Home

1st 6 weeks 1st Semester

Above: Boris Karloff as the Monster in the first movie production. Here's a quick piece of movie trivia for you, did you know that the original "Frankenstein" movie was one of the first ever movies to have sound?

Above: Victor Frankenstein's lab. Many movies depict Victor as a crazed scientist who has a mentally-challenged assistant who steals the brain of a deranged person. This is nothing like the book! 

Monday January 21st- Friday January 25th

See you on Wednesday of this week for a short class.

Due THIS lab day: Your ID card so that you can pick up Frankenstein. 

In-Class: Introduction to Frankenstein. Please have your ID cards in class on this day so that you can pick up this novel. 

We will begin with responding to various posted questions and statements located around the room. Everyone will be expected to participate in a group discussion regarding the topics

After a discussion, we will then begin reading the book aloud in class and taking some notes on this novel.

Assignments: Read p. 565-575 in your textbooks regarding the Romantic Age. There will be a test on this information NEXT lab day. 

Please read the first three chapters of the novel by NEXT week and be prepared for a quiz on the material. (Pages 1-39). The reading ALSO includes the letters, which are within the pages you'll be reading. After reading Frankenstein, please TYPE a one-page response explaining what you Learned about Robert Walton's personality. Detail what Walton is doing and why. Where is he headed to? What does he seek the most in life? Explain what is said in the letters and what strange incident Walton sees on the ice one day. Please bring this assignment with you next lab day. 

Links: Information on Mary Shelley

         Links regarding Frankenstein

Background Information: Frankenstein is the world-famous story of a doctor whose brilliant mind gets the better of him. One of the first and certainly most enduring Gothic novels of the English literary tradition, its premise allows the reader to hear the story not only from the perspective of the tragic Dr. Frankenstein, but also from that of his listener, Captain Walton -- who has entertained similar fascinations in the natural sciences.

The book is divided into three sections: Shelley's Preface, four letters from Walton to his sister back in England, and the twenty-four chapters that make up Dr. Frankenstein's story. This version follows the text faithfully and includes one chapter per page, except for Chapter 24, which is much longer than the others and whose format lends to its division into three sections.

On the surface, many students first generalize about Frankenstein being a crazy monster that attacks everyone due to not knowing better. However, the truth is that the monster becomes very intelligent, (almost a little too articulate), and devises ways to hurt the person most who has made and rejected him, Frankenstein, his creator). The book fits in well with the Romantic period in that appreciation of nature and longing for friendship are two of the most prevalent themes throughout the book.  The early movies that were created around the novel did no justice to the plot- rather, they showed a crazed lab lunatic making a heinous idiot who could not speak or control himself. It wasn't until the movie made in the late 1990's was made starring Robert De Nero, portraying the monster as a creature longing for acceptance, and thus told the story far more accurately. The part about brother and sister later becoming man and wife is quite shocking, however.