Sunday, May 3, 2009

Frankenstein Test this week

I'll give you the scantron portion on Wednesday and the essay on Thursday. Neither will take the entire class period. We'll work in Vocab book and grammar book the other portion of class.

Below are the essay options. You will have to answer 1 during class...all will not be listed as options. I'll put three on the test and you will be required to answer 1 in essay format. (Thesis statement - beginning, middle and an end). Concrete evidence from the novel is required.


OPTIONS:
1. Why might it be construed as "poetic justice" that Victor Frankenstein's worst catastrophe comes just as he is to be married?
2. Describe the cycle of vengeance that consumes both the Being and Victor at the end of the novel. Does either one truly renounce this sentiment?
3. Does Mary Shelley's novel conform to what you take to be the typically romantic view of scientific endeavor? Why or why not?
4. Why can't ordinary humans accept the Being's appearance? What does this inability imply about the basis of human community? In other words, why so much emphasis on physical similarity or dissimilarity?
5. After having read Frankenstein, who has your sympathies -- Victor or the Being he has created? Or neither? Explain.
6. What goes wrong once Victor dares to apply his understanding of "animation" to material substance -- i.e. to a human body? How, that is, do his methods and material underscore and embody the grotesqueness of his quest? When he speaks of the Being he has created, what kind of language does he employ?

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