scott
  78. Heart of Darkness                                        Joseph Conrad
  79. Hamlet                                                        William Shakespeare
  80. Gulliver's Travels                                       Jonathan Swift
  81. Great Expectations                                       Charles Dickens
  82. Frankenstein                                               Mary Shelley
  83. Far from the Madding Crowd                       Thomas Hardy
  84. Emma                                                       Jane Austen
  85. Dracula                                                        Bram Stoker
  86. Don Quixote of La Mancha                        Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
  87. David Copperfield                                        Charles Dickens
  88. Crime and Punishment                                Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  89. Bleak House                                                Charles Dickens
  90. Black Beauty                                                 Anna Sewell
  91. Barchester Towers                                         Anthony Trollope
  92. Anna Karenina                                                 Leo Tolstoy
  93. Allan Quatermain                                         Henry Rider Haggard
  94. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland                  Lewis Carroll
  95. A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys           Nathaniel Hawthorne
  96. A Tale of Two Cities                                         Charles Dickens
  97. A Midsummer Night's Dream                        William Shakespeare
  98. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court Mark Twain
  99. A Christmas Carol                                        Charles Dickens
  100. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea                        Jules Verne

So there is the mighty list! As you can seen I have read very few and I am hoping that starting this blog will light a fire under me to start the rest! The first few posts I make will be about the books I have already read and then I will start to read "Les Miserables" by Victor Hugo. 

I wont be reading these in order, more like which books I can acquire first so you gotta read my blog to know which book I am on next! I hope this gets us reading and discusing these wonderful works of art!

Well until next time.. 
Keep reading!

Kirsta.