The Fearful “Monster”

An emotion that is prominent in the lives of all people is fear; this fear differs from fear of the future, to blood and needles, to spiders. Anything can essentially be feared, but is an object of fear capable of fearing as well? Fear is a reoccurring theme throughout the novel Frankenstein, but it does not always show itself in expected ways. It is natural that Frankenstein and anyone who encounters the monster that he has made fear it; it is deformed, hideous and larger than the average human. These traits make it easily assumable that this creature can and will hurt you and thus easily an object of fear. The Creature, however, is not like a spider or a needle, the Creature has ideas and feelings of his own, one of which being his own fear. Through the Creature’s narration, the reader finds that the Creature has been living a simple yet lonely life in a hovel in a forest. Near his hut, there is a cottage in which three people live, an old man and his two children; the Creature spends day after day watching and learning from these people and developing a strange emotional attachment to them. He wants so badly to confront these people but he is held back due to a past incident of human rejection which has caused the Creature to fear being rejected again. The Creature constantly battles with this fear because he has another competing fear: the fear of being alone. These two fears are completely contradictory for if one fears being rejected by others, they will therefore be alone in order to avoid this rejection; however if one also fears being alone, a great predicament is created. The creature of course solves this by confronting the people of the cottage and is rejected yet again, but that is not the point of my argument. My point is that the fact that the Creature has the capacity to fear is astonishing, especially because in the movies that I have previously written about, the Creature is made to be a monster with no fear for anything. This capacity to fear completely changes the dynamic of the Creature as a monster and completely changes the view the reader has of him. Even as I read how the Creature murdered Frankenstein’s younger brother, I felt compassionate and sympathetic towards him; after having heard the Creature’s side, it is hard to feel otherwise. Even as I read through the murder scene, I recalled just moments before when the creature wanted the boy as a companion. The Creature believed that the boy was so young that his mind would have not yet been tainted by the ideas of monstrosity and thus he would not be rejected by him. The Creature seems so excited and caught up in this that, even though the reader knows the outcome, one cannot help but sympathize with the Creature’s disappointment. The Creature’s ability to fear gives him a commonality with the reader and thus makes it much easier to relate to him and his struggles. This relationship bridges the gap between human and monster and poses the question: if a monster has human qualities is it even a monster at all?

Newsflash: Frankenstein is NOT the Monster

I am not quite sure when this seed was planted in my head, but I was always quite positive that the horrifying monster of the Frankenstein tale was actually named Frankenstein. I was also quite sure that he was a promising monster, one who constantly wreaked havoc on rural towns and young women. Granted, this is what television and Halloween costumes lead me to believe, but I never once questioned any of it. This lead to me to believe that under the cover of the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, there was going to be a riveting, page-turning portrayal of the death and despair caused by a monster whose only thoughts were to kill.
This belief of mine was thought to be confirmed after reading Mary Shelley’s introduction. In this introduction Shelley spoke of a sort of contest where she and four others would compete to write the best ghost story. Shelley spoke of writing a ghost story that “would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature, and awaken thrilling horror- one to make the reader dread to look around, to curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of the heart” (Frankenstein 23). This description only caused my anticipation to read Frankenstein to grow; however, my anticipation soon turned to disappointment.
In my reading through the first ten chapters of Frankenstein, I found myself at times skimming so that I could reach the exciting tales of murder that expected to find; any inkling of such began to excite me. I first felt this excitement in the fourth letter when Robert wrote to his sister about “so strange an accident” that had happened to himself and his crew; I was sure that this would be the introduction to the murderous monster Frankenstein. I was soon let down when only a sick man was let aboard. It turns out, however, that I was half right; this man was actually Frankenstein, but Frankenstein is neither the monster I had expected, nor a monster at all. Later in Frankenstein’s tale though, there was the creation of the creature I thought originally to be Frankenstein, and soon after there was a murder; I thought my hopes had been restored. Soon after the murder, Frankenstein found himself face to face with the creature. I found myself again disappointed when the creature was able to speak intelligently and had his own side of the story which he needed to explain. Above all which disappointed me was that the creature seemed to want acceptance; I have never come across a monster that wanted acceptance and I knew then that this would be a different kind of ghost story.
Frankenstein so far is not as exciting or as terrifying as expected or hoped it to be, but I am not sure yet that it won’t turn out to be so. My thoughts are that the movies had to have been based off of some horrific events of the novel; however, there have been movies based off of books more loosely than that, but I have hopes for this novel has a ghost story yet.

The Refuge of Reading

Reading is an activity that dates back to the beginning of man’s time on Earth, when the cavemen would depict pictures on stone in order to communicate their ideas to each other and even to later generations.  Communication is only one of the immeasurable purposes that reading can serve.  Reading may also be used for building knowledge, practical application, for understanding, and so on.  I find that the best purpose for reading, however, is to find an alternate world or a place of refuge.  In The Gutenberg Elegies, Sven Birkerts seems to agree with me, saying that when he was younger books for him were “an ‘other’ place away from my immediate surroundings” (Birkerts 35).  Later in his writings though, he discusses how he now reads to “appreciate illusions, savor subtleties of expression and thematic ambiguities” (Birkerts 45).  Unlike Birkerts, who for the most part believes that this change is for the better, I believe that reading should always be used as a tool of escape; this view of mine was shaped by my reading as a small child, my discovery of Megan McCafferty and Jessica Darling, and my readings of the Harry Potter series by J.K Rowling.

When I was a child, almost every summer my mother would take my sister and me to the library to join the “Sneaks” summer reading program.  This program did not entail much, but my mother pushed my sister and me to read at least one book a week.  At first I was resistant to this reading; I wanted to play outside in my imaginary land that only a young child could create.  Soon though, I discovered that I could be just as imaginative if not more so, in the land of literature.  My favorite books were the books of the Goosebumps series by R.L. Stine, which were exciting tales of aliens, mummies, and the like; these books proved to be my greatest escape as a child.  You may not think that a child needs much of an escape because they are so young and carefree, but when I was a child my family was plagued with cancer; both my grandmother and my mother suffered from the disease within the time that I was in elementary school.  While other children could still easily make their own imaginative lands right out of their heads, my imagination was drowning in images of hospitals, doctors and death. Goosebumps for me was almost like a template, something I could use to re-create the imagination that, in those days, for me was hard to find.  This time for me was the time that “my sense of books as a refuge” developed the most; this sense is identical to the way Birkerts originally felt towards books (Birkerts 35).              

I was in about eighth grade when I discovered the book Sloppy Firsts by Megan McCafferty.  This was a book about a young high school girl who was surprisingly sarcastic and somewhat of an outsider; in other words, in my mind at least, she was a mirror image of me.  In all of my experiences of reading, I had and still have not ever felt a stronger connection with any character.  The character of Jessica Darling was my written twin and as I followed her through crushes, first kisses and school rumors, I grew closer and closer to her.  Luckily for me, there were four succeeding books so I have gotten to grow up most of my life with a character that I can identify with more than I can with most real people that I have ever met.  Megan McCafferty changed my view of books forever, not only do I love books more, but I now know that there are characters in literature with whom I can truly identify.  Despite the fact that this series was so similar to my life, they still proved useful as a place of refuge.  For the time that I was immersed in these books I would completely forget about my own life in which there was constantly hurtful rumors and drama circulating, which was the typical life of any adolescent girl.  These novels though served an extra purpose because when I was finished I could compare my life with Jessica’s and sometimes even help myself through the common problems and hurtful situations any adolescent girl is faced with daily.

There is also another series that deeply affected my life, one which proved to be the biggest escape from the real world that I have ever found: the Harry Potter series by J.K Rowling.  I am well aware that this series has no real literary merit, but I do not believe that literary merit is what defines a book as excellent or otherwise.  I first began to read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone when I was in second grade and I was immediately entranced by the magic and the witty characters; however, like most elementary students I stopped reading the books as they became too heavy for me to carry.  Looking back I do not regret this decision because I know now that I did not truly appreciate the books for what they were; if I had kept reading them then, I may not have developed the deep connection that I have with the series today.  I began reading Harry Potter again when I was beginning high school, which for me was such an immense adjustment.  I had been separated from many friends that I had been with since kindergarten and thrown into a new place with new teachers, a new layout and a new schedule; I needed very much to escape from the real world.  What better way to escape from the real world than to turn to an imaginative world of witchcraft and wizardry?  In my opinion, there is none; I still can get so caught up in those books that I dream about magic for nights.

When I read books, I read them as Birkerts once did, with “body and soul, living vicariously;” not as he reads now “with only one part of the self” (Birkerts 37). I absolutely prefer my method of reading; it allows me to leave the world and my problems behind, if only even for a few minutes, and fully submerge myself into the many different worlds of literature.  Be it zombies and ghouls, potions and wizards, or even the realistic life of Jessica Darling; as long as it is not my own life, it allows me to escape.  Birkerts now reads to “grasp the fine points of technique and heed the structural signs,” but I wonder what exactly the point of this is (Birkerts 45).  Is it so that you can sit there and just be proud of yourself that you understand how the author writes?  I find this way of reading to be over-analytical and stressful.  Books to me are stress relievers, the escape that they provide is immeasurable and I would not have it any other way.

The Waters of Reading

In my reading so far of The Gutenberg Elegies, it is rare that I am in any kind of accordance with Birkerts. I normally find him to be dramatic and obnoxious in his beliefs; however, as he described his feelings toward reading when he was a child and young adult, I found myself in complete accordance with him. I do not read for what I think are the normal reasons a person would read: to be entertained, to be informed etc. I read so that I can escape; escape from my work, from the people that surround me, from my problems, from the real world entirely. Furthermore, when I read I completely put myself into the life and mind of the main character; be it wizard or police officer, man or woman, it does not matter to me, for however long I am reading their lives overcome mine. This happens so much so that while I am reading a book, my dreams revolve around the characters and the plot. Maybe I am self-centered, but I never thought that anyone else could get so caught up in a piece of literature, until I read chapter two of The Gutenberg Elegies. As Birkerts described the relationship that he had with books as a child and young adult, I almost stopped reading completely so that I could contemplate the fact that someone else felt as I did, but I did not because I wanted to hear more of what he had to say. Birkerts explained his relationship by saying he feels like books give him refuge and as he read he would be “there body and soul, living vicariously” (pgs. 35, 37). This view perfectly echoes the relationship that I have with books, as an escape and almost as an alternative life.

Later in the chapter Birkerts continues to say that as an adult, his relationship with books has changed dramatically. He describes his reading now in more of an intellectual fashion saying that, “Now when I read I appreciate allusions, savor subtleties of expression and thematic ambiguities; I grasp the fine points of technique and heed the structural signals” (pg. 45). Personally, I hope that my reading style never changes to what his has; I would rather dive into a book head first and feel all of the emotion that it has to offer than stand on the edge and dissect it analytically. As he continues, he seems to agree with me in saying, “sometimes I feel I would trade these more refined siftings for my old uncritical engagement in an instant” (pg. 45). I cannot imagine reading in the way that he does now and not looking back with some kind of nostalgia for the way reading used to be for him, the way that I read now, so I can understand his saying this.

Reading is a different experience for everyone, “no one, not even another reader reading the same words, could know what those signs created once they traveled up the eyebeam” (pg. 39).   Many people read the same books even sentances differently, giving them different interpretations and meanings.  Collaborating these different views of books allow us to be more insightful as to what the author’s real message is, so maybe it is best that some of us readers dive into the waters of reading head first and that some of us just stand on the side, dipping our toes in.

Technology: Friend or Foe?

It is extremely ironic how many aspects of my everyday life were addressed in the introduction and chapter one of The Gutenberg Elegies. On first thought after reading, I believed that Birkerts was just some other old man giving me the same “when I was a kid I had to walk fifteen miles to school in the snow with no shoes” speech that I had heard from my grandfather every time he saw me with a new “contraption” as he called it. However, as I continued to think about Birkerts arguments, I began to realize that maybe my grandfather was not just rambling after all. Birkerts’ main argument is that technology is changing the world around us, and as it does so, “the ‘feel’ of literary engagement is altered” and “reading and writing come to mean differently” (pg.6). He brings up many valid arguments to make me, a person who has grown up in the age of the cell phone, realize that these new technologies are absolutely changing the way that people view reading and writing. The first time Birkerts’ words began to click for me was as he discussed “the displacement of the page by the screen,” I immediately thought about Kindles (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0015T963C/?tag=googhydr-20&hvadid=3891664465&ref=pd_sl_574o49kx4j_e), which are computers that books can be downloaded onto without even stepping foot into a bookstore (pg.3). This kind of technology is exactly the type of technology that has the power to make books rare or even obsolete, almost in the same way that ipods have made CDs a thing of the past. The point where I finally understood his argument when he discussed how “the idea of spending a day, never mind a week, out of the range of all our devices sounds bold, even risky” (pg.5). This feeling hit home with me because any day where I forget my cell phone is a day where I just feel bizarre and I know many others who would say the same; this lead me to realize just how dependent people are on technology and how much this dependency has actually changed our views of the world. However, I cannot also find his argument rather contradictory at times. He continually argues that “the way that people experience the world has altered,” but how much of these alterations are as bad as he describes (pg.15)? Birkerts himself was introduced through a powerful essay of Virginia Woolf’s, A Room of One’s Own, through “the culprit technology itself” (pg. 14). He stumbled upon a reenactment of this essay while flipping through the channels of his television. He was so moved by the prose and ideas of her works that he immediately read the essay in book form. This happening is what makes me wonder, how much of technology is actually damaging to the world? How much damage will occur before it is realized that change is necessary? I am in complete accordance with Birkerts that society has become much too dependent on technology; however, I do believe that technology is not always an awful thing to have in our lives.

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