https://web-a-ebscohost-com.proxy.library.emory.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=57b0955c-8d79-41a7-8780-083cd43dbb56%40sessionmgr4002&vid=13&hid=4214

The article I chose was Technology and Impotence in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein written by Thomas Vargish. I picked this article because it was relevant to my topic about how humanity overcomes the abused technology. In this article, Vargish refers to plenty of science fiction works from different fields in order to demonstrate audiences how people nowadays excessively emphasize the importance of keep the development of technology under control. Vargish points out that a majority of science fiction works nowadays tends to create a monstrous creature for horrifying elements. However, this approach also fosters the fear from audiences towards technology. In Vargish’s article, he suggests that people should not view technology as a value that is equivalent to love, passion and intelligence. Instead, people should apply technology as an aid to extend those values and further develop humanity. The author proposes to analyze the text with a well-known neurologist, Sigmund Freud’s idea of the “self as composed of ego, superego, and id”. By using the theory Freud discovered, the author is able to identify the relationship between Frankenstein, Elizabeth and the monster as “ego, superego, and id” respectively. Freud’s idea fused with Vargish’s argument perfectly and thus strengthen his thesis of using technology, in this case, the monster as a tool to express one’s own feelings and extend those feelings to an extreme level. Vargish does not clearly state whether he agrees with Freud’s idea or not, but he introduces Freud’s idea in order to support his major arguments.

This article drags my attention because it is significantly unique and innovative. The approach that the author manages to take is totally different from any other critic’s. He does not focus on how human beings should be careful with technology. On the other hand, he analyzes the issues aroused by technology through a different path. Not only his methodic structure, but also his idea inspires me thoroughly. I feel my idea is also not a traditional one, and Vargish’s article enables me to expand my idea without worrying about any traditional expectation. Furthermore, Vargish’s main argument states that people should not blame the overdeveloped technology for destructions and thus fearing science. This argument supports my idea of humanity overcomes excessive technology since we both suggest that people can eventually manipulate and control technology through humanity.

In “The Monster in a Dark Room: Frankenstein, Feminism, and Philosophy”, author Nancy Yousef argues that prior philosophies on individuality are addressed and revised in the novel, as the monster’s growth and early experiences that influence his character reveals the restraints of such philosophies. Using classic examples of Locke and Rousseau, Yousef shows how the monster adopts some of their ideas and rebuts others. The monster is driven from nature to society by natural means (hunger) and gains his education by observing an Italian family. The creature, observing he has no history due to his lonely upbringing, adopts human sympathy, language, and identity. Overall, however, because he is not human in appearance, he is distinctly separate and does not carry the burden of human history.

Yousef addressed the critics Marshall and Lipking and their claims of the monster’s connection to Rousseau. Both critics argue that the monster inherently acts and personifies Rousseau’s philosophy: that a creature brought into nature is alone and unique. Yousef refutes this claim, saying that the creature develops this thoughts at the peak of his education, developing the self-aware quality that is unlike Rousseau’s philosophy.

This article would be useful in clarifying a basis for identity in Frankenstein and how the natural world pushes the creature of no species towards humanity, allowing it to develop human qualities and differ from humans only in history, juxtaposing it with its creator. Whereas Frankenstein grows up fascinated by necromancy and electricity, the creature grows up in hiding and observation. Pursuing science devolves Frankenstein, while nature and watching humanizes the monster.

The Monster in a Dark Room: Frankenstein, Feminism, and Philosophy

http://muse.jhu.edu.proxy.library.emory.edu/journals/modern_language_quarterly/v063/63.2yousef.html

Through our readings, we analyzed the effects that technology has upon individuals. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, one can notice a great schism in the relationships between Victor and his Monster. As Victor utilizes his own knowledge to create something outside of human imagination, he is scared off by what his technology allowed him to do. However, as the two meet for the first time, the only way in which they come to be on the same level, on the human level, is when the monster utilizes his verbal eloquence as a way to make Victor feel compassionate about him. In Godlike Science/Unhallowed Arts: Language and Monstrosity in Frankenstein by Peter Brooks, the author argues that the language spoken by the monstrous (Frankenstein’s monster) will never be able to “arrive at meaning”. Because the monster is “monstrous”, he can only employ language as a medium to “pass on the desire and the curse of meaning”, rather than meaning itself. In saying this, Brooks thinks that though the Monster can speak and request for his desires to come true, his words will never allow him to obtain what he wants (just because he is a monster). In his argument, he references psychoanalysts such as Freud and Lacant to expand upon his notion that language through monsterism does not provide direct meaning to one’s wants. Ultimately, I believe that his research topic can allow me to view at past readings with a new set of eyes. The importance of language in literature is reflected through its power to establish meaningful connections that could relate to the identity of characters. For instance, in saying that language does not allow the Monster to convey his wishes, one can argue that the monster is emotionally repressed and unable to show love to its surroundings because they are realistically cruel.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/468457?seq=14#page_scan_tab_contents

In the first part of the article (it is rather long so I will focus on this portion) “Sibling Revelry in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein” by Leila Silvana May, the author argues that the monster in Frankenstein represents the feminine desire, specifically that of a sister. May points out that the sister in Frankenstein is seen as an object that her brother loves, desires, and wants to protect. However, the sister is seen in a passive way, eliciting a mirror effect for the brother to reflect upon and show himself through her, as she displays the qualities of those around her. If the sister breaks this passive attitude, she therefore becomes not ideal, monstrous, as May puts it. May argues that Victor tried to create the monster as a portrayal of the passiveness of his sister, however when the monster actually becomes alive, he becomes dangerous and terrifying to Victor.

May incorporates Mary Poovey’s statement that the creature is “the victim of both the symbolic and the literal . . . it is doubly (and vehicle for) someone else’s desire, yet exposed (and excited) as the deadly essence of passion itself.” May uses this perspective to support her argument that the monster represents the sororal desire. I think this article is interesting, however I do not want to pursue exactly the same topic as Leila Silvana May. I think the portrayal of women as passive and “ideal” nineteenth century women is interesting, so I would like to further explore the way they are objectified through the novel. I do not necessarily agree with May’s argument, but I do think she raises and interesting point about the way that women are seen as unattractive once they break out of the passive and caretaking role, so this is something I would potentially like to explore for my research paper.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/450759?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

In “Myths, Monsters, and Morality: Understanding ‘Antiscience’ and the Media Message”, Dr. Helen Haste argues that the only way to understand the public images of science and the dispute between science and anti-science is to understand the role that myths and metaphors play in the context of the concepts. Haste explains how while science fiction genres typically touch upon the benefits and dangers of scientific advancements, science fiction also is useful for seeing how a culture perceives science and its common understanding of science. For instance, most of what is considered as science was at first against the common knowledge of the culture. In the same manner, myths and metaphors are used to explain what is seen as typically not common. Metaphors and science have the same function in that it extends our understanding with the known to the unknown. Throughout the paper, science and commonsense were explained to both have a moral influence on the culture in different, yet substantial ways.

In Haste’s paper, she states that Lewis Wolpert argues “that scientific knowledge is counterintuitive and requires us to go against the obvious, the commonsensical. Haste uses this claim to further support her idea of making metaphors and science similar in that they are both involved in the search for the truth. Haste also uses quotes of other pro-science individuals in order to build upon her argument.

In the past, my research papers have lacked fluidity with the quotes I use and my response to the quotes, and this paper would be a good resource to go to in order improve my technique. I also like the connection that Haste made with metaphors and science as a way to understand its effect in one’s culture. I want to be able to create something new out of something that is normally undervalued or under appreciated. I originally chose this article because the title included morality which was something that I wanted to investigate, but unfortunately, it did not mention anything directly about the morality of Frankenstein’s monster. It goes to sure the inaccuracies of titles, and it makes me more aware of how deeply I will have to search in order to find the information that I really need.

Article: http://www.maneyonline.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1179/isr.1997.22.2.114

In “Frankenstein and Dis(re)membered Identity,” Eleanor Salotto argues that Shelley uses different techniques to demonstrate how the characters in the novel struggle with identity. Salotto argues that Shelley’s framed narrative demonstrates how characters struggle with having a unified identity because the framed narrative causes the story of each character to come out in pieces. The life story of each character is told by another person, demonstrating how each character cannot even tell his own identities to the audience- it is muddled by another person telling it for him, therefor no character has an intact representation of a unified identity. Additionally, Salotto argues that the fact that Frankenstein is attempting to create a double of himself, the creature is just an excess, muddled version of Frankenstein’s own identity. Because the creature is supposed to represent Frankenstein, the fact that he is created through other, different human parts also represents his incomplete identity. The fact that the creature is made up of all different unoriginal pieces, his identity is not whole either. Additionally, because the creature is supposed to mirror Frankenstein, the fact that Frankenstein is repulsed when he sees the creature illustrates that Frankenstein does not recognize himself or his own identity. The author uses the critic Lacan to extend her argument. She uses Lacan’s work and study of the “mirror stage” to again demonstrate how Frankenstein does not have a unified, intact identity. The mirror stage is when an individual sees his reflection to better get an understanding of “I,” however, by looking at the monster that is supposed to represent himself (thus, it is his mirror), he does not see himself. He sees a monster that he does not want to claim as his or his identity, thus Frankenstein again grapples with his incomplete sense of identity. While this paper goes on to argue several other points, I really enjoyed Salotto’s arguments on lack of identity. While, I knew that I did want to focus on identity, I wasn’t sure what points I specifically wanted to focus on. However, after reading this article I think I want to explore the techniques Mary Shelley uses to demonstrate how the characters lack identity and how this lack of identity has negative outcomes for the characters in the novel.

http://www.jstor.org.proxy.library.emory.edu/stable/30225415?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=((Frankenstein)&searchText=AND&searchText=(Freud))&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3D%2528%2528Frankenstein%2529%2BAND%2B%2528Freud%2529%2529%26amp%3Bprq%3D%2528%2528Frankenstein%2529%2BAND%2B%2528Id%2529%2529%26amp%3Bgroup%3Dnone%26amp%3Bfc%3Doff%26amp%3Bhp%3D25%26amp%3Bwc%3Doff%26amp%3Bacc%3Don%26amp%3Bso%3Drel&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

Link of the article: http://jhp.sagepub.com/content/41/4/57.full.pdf+html

“Making Daemons of Death and Love: Frankenstein, Existentialism, Psychoanalysis”
By Will W. Adams, Psychologist

Summary of the author’s argument:
Both existentialism and psychoanalysis play a huge role in the creation and development of the characters in the book Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. The reader might take note of the topics such as death-repression, the return of the repressed and the daemonic. In Frankenstein, the Mary Shelley challenges death (in the living creature Victor Frankenstein has created), love (in the isolation Victor faces), nature (in how Victor evades it), and spirit (in the alterations of real spiritual encounters). The author Mary Shelley was able to channel her conflicts and desires into an everlasting book.

Critic:
The author Will W. Adams uses Rollo May (1969)’s observation that “The daemonic ‘is potentially creative and destructive at the same time’” (Adams 62) In this case, the author is extending what the critic Rollo May suggested. He affirms that “daemonic energy is available for us to take up, respond to, and channel as best we can.” He suggests that the manner in which a person reacts to the presence or the idea of a deamon will affect the outcome of the behavior of that deamon. Will W. Adams says,
“If we respond with openness and understanding, then our daemons tend to be integrated as benevolent, creative, energetic guides to transformation and health. But if we react with defensive avoidance, they tend to appear as malevolent, destructive sources of suffering.”

Develop an angle for your own paper:
I would like to explore the identity of both the narrator Victor Frankenstein and his monster using this article to help me develop a psychoanalysis. By extending, or sometimes refuting, on what the author Will W. Adams portrays in his research, I will be able to formulate my own opinions and have them backed up by other researchers.
In other words, Will W. Adams will aid me to engage in the conversation he forms part of when it comes to the identity and psychoanalysis in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

The scholarly source that I am very interested in is called ‘Technology and the Human Limit’. The author is Baker Brownell. This article mainly illustrates the relationship between current technology development and human’s inherent limitation. The author believes that “there are both physiological and psychological limitations conditioning human being.” With no measure in our expansion into the environment and no boundary in our ambitions, we have already transcended our due limitations by overusing thousands of mechanical contrivances to change the world by our wishes.

In the article, when the author talks about the nature of limitations, he mentions one main critical idea of his opinion (no critic’s name) that “by developing technology, our life can have new meaning and experience, so we should regard this extension of limitations as cultural growth.” However, the author strongly refutes by pointing out that “this extension is not enriching but disintegrative and people’s increasing natural tolerance towards drunkenness is an example.” In other words, the author believes that though developing technology and extending human life are seemingly amazing breakthroughs in human history, there is always a cost behind those progressions.

The ideas about technology overuse and intemperate human extension can help me develop my paper. With a similar technology theme, this article mainly focuses on modern aggregations of industrial power’s improper, unconfined dynamic patterns and functional structures in the physical world. Differently, the reflection on technology in ‘Super Sad True Love Story’ contemplates on the technology’s irreversible mental influence on the way people get in touch with each other and the degree people rely on technology in a soon future. These two aspects can perfectly complement each other. I think that combining both the physical and mental influence of technology, my paper can form a better analysis about a progressing relationship between human and technology.

Reference:  Baker Brownell, ‘Technology and the Human Limit’, 1949,3.

http://www.jstor.org.proxy.library.emory.edu/stable/1976553?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=technology&searchText=human&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dtechnology%2Bhuman%26amp%3Bprq%3Dher%2Bmovie%26amp%3Bgroup%3Dnone%26amp%3Bwc%3Don%26amp%3Bacc%3Don%26amp%3Bhp%3D25%26amp%3Bfc%3Doff%26amp%3Bso%3Drel&seq=1#page_thumbnails_tab_contents

I would like to write about the sublimation of women in Marry Shelly’s Frankenstein. I find it particularly interesting how the portrayal of women passive parallels the role of women in the 19^th century (the time when the novel was written). I would like to further explore Shelly’s possible criticism of this weak role played by women and the dysfunctions of the domestic hierarchy in regards to family structure.

I found a peer reviewed journal by James Davis titled Frankenstein and the Subversion of the Masculine Voice. This article investigates the sublimation of women in the novel. It expands on the concept of misogyny, “their virtual exclusion of female characters and perspectives purposefully enacts in the novel’s form the misogyny that dooms the male characters to failure.” This idea that the exclusion of women is what led men to failure in the novel can be used in my paper to portray Marry Shelly’s criticism of the role of women in the 19^th century. She can be using this failure of men in the book to encourage the use of the feminine voice in the actual world.

The author of this article references a critics claim in the first paragraph of his journal entry. He uses the critics claim to further support his thesis stating in his works cited that “Several studies have been particularly useful in establishing feminist critical.”

http://www.tandfonline.com.proxy.library.emory.edu/doi/pdf/10.1080/00497878.1992.9978946

In the scholarly article Moral and Myth in Mrs. Shelley’s “Frankenstein”, author M. A. Goldberg identifies topics of loneliness and isolation as she describes the morality of the central characters throughout the novel: Victor, the creature and Walton. In the case of Walton, he lacks an equal member of society who can provide him with a sense of compassion as he pursues his intellectual goals. He feels he retains no social connection from whom he can learn and from whom he can balance the one-dimensional perspective he previously contained. In a similar notion, Victor prior to his meeting with Walton felt a similar attraction to knowledge, curious towards philosophical principles and the hard sciences. This thirst towards his research, however, destroyed any remains of his social well-being through his scientific creation of what would be his servant or “shadow”-like creature. The creature demonstrates a similar theme, describing his pain resulting from the lack of attachment he was provided. The immediate abandonment from his creator and the clear difference/ uniqueness of his form placed him on an island to suffer alone for the duration of his existence. She argues overall that no character retains the ability to healthily function without connection and relationship.

In her article, M. A. Goldberg utilizes an excerpt from an 1817 Review of the book between Goodwin’s Caleb Williams and Frankenstein, extending the notion of isolation of the individual, as well as themes of loneliness which contribute to the moral context of the book that she highlights in her own writing.

This article develops a lot of the same concepts I hoped to address in regards to the isolation felt by the three main characters as a result of their discoveries and the paths of life on which they have been guided. Under this main topic, the article also provides references to biblical stories and myths which provide strong correlation to the messages promoted in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

http://www.jstor.org.proxy.library.emory.edu/stable/pdf/30210049.pdf?acceptTC=true