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1st 6 weeks 1st Semester

Above: A picture from the classic movie. The old man in the book plays a guitar and listens to the monster. In the movies, the monster attacks all men he encounters. 

Above: One of the early covers on the movie. Boris Karloff is considered one of the most famous actors of all time to play the monster's role. There were many versions of "Frankenstein" made, including "Bride of Frankenstein".

Monday January 28th - Friday February 1st

Due THIS lab day:  Reading regarding the Romantic Age and reading of Frankenstein. Your 1-paged typed response is also due. 

In-Class: Test on The Romantic Age. 

We will have a discussion of occurrences going on in the novel, then the second half of class we will watch the first part of the traditional "Frankenstein" movie. It is incredibly lame, the producer changed the names around, and there are an unbelievable amount of differentiations between the novel and the movie. It is so terrible that it has to be seen so that you, the reader, can begin to see how our perception of Frankenstein has changed over the years due to the awful movies created. Thanks to these movies, people to this day see Frankenstein's monster as a serial-killing psycho, as opposed to a man in desperate need for a friend and meaning in life.  In fact, most people think "Frankenstein" himself IS the monster. Wrong!

Example of student-made Power Point. Not for the weak of heart. Has mankind gone too far in changing the structure of the human frame and playing God with the living?

Can you address the following questions/ observations?

1. Describe Victor's family and upbringing

2. How are Elizabeth and Victor so different? 

3. Describe who Clerval is. How is he different from Victor?

4. Where does Victor come up with his philosophical mind?

5. Describe Victor's professors. Which support him? Which don't?

Assignments: Continue reading the novel. Please read chapters 4-7, and be prepared for a TEST next week on this section up to so far in the novel. 

Links: Information on Mary Shelley

         foul pictures, real of fake?

As people, we have done some diabolical things to our fellow man. Check out the following links:  

         http://www.cambridge-transplant.org.uk/program/pancreas/pancreas.htm

         http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Organ_20Transplants_20for_20Horses

         http://tis.eh.doe.gov/ohre/

         http://www.madsci.org/

        A full history of human experiments

Background Information:  (Copies of Walton's letter, taken from Univ. of Pennsylvania site, click on the links for additional information). 

I am already far north of London; and as I walk in the streets of Petersburgh, I feel a cold northern breeze play upon my cheeks, which braces my nerves, and fills me with delight. Do you understand this feeling? This breeze, which has travelled from the regions towards which I am advancing, gives me a foretaste of those icy climes. Inspirited by this wind of promise, my day dreams become more fervent and vivid. I try in vain to be persuaded that the pole is the seat of frost and desolation; it ever presents itself to my imagination as the region of beauty and delight. There, Margaret, the sun is for ever visible; its broad disk just skirting the horizon, and diffusing a perpetual splendour. There -- for with your leave, my sister, I will put some trust in preceding navigators -- there snow and frost are banished; and, sailing over a calm sea, we may be wafted to a land surpassing in wonders and in beauty every region hitherto discovered on the habitable globe. Its productions and features may be without example, as the phænomena of the heavenly bodies undoubtedly are in those undiscovered solitudes. What may not be expected in a country of eternal light? I may there discover the wondrous power which attracts the needle; and may regulate a thousand celestial observations, that require only this voyage to render their seeming eccentricities consistent for ever. I shall satiate my ardent curiosity with the sight of a part of the world never before visited, and may tread a land never before imprinted by the foot of man. These are my enticements, and they are sufficient to conquer all fear of danger or death, and to induce me to commence this laborious voyage with the joy a child feels when he embarks in a little boat, with his holiday mates, on an expedition of discovery up his native river. But, supposing all these conjectures to be false, you cannot contest the inestimable benefit which I shall confer on all mankind to the last generation, by discovering a passage near the pole to those countries, to reach which at present so many months are requisite; or by ascertaining the secret of the magnet, which, if at all possible, can only be effected by an undertaking such as mine.