Frankenstein (blog 2)

The nest section of Frankenstien was mostly about how normal victor Frankenstien's childhood was. It was normal almost to the point of contradicting the word normal. Aside from a slightly odd situation with his adoptive sister and some odd interests, he has a very generic countryside childhood for Switzerland I would assume. "No human being could have passed a happier childhood than my self." (page 37). I have to admit that happy doesn't mean normal but it is much more normal than distressed or insane. I picked that quote out because I think that the way this is said puts an interesting spin on it. He doesn't seem very interested in his own childhood because of the way he generalizes it so much. The way he says it all so kind of knocks down the value of what he's just said too. He seems to think that having a childhood, whether it was good or bad really doesn't make a difference in the end. Over all he seems slightly fond of the memories and happy that he can kind of hold this over people who may not have had such a great childhood.

I think that his relationship with Elizabeth is important to the development of the story. His mother tells him that Elizabeth is his present when he is a kid, and (as a kid would do) he thinks that she literally means what she says. "And when, on the morrow, she presented Elizabeth to me as her promised gift, I, with childish seriousness, interpreted her words literally  and looked upon Elizabeth as mine-mine to protect, love, and cherish. All praises bestowed on her I received as made to a possession of my own. We called each other familiarly by the name of cousin. No word, no expression could body forth the kind of relation in which she stood to me-my more than sister, since till death she was to be mine only." (page 35). I think the idea of owning someone is a big question in this novel. When Frankenstien creates his monster he doesn't really think of it in a way that shows it as it's own thing. The monster was to him an incredible science project. Sure, one with incredible possibilities and many possible outcomes but still, a project. Namely, his project. But that is all guessing since I am not that far into the story yet. It's hard not to look ahead since the story is so well known and has been retold over and over again.

In general I think that the book was definitely not written recently. To me it seems like the author is trying to be a bit too poetic and over complicates the book. I feel like I'm reading with a three paragraph delay between reading and understanding.