In this photo, the two living, yellow flowers are meant to represent the Monster and his hypothetical female companion, or anyone else who is considered to be an “outcast.” By depicting them using the more “conventionally beautiful” object (flower) in the image, I wanted to challenge the idea that difference is wrong or a “deformity,” as the Monster’s treatment in the novel suggests. It is possible for us to shift the perspective to see the Monster as alive and beautiful, while we see the ugliness in the close-minded and violent behavior of humanity that bring about his downfall and descent into evil. In the photo, as in the novel, the Monster and his companion are isolated from humanity as a result of their different outward appearance, but there are ways to see this in a more positive light. The photo portrays an alternative scenario in which the Monster finds his companion to settle down with. This shift in perspective now considers “the Monster’s gaze,” as opposed to humanity’s, which enables them to be loveable to one another and admired by a viewer – the roles of humans versus monster in Frankenstein now reversed. The contrasting effect of this new perspective serves to highlight the subjectivity of how we define what makes something beautiful or good.
My first creative project on Frankenstein is an exploration of how we define beauty, and the subjectivity of that definition. The Monster’s journey with self-image is so impactful because, as readers, we are able to watch as he gradually internalizes society’s negative perception of him. He begins as a kind of “blank slate,” with no mention or awareness of his appearance – uncorrupted by such conventions, as we all are before a certain age. The first time it comes up is an encounter with an old man in his hut: “His appearance, different from any I had ever before seen, and his flight, somewhat surprised me” (76-77). He is not only confused by the man’s fear of him, as he has not yet learned that he is “ugly” in the eyes of society, but also his neutral “surprise” at the man’s own unusual appearance proves that our aversion to difference is learned, as yet another product of social convention. Only after repeated occurrences of others’ repulsion towards him, the Monster begins to understand the nature of his “deformity” (83). When he finally sees a reflection of himself, his opinion of it is influenced by what is seen as “normal” and “beautiful,” conventionally. He asks, “Was I then a monster, a blot upon the earth, from which all men fled, and whom all men disowned?” which is the primary question I am responding to with this photograph (87).
In this photo, the two living, yellow flowers are meant to represent the Monster and his hypothetical female companion, or anyone else who is considered to be an “outcast.” By depicting them using the more “conventionally beautiful” object (flower) in the image, I wanted to challenge the idea that difference is wrong or a “deformity,” as the Monster’s treatment in the novel suggests. It is possible for us to shift the perspective to see the Monster as alive and beautiful, while we see the ugliness in the close-minded and violent behavior of humanity that bring about his downfall and descent into evil. In the photo, as in the novel, the Monster and his companion are isolated from humanity as a result of their different outward appearance, but there are ways to see this in a more positive light. The photo portrays an alternative scenario in which the Monster finds his companion to settle down with. This shift in perspective now considers “the Monster’s gaze,” as opposed to humanity’s, which enables them to be loveable to one another and admired by a viewer – the roles of humans versus monster in Frankenstein now reversed. The contrasting effect of this new perspective serves to highlight the subjectivity of how we define what makes something beautiful or good.
0 Comments
For my second creative project on Frankenstein, I wanted to explore the concept of Victor Frankenstein as ‘mother’ to his creation. We had been discussing this quite a bit in class as well. In the text, Frankenstein first attempts to emulate motherhood and secondly attempts to discard the responsibilities of motherhood by leaving his creation to die. Both of these choices have disastrous consequences for Victor and those around him. Victor describes his process of creating the monster as such: “I had worked hard for nearly two years… For this I had deprived myself of rest and health. I had desired it with an ardor that far exceeded moderation” (38). Victor almost emulates a perverted version of the cycle of literal motherhood: giving up body autonomy, rest, and health in the name of your creation. He loves the concept of his child, his creation. He is willing to sacrifice a lot of his life’s pleasures in pursuit of it. However, once his creation is born, he instantly rejects it. He instead notes that “the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart” (38). Once he achieves his goal of anatomical motherhood, he instantly is disgusted by it. He finds his child to be wretched and ugly. Moreover, he has the intense feeling that the creature should not exist. The creature, on the other hand, searches desperately for a parental figure in a world that gives him none. The only person close enough to a mother, Victor, runs from and shuns him. In my photo, Victor looks rather dejectedly down at his swaddled creation, a literal representation of a mother and newborn baby. Victor feels no joy or love towards the thing he so desperately wanted to be a mother to. My Victor wears a veil, covering his face and twisting the types of acts associated with life and death. Where there is typically joy at a birth and grief at a death, Victor here is in a state of mourning at the birth of his child. He hides behind a veil and does not want to face the child head on. The veil can also be interpreted as a wedding veil, as Victor’s possible wedding to Elizabeth looms near. By portraying Victor as a literal mother, I tried to envision the complexities Victor was facing due to his creation. He is incapable of removing his attachment to it, he will always be the creatures mother whether he likes it or not. At the same time, he does not embody the title of mother in anything other than his role in creation. He does not nurture nor guide his creation at all. I believe my depiction of Victor softened him ever so slightly compared to the original text. My Victor is disgusted, but not hysterical, at the sight of his child. Whereas Shelley portrays Victor as desperately trying to escape motherhood, my Victor at least seems to have come to terms with the link between him and his creation. The setting of my photograph is inside the Victoria and Albert museum in London, England. It is inside a historical recreation of a late 1700s/early 1800s ballroom. As Frankenstein was written and set in different ends of this time period, I chose it as my backdrop. I was initially drawn to this piece by Mendelssohn because of its seemingly contradictory description: “Allegretto tranquillo,” which translates to fast and tranquil. I loved how the piece was able to balance these contradictory facets of it beautifully and embody both of these traits so clearly. I think that this also draws a nice parallel to the contradictory nature of Mont Blanc, being both an awe-inspiring, sublime place and a hideous, empty one, depending on if the observer views “silence and solitude” as “vacancy” (Shelley 144). I had always thought this piece’s arpeggios really accurately represented the feeling of floating on rolling waves that one would feel on a Venetian gondola (the piece’s namesake), and the part from “Mont Blanc” that inspired me to make this parallel was the two introductory lines: “The everlasting universe of things / Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves” (1-2). There was just always something that stuck out to me about these opening lines of “Mont Blanc,” but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was. I think there is something haunting about how one can feel so small in the “everlasting universe of things” and how we are all just pawns that could easily succumb to “rapid waves.” I also think there is something very “trance”-like about this piece, a term that the narrator uses to describe the setting of the Ravine of Arve (35).
Just like Shelley’s “Mont Blanc,” there are five segmented parts that make up its whole: the introduction, Part I, Part II, Part III, and finally the coda. Like the introduction of the piece, the first part of “Mont Blanc” seems to represent an inquisitorial first glance at the mountaintop. The first two notes that the right hand plays (E# and G#) seem almost to pose a question that is asking for a resolution. Similarly, the narrator seems to question if this setting is the “source of human thought” and if the “waterfalls around it (Mont Blanc) [will] leap for ever” (5, 9). The next part of the poem seems to seek for the resolution to the questions that are raised. The narrator describes “seeking among the shadows that pass by / Ghosts of all things that are” (45-6). This section of the piece seems to represent a nonchalant exploration of the mountaintop, as this section is predominantly played in a piano volume and has a relaxed feel. The next section of the piece is where it reaches its climax, and the same can be said for “Mont Blanc.” The narrator seems quite angry at the mountaintop in this section, saying “how hideously / Its shapes are heap’d around!” and “Is this the scene / Where the old Earthquake-daemon taught her young / Ruin?” (69-70, 71-3). The narrator seems appalled by the mountaintop in this section, as it seems to be such a deathly, hideous place. In Part III of the Mendelssohn piece, we encounter a resolution, as the theme echoes what has already been played in Parts I and II. This section of the poem also makes callbacks to earlier parts, as the narrator notes once again the “Roll [of] its perpetual stream” and marvels at the “everlasting” nature of “Mont Blanc” (1, 109). The coda of the piece draws similarities to Part V of the poem, as they both represent the narrator’s final tussling with the nature of their respective muses. Both seem to leave the reader/listener with an undecided tone, as the narrator concludes with a summarizing question: “And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea, / If to the human mind’s imaginings / Silence and solitude were vacancy?” (142-4). Works Cited Shelley, Percy Bysshe. “Mont Blanc: Lines Written in the Vale of Chamouni,” Wonders and Sublimity 2024, Stanford Online High School, University of Stanford, April 2024, https://spcs.instructure.com/courses/7897/files/1338651?module_item_id=177635. Accessed 9 April 2024. satan as something larger than life
as the monster in the burning lake. you as the monster in the mountains that are eating you whole. the limbs of your companion fall into the sea & catch on fire. your creator as a god with his hands tied behind his back. mind being taken over by the thought of life & then shutting down when that life comes to be. this is what comes from obsession. & finally. you. as a hated adam who wouldn’t have needed an eve if your god had been beside you in this story there is hatred & satan is never there in the beginning only the end. This poem is about the monster in Frankenstein. There are a lot of references to Satan and other characters within Paradise Lost, so I wanted to bring that into this poem and connect Milton’s characters to the main figures within Frankenstein. When the monster first reads Paradise Lost, he realizes that his situation should be very similar to Adam’s, with him being the only one created of his kind, but that unlike Adam, he is deserted by his creator and doesn’t have a happy and blissful life. The monster states, “Many times I considered Satan as the fitter emblem of my condition; for often, like him, when I viewed the bliss of my protectors, a bitter envy rose within me” (Shelley 95). I wanted to connect the monster to both Adam and Satan, arguing that he doesn’t become like Satan from the very beginning of the book, even though he might be regarded as such by Victor and other humans who are fearful of him. The ending lines of my poem best show this, with the line “in this story there is hatred” showing how the monster starts to act with more and more malice towards his creator as the story continues, especially with Victor’s destruction of his possible female mate; the story also partly ends with the murder of Elizabeth before she marries Victor, mirroring Satan’s destruction of Adam and Eve after feeling a lot of hatred and envy towards them for having a happy life. I also wanted to bring in Victor as having the role of God, and even though in Paradise Lost his “children” are Adam and Eve, in this story the monster is his child. My imagery in the second stanza is a way to show how Victor seemed to be trapped or drawn in too far by the process of his creation, and unable to accept that he has responsibility over his creation once the process is done. The lines “your creator as a god / with his hands tied behind his back” juxtapose with the actual process of creation mentioned in Frankenstein, which has very heavy use of the hands in putting the body together; I wanted to do this to further show how trapped within himself he actually is even though he doesn’t realize it. He thinks that his hands are helpful to him and that they are allowing him to create a new and wondrous life form, but again he is not prepared for what he actually creates and therefore becomes imprisoned within the obsessiveness of his “creative” process. Also, when he first creates the monster, Victor recalls, “He might have spoken, but I did not hear; one hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped and rushed down stairs” (Shelley 38-39). In this moment, hands become something threatening to him, which again goes against the positive and powerful way he thinks he uses his hands throughout the creation of the monster that now threatens him. |
Archives
April 2024
Categories
All
|