Exploring the Gothic for A2

Here are copies of, or links to, all the excellent presentations that you gave on themes in Frankenstein and links to other Gothic texts.  Use these to help with your revision. The top 4 are links to PowerPoint files and the bottom 4 are links to blog posts.

frankenstein – the monster and the human - Vicki

the-critique-of-society - Daniel

alienation - Emma

frankenstein-domesticity - Shomari

Discovery and ambition – Sam

The fear of sexuality – Sophie

Birth and creation – Liseli

The double – Helen

It is important to be able to contrast modern ‘readings’ of Frankenstein with the persepctives of contemporary readers and critics.  Follow the link here to look at 6 initial reviews of the novel.  Ideally, look at a few of them, but by the next lesson (Wednesday 4th June) please make sure to have read the review specified for you below, and post a comment doing the following:

• summarising that particular reviewer’s views of the novel; 
• evaluating whether this seems typical of commonly held perceptions of early Gothic novels;
• contrasting modern critical reactions to the text.

Reviews allocated as follows.  If there are 2 of you looking at one review, please both write a separate comment.  All comments will be held for moderation and published only once all comments have been submitted:

The Belle Assemblee or Bell’s Court and Fashionable Magazine - Liseli

The Edinburgh Magazine and Literary Miscellany - Helen, Shomari

Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine - Victoria

The British Critic – Sophie

The Literary Panorama and National Register - Emma

The Quarterly Review - Samantha, Daniel

Here is the work you did on ‘the double’ towards the end of Frankenstein and links to the idea of the double in other Gothic texts:

 I hope you enjoyed this classic poem, and the macabre illustrations!  This is clearly an influence for Shelley as she quotes it on a number of occasions in Frankenstein.  I think there are a number of thematic links that can be drawn between the texts, and this is what I’d like you to focus on here.

Add a comment on this post (not on your own blog), answering the following questions which ask you to compare this text to Frankenstein.   Due by the lesson on Friday 28th March.

1. What links can you make between the settings in both texts?
2. What links can you make between the Ancient Mariner and any one of the three main narrators in Frankenstein?
3. What similarities would you say the texts have in terms of Gothic ‘features’?
4. If you are posting after others have posted, have a go at responding to their points – what do you agree or disagree with?  Or if you are one of the first to post, ask questions of the people yet to post… Or do both! 

Extension: come back later and see what the others have put – go crazy and post a second message!

Task deadline:  Monday 17th March at 2.05 PM (end of lunch)

Read the attached Adobe document (Acrobat reader is free to download online if you don’t already have it on your computer – or print this out at school).  It is about child language acquisition, which is not something you have to know the details of in this course.  However, it provides an interesting ‘way in’ to considering the monster’s development as narrated in chapters 11 to 16.

language-acquisition.pdf

So what I’d like you to do is read the attached file and then respond to this post by posting a comment (post it here, not on your own blog), answering the following questions:

• In what ways does the monster’s development correspond to what we now know about child language acquisition? (remember these ideas were not around in Shelley’s time)
• In what ways is his development highly unrealistic in terms of what we know?
• What do you think Shelley is trying to say about the monster, Victor and society as a whole by highlighting the monster’s development in such detail?

Welcome back to the blogs!  You’ll be comparing Frankenstein to at least one other Gothic text in your exam, so it’s time to revisit your blog and everyone else’s, and start to read more examples of Gothic writing.  For your first post on Frankenstein, you need to:

• Explain what Gothic elements you think are present in Frankenstein so far.
• Discuss whether there are any elements that are less Gothic – are there elements of Romanticism, for example, rather than just the Gothic?
• Compare elements of Frankenstein to at least one other Gothic text you’ve read so far.

Deadline for posting: Sunday 24th February