1) How are Nature and Technology represented in the novel? How is the modern conflict between the natural and the artificial dramatized in the novel? How is human nature portrayed?
2) How is gender treated in the novel? How is Nature gendered? Science? Creation? Consider the passionate relationships in the novel; how does gender inflect them?
2) How do the narrative frames of the novel function? What are the layers of the story and how are they related by narrator, time, space, and content? Where--and who--is at the center of the story?
3) What kinds of places are imagined in the novel? How do the interior states of the characters fit in with the exterior spaces in which they find themselves? How are different environments contrasted?
4) More than a hundred years separate Frankenstein and Machinal, but do you see any similar themes or concerns in the two works? How does each text reflect the cultural context and the state of technology from its time period?
5) Frankenstein has remained vivid and alive in contemporary times through a series of visions and revisions of Shelley's novel. In particular, how does the recent Gods and Monsters take up and extend some of the same concerns as the novel?
GO TO THE VIRTUAL SPACE OF THE NOVEL, WALK AROUND, EXPLORE, PARTICIPATE AS A CHARACTER, INTERACT WITH OTHERS AT THE: FRANKENSTEIN MOO
FROM THE MOO CREATORS, Eric Sonstroem and Ron Broglio:
We have constructed a MOO space based closely on Mary Shelley's novel. Every space in the novel is represented by a room or space inside our MOO. There are also numerous objects with which the characters of the novel interact, and a number of "robots" fashioned after the minor characters of the novel which can interact with MOO participants. All descriptions (of rooms, objects, environments) are drawn (as much as possible) from Shelley's actual text. Where there is little or no description in the novel--like Victor's lab, or Victor and Elizabeth's wedding chapel--we have given little or no description. Interactive "robot" characters speak with Mary Shelley's own words. There are also a variety of "costumes" (of the novel's characters) that a MOO participant can wear. How do the Swiss Alps look different to you if you are the monster instead of Victor? How do you use a pen differently as Victor? As Elizabeth? As the monster?
Some things to do in the MOO:
1) Find two spaces that are very different from each other and explain their differences. For example, compare and contrast the Frankenstein Family Home with the University in Ingolstadt. Compare and contrast nature spaces with human-made "civilized" spaces.
2) Do any cues from notes or robots in the MOO help you better understand the novel's characters? Discuss the insights you've developed.
3) Use the role playing mode by which your player character becomes a character in the novel by entering the costume room and dawning one of the novel's characters. How do you embody the character? How do you react to various spaces and how do the spaces and other characters react to you?
LINKS
Romanticism in Literature, Art & Music
Poems by Percy Shelley and Lord Byron
National Library of Medicine site on Frankenstein
Presumption, or the Fate of Frankenstein, an 1823 play based on Shelley's Frankenstein