Assignment on 'Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus' by Mary Shelley : Questions - Answers.
Q.1 : Why Victor was not able to accept his dream experiment and its results?
A.1 : Initially when Victor had a dream about the creation of a life out of death, he had not been thinking about the outcome of his creation under the dazzling but dark obscuration of his covetous pursuit of knowledge and tendency to challenge prevalent scientific norms. So after having created a monster made out of corpse body-parts, he got horrified by the appearance of his creation due to having social notions of beauty and ugliness in his mind. He, without a single thought, decides to abandon his creation as he was not ready to accept reality as it was and then indulged into superficiality of "sheeple society." So the reason of his disdain towards monster created by himself is that he was deeply under the influence of general social mentality and notions and that is why he was not able to accept his dream experiment and its results.
Q.2 : What made Creature a Monster?
A.2 : There are mainly three reasons which were enough to convert even a human being into monster, let alone the creature. These are : (1) Bad experiences from society, (2) Rejection and (3) Creator's ignorance and hatred. We shall deal with each one by one.
(1) Bad experiences from society :-
When the creature, after forsaken by Victor, tries to roam the land alone by himself sans the knowledge of social protocol, manners, rules and all such rubbish, utterly innocent like a child with heavenly heart, he was badly despised by the townsmen and thus beaten black and blue. He only tried to take some food from the local stall without knowing that it does not come free. Thus he repetitively is beaten and abused by the society and thus develops the tendency of revenge.
(2) Rejection :-
Rejection remains one of the major themes throughout the novel. It also becomes an axial theme as every bit of incident emerges form the deep-rooted sense of rejection. In order to illustrate, when Victor rejects the creature, then creature cultivates slow but steadfast feeling of revenge; and when the creature gets sheer rejection from society, his tendency to take revenge from all the mankind becomes more intense.
(3) Creator's ignorance and hatred :-
Here the role of Victor in the conversion of the creature into monster becomes ostentacious. At first, Victor was semi-blind under the veil of his pride and ignorance to flout the imposed rules of science and nature as well on humans, thus he was unable to think about the outcome of his experiment. Secondly, when Victor, being presumptous and prejudiced by the social notion of outward beauty, rejects disdainfully the monster he created so avidly. These two behavioural drawbacks of Victor throw the creature into cave of sorrows and added to his conversion into horrible monstrous being.
Q.3 : Can appearance overpower reality?
A.3 : There is a well-known and beautiful maxim in English language : 'Don't judge a book by its cover' which tells that one should never be judged on the basis of one's outward look and appearance and by one's language too. This is very much applicable here, especially in the case of creature created enthusiastically first but disdainfully reject later by Victor Frankenstein. Unfortunately, we have sayings rather than actions; we believe in merely speaking and forget about it later but there might be few who can practically externalize the truth in their conducts. So happens with the creature as well who was as innocent as a child unaware of rigid rules and protocols of cruel society. He was like a blank-slate whose mind was in its pristine condition but later modified by the social conduct towards himself. This reminds all of us about the lives of many notorious terrorists and criminals. Most of the terrorists used to be very emotional but prejudices of society deformed their humanliness into daunting devilishness.
Q.4 : Who is suffering from Deformity in the novel? Which kind of deformity and disability is there? Who decides what deformity is?
A.4 : Firstly, there are three questions are asked into a compact one. So let us try to answer each one of them one by one :
The answer to the first one is obvious as one goes through the novel or a movie that the poor creature is suffering from deformity thanks to his creator Victor's ignorance and prejudiced hatred towards him. If we contemplate a bit deeper then we would find that it is the whole society who is diseased of being superficially judgemental towards the things unknown to it. They judge creature on the basis of his innocent actions and thus manipulates indirectly him to get converted into a monster.
Second one may be answered this way, that there is the deformity of creature which results into his disability to socialize himself on one hand and another implicit deformity is that of Victor's hidden servileness to the society which results into his rejection of his loved and most cherished experiment and creation - the creature. If one closely observes the character and mental upheavals of Victor, one would find that there is a soft-corner somewhere in Victor's heart for his creation, but under the influence of social norms he had to shake off the creature which was pathetic for the beholder and for him as well.
The third and last question is all about the idea of beauty and ugliness in the perception of society. In fact, its a bit inclined to the scientific exploration of the question that what makes something beautiful or ugly. So, by and large, it is the general idea of society which is stressing outward experience taking inward virtuous qualities for granted.
Q.5 : Who decides what beauty is? Is it for real or Superficial?
A.5 : The question about decision of waht beauty is may vary from person to person and from culture to culture as well. It is assumed that the milieu that one inhabitates in is the main resource of one's idea about beauty and ugliness. It is society which infuses the belief and difference of beauty and ugliness in the innocent self of a child which, by passing of the time becomes rigid and hard to extirpate.
A.1 : Initially when Victor had a dream about the creation of a life out of death, he had not been thinking about the outcome of his creation under the dazzling but dark obscuration of his covetous pursuit of knowledge and tendency to challenge prevalent scientific norms. So after having created a monster made out of corpse body-parts, he got horrified by the appearance of his creation due to having social notions of beauty and ugliness in his mind. He, without a single thought, decides to abandon his creation as he was not ready to accept reality as it was and then indulged into superficiality of "sheeple society." So the reason of his disdain towards monster created by himself is that he was deeply under the influence of general social mentality and notions and that is why he was not able to accept his dream experiment and its results.
Q.2 : What made Creature a Monster?
A.2 : There are mainly three reasons which were enough to convert even a human being into monster, let alone the creature. These are : (1) Bad experiences from society, (2) Rejection and (3) Creator's ignorance and hatred. We shall deal with each one by one.
(1) Bad experiences from society :-
When the creature, after forsaken by Victor, tries to roam the land alone by himself sans the knowledge of social protocol, manners, rules and all such rubbish, utterly innocent like a child with heavenly heart, he was badly despised by the townsmen and thus beaten black and blue. He only tried to take some food from the local stall without knowing that it does not come free. Thus he repetitively is beaten and abused by the society and thus develops the tendency of revenge.
(2) Rejection :-
Rejection remains one of the major themes throughout the novel. It also becomes an axial theme as every bit of incident emerges form the deep-rooted sense of rejection. In order to illustrate, when Victor rejects the creature, then creature cultivates slow but steadfast feeling of revenge; and when the creature gets sheer rejection from society, his tendency to take revenge from all the mankind becomes more intense.
(3) Creator's ignorance and hatred :-
Here the role of Victor in the conversion of the creature into monster becomes ostentacious. At first, Victor was semi-blind under the veil of his pride and ignorance to flout the imposed rules of science and nature as well on humans, thus he was unable to think about the outcome of his experiment. Secondly, when Victor, being presumptous and prejudiced by the social notion of outward beauty, rejects disdainfully the monster he created so avidly. These two behavioural drawbacks of Victor throw the creature into cave of sorrows and added to his conversion into horrible monstrous being.
Q.3 : Can appearance overpower reality?
A.3 : There is a well-known and beautiful maxim in English language : 'Don't judge a book by its cover' which tells that one should never be judged on the basis of one's outward look and appearance and by one's language too. This is very much applicable here, especially in the case of creature created enthusiastically first but disdainfully reject later by Victor Frankenstein. Unfortunately, we have sayings rather than actions; we believe in merely speaking and forget about it later but there might be few who can practically externalize the truth in their conducts. So happens with the creature as well who was as innocent as a child unaware of rigid rules and protocols of cruel society. He was like a blank-slate whose mind was in its pristine condition but later modified by the social conduct towards himself. This reminds all of us about the lives of many notorious terrorists and criminals. Most of the terrorists used to be very emotional but prejudices of society deformed their humanliness into daunting devilishness.
Q.4 : Who is suffering from Deformity in the novel? Which kind of deformity and disability is there? Who decides what deformity is?
A.4 : Firstly, there are three questions are asked into a compact one. So let us try to answer each one of them one by one :
The answer to the first one is obvious as one goes through the novel or a movie that the poor creature is suffering from deformity thanks to his creator Victor's ignorance and prejudiced hatred towards him. If we contemplate a bit deeper then we would find that it is the whole society who is diseased of being superficially judgemental towards the things unknown to it. They judge creature on the basis of his innocent actions and thus manipulates indirectly him to get converted into a monster.
Second one may be answered this way, that there is the deformity of creature which results into his disability to socialize himself on one hand and another implicit deformity is that of Victor's hidden servileness to the society which results into his rejection of his loved and most cherished experiment and creation - the creature. If one closely observes the character and mental upheavals of Victor, one would find that there is a soft-corner somewhere in Victor's heart for his creation, but under the influence of social norms he had to shake off the creature which was pathetic for the beholder and for him as well.
The third and last question is all about the idea of beauty and ugliness in the perception of society. In fact, its a bit inclined to the scientific exploration of the question that what makes something beautiful or ugly. So, by and large, it is the general idea of society which is stressing outward experience taking inward virtuous qualities for granted.
Q.5 : Who decides what beauty is? Is it for real or Superficial?
A.5 : The question about decision of waht beauty is may vary from person to person and from culture to culture as well. It is assumed that the milieu that one inhabitates in is the main resource of one's idea about beauty and ugliness. It is society which infuses the belief and difference of beauty and ugliness in the innocent self of a child which, by passing of the time becomes rigid and hard to extirpate.
• TED Talk by Anjan Chatterjee with the special reference to the British anthropologist and polymath Sir Francis Galton on the concept of Beauty :
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