Notes

Walton wants to overcome the mundane boundaries of life; wants to be a poet and discoverer. Victor has desires to become a scientist. Yet, both these men are artists consumed by obsession. Within this story, Mary Shelley critiques the romantic artist.

The 1831 version shows Victor's obsession with secrets and adds the concept of fate.
Thus, does she let Victor off the hook? Excusing the romantic artist by assuming fate holds the responsibility would certainly do so.

Laura says that the 1831 version does not just introduce the concept of fate, but the idea of Victor claiming " I was fated." Here, Victor is not let off the hook; he simply tries to exonerate himself by blaming fate. Not that fate was necessarily to blame, but that the main character has brainwashed himself into allowing this fate concept to rob him of all his responsibility. (He is really still to blame from the reader's point of view).

Alchemy is the search for sorcerers stones; the search for immortality. Alchemists are in a sense, magicians. This was in a time before scientific exploration or processes. What Aristotle said was truth. The 'Great Man' theory held up. These Alchemists aspired to be 'great men'.



It was a battle between the old scientists and the new ones.

What the class says about Victor's process:
He allows the process to take over his life. His imagination fogs his perception of reality and what he is really creating, carried on by the idea of what he can accomplish. He attempts to create life while neglecting his own. A modern term for this behavior would be obsessive compulsive. He creates a 'God complex' for himself. It is the expectation he holds of being adored by his creation; of being worshiped. This creative process takes his own life as he, in turn, gives it to another. Could this be compared with pregnancy? Mary Shelley's mother died while giving birth to her. And as an artist, she would know about giving some of herself to the creation- or the creation giving something unto herself? If you feel empty at the end of a creation should you be doing something else? Well, clearly Victor becomes so excited by his first success that he continues on, ignorant of the moral responsibilities of his next undertaking. Immersed in and working for his 'Ego'. The ego cannot be associated with the exercise of art. In art one must work through the ego.

"A mind of modern capacity... consumed with one study"

Is this a criticism of specialization by Mary Shelley? The minuteness of pieces take too long. Victor doesn't want to be slowed down. About speed. Its all about Victor's ego. A concern with self. Shelley critiques also here the very way of being an artist.