Lecture Notes #1 - "Frankenstein: Our Dark Mirror"

2/4/2025

Click the image above to listen to the NYPL podcast, "Frankenstein: Our Dark Mirror."

In this Primary Blog Post, please copy/paste the notes from your favorite chapter ONLY of the New York Public Library's podcast, Frankenstein: Our Dark Mirror. You may want to "flesh them out" (pun entirely intended) first, as your classmates will be reading and commenting on them this weekend.

Primary Blog Expectations (respond to the prompt above): 200-250 words, minimal errors in grammar and usage, thoughtful and thorough writing. Please use the name you were assigned in class as your nom de plume and be sure to add word count. Due by 11:59pm Thurs night, Feb 6th!

Secondary Blog Response Expectations (read everyone's primary responses, select two that interest you, and respond to their ideas): 100-150 words EACH, minimal errors in grammar and usage, thoughtful and thorough writing. Please use the name you were assigned in class as your nom de plume and be sure to add word count. Due by 11:59pm Friday night, Feb 7th!

16 Comments

Kei Okami

2/5/2025 10:07:02 am

I wonder if the setting that Mary had put herself in would have changed the way that she looked at her story for Frankenstein? If she hadn’t been indoors or isolated, the story would’ve never been created the way it was or never created at all. This isolation and potential depression she had put herself through combined made her thought process go to a major drop causing her to have nightmares the way she was. Not to mention the fact that she was rather pregnant or had a newborn causing major stress, especially since she had recently lost her first child and mother at a young age. The time period also played a major role since most of the writing during this time was very gothic.

Ida Augusta Keller

2/9/2025 09:21:52 pm

I believe that where Mary Shelly was during her process of making Frankenstein would’ve definitely impacted where this story would;ve been when finished. We even know that when she goes to later revision, she makes changes that her old teenage self would’ve kept, after maturing and growing into being a young woman, she has different experiences and views of the cards she has been dealt for in her life. Even the slightest change in her condition couldn’ve greatly impacted how she wrote frankenstein since she used everything in her life to create it, her husband's relationship with herself and their children, her miscarriages and pregnancy difficulties, her relationship with her father and stepmother, and even her own quilt from being the reason of her mothers premature death after her birth. (131)

Mary A. Alberston

2/5/2025 10:21:48 am

(Chapter 4) I really enjoyed learning about how monster theory almost plays a key role in understanding how we as humans create the monsters in our own life. This idea that the creatures we create for pure entertainment and this enjoyment we get from beings created and seeing our “fears drafted” really illustrates this idea of conquering various social issues no matter your opinion. I think Elizabeth Young really helped me understand that when you read a horror novel a lto of the “villains” or “Monsters are products of society and their twisted views. This idea has already been pushed throughout media a lot but you can see this even reflected in fairy tales or retellings of the tales of villains in disney novels. This perspective allows you to empathize and understand why a villain does what it does. Of course there are still characters who are just truly whatever “evil” might look like to you. But even understanding characters who are diabolical and their upbringing and understanding why they have the thought process they have makes a huge difference in humans ability to empathize. When you take a monster and are able to view it as both the victim and perpetrator you are able to look at different perspectives of cases such as the act of killing someone innocent through the eyes of both parties. How you chose to further interpret the creature is left up to your own morals and ethical beliefs which is what was being explained in chapter three.

Marie-Anne Lavoisier

2/5/2025 10:22:45 am

Chapter four, Confronting Our Monsters:
With all that’s going on with ICE and deportation, Trump refers to immigrants as “illegal aliens” and “criminals”. They are portrayed as monsters for infiltrating the states with their families. Trump saying that they have been stealing jobs and housing and money portrays them as creatures the American people should fear, when in reality they come to the states to seek refuge and a better future for those they care about. If a monster is willing to sacrifice their safety for their loved ones, then I too am a monster. It is in times like these that I wonder who is truly to fear. Human nature is terrifying in that way, the way we so quickly look for something to fear besides ourselves. We never want to fear what human nature is truly capable of, so we blame anything else without realizing that we are our own maker, and, our own monster.

Cornelia Clapp

2/9/2025 04:33:47 pm

I had the same idea when comparing the idea of monsters to a current event now. I feel that Trump is constantly trying to portray immigrants as "monsters" and tries to force this idea on everyone else by constantly trying to call out the bad they are doing when in reality he is just trying to instill fear upon Americans. I agree with the fact that we are all "monster makers" in this situation because we are constantly looking for something or someone to blame. I think this current event comparison is similar to the one they compared frankenstein to, of comparing the civil rights abuse to the "monster" creatures.

Kusumoto Ine

2/5/2025 10:27:43 am

Chapter 3 Monsters Always Come Back
My favorite monster is the banshee and I think it reflects my own self of grief yearning for attention and pain in my own way. Banshees are known to be a haunting ghost that is well known for their wailing screams. I find this type of monster interesting because it is displaying their own pain onto other people to be understood. In a way thinking about this, it never goes away because even if time passes by, there will still be the thoughts, the pain and the memories that disturbs my own inner peace. I think that we love monsters so much because it represents something that is going on and the thrill of the monster itself without realizing that it IS in fact resembling an important theme. I also think that monster movies are supposed to teach an underlying lesson about life and society that not many people want to realize or take action on. Monsters come back because they are made of OUR fear of the real world things that are happening. They also come back because I believe in a way we are all monsters, it just varies on what KIND of monster someone represents socially.
The banshee may say that my fear is never letting go of the pain and the past. More simply, my own fear of the recurring pain coming back to haunt me again. It makes me think about Mary Shelly's own fear and how she might feel like shes her own wailing banshee especially considering all of her life and lost children.

Irma Goldberg

2/5/2025 10:50:17 am

Chapter Five-Frankenstein in the 21st Century
After listening to this last chapter I believe that the movie Frankenstein opens your eyes to a different perspective of things. Lavalle was so influenced by Frankenstein's work that he started to look at different aspects of the novel. The movie as a whole would definitely make you believe that Frankenstein is a monster for bringing the dead back to life, but when you see this and look at a real life situation many people would do the same if they could. One comparison he made was when he saw a mother lose her child and the mother was very heartbroken. He then wondered how much someone would go through to bring back someone from the dead or if they would do it. I think that the comparisons he makes does seem true. Many people would go through a lot to bring someone back from the dead. After considering the points that Lavalle makes during chapter five, I believe that Frankenstein did not make the “creature” to hurt other people. I believe that Frankenstein created the “creature” because he might’ve lost someone and wanted someone to replace them. Lavalle did see what someone would do to bring someone back to life.

2/9/2025 04:38:48 pm

I agree with the ideas you mentioned of is Frankenstein's actions were justified. I agree that when you think more about the actions of victor literally creating the creature and then turning his back on him when he needed a companion and help due to the hate he was receiving for simply being alive, his actions are justified. I also agree that his intentions weren't to create a monster but rather these were just results of his grief and longing to have someone back from the dead. I think the movie caused for frankenstein's backstory to get lost and he was just looked at as a monster but if people truly understood his backstory they have have more understanding of why he acted the way he did.

Huang Lu

2/5/2025 05:58:56 pm

Mary shelly’s Franstein can connect with our current rights of abuse because it shows how societal neglect and the creation of these “monsters” can be treated with injustice and inequality because of their differences. In Frankenstein, the “creature” is abandoned and rejected by people. Not because he was dangerous or evil, he just didn’t fit societal expectations. This can reflect on individuals today. Whether it be race, status etc, many people are dehumanized and blamed.
A modern example could be the stigma around mental health. Many struggle with mental illness and are misunderstood, or labeled as dangerous. They aren’t being offered support but looked down upon. Similar to Frankenstein’s creature, peoples mental health can lead to further struggles. The media portrays them as unstable and violent which is a reinforcing and harmful stereotype. Additionally AI continues to grow, making it more powerful. This results in fear over jobs and loss of control overall. Frankenstein serves as a reminder to take responsibility for what it creates and how it treats people with differences.

Emily Siedeberg

2/5/2025 08:44:30 pm

Chapter Two-I Bid My Hideous Progeny Go Forth and Prosper:

Books are often turned into movies or TV shows because it helps them reach more people and make money.

Positives:
More people learn about the story.
It can be updated to fit today’s world.
Visual effects make it exciting.

Negatives:
The story might change too much
Some deep meanings could get lost.
It may focus more on action than the real message.

2/9/2025 09:26:29 pm

I agree with your positives and negatives, however I like the idea of how a positive of novels being adapted is that you can see how they are in present day society. With some novels being made decades or centuries ago, just reading them alone seems like a riddle, but trying to find the message or how it can relate to us today is an even harder challenge. However with some adaptations they make it easier for the viewers to connect to the characters in the novel, sure it may not be exactly like how it was in the novel, but it helps the viewers have a better grasp an understanding what the author was trying to portray to their audience in their time, which we tend to miss with older novels. (132)

Nadezhda Aleksandrovna Bobrinskaya

2/6/2025 06:32:09 pm

Chapter 4 --- confronting Our Monsters
- The 1930s in America saw an increase in lynchings of Black men.
- There was a significant protest against lynching from Black activists and White allies during this time.
- The speaker speculates that a film could be interpreted as an allegory of lynching, despite race not being mentioned.
- The monster, played by Boris Karloff, might represent a sympathetic victim of a lynch mob.
- The speaker reflects on historical responses to Nat Turner’s revolt in 1831.
- Nat Turner was an enslaved individual who rebelled against his White master in Southampton County, Virginia.
- His revolt resulted in the deaths of many and led to his capture after several weeks.
- Turner was tried, convicted, and executed, causing widespread news coverage and anxiety among slaveholders.
- The event sparked debates about slavery and potential revolt.
- Politician Thomas Dew defended slavery in response to the Nat Turner story.
- Dew referenced Mary Shelley’s "Frankenstein" in relation to slavery and race relations in America.
- He claimed that dealing with a Black person required acknowledging their physical strength but alleged intellectual inferiority, comparing them to a "creature resembling the splendid fiction of a recent romance."
- The story is ever changing representing multiple stories across time including ones today and from that time period
221

Jantina Tammes

2/6/2025 08:44:04 pm

Chapter 5- Frankenstein in the 21st Century
After reading this chapter I think what he said actually makes sense when you pay attention. Looking at it now, monsters are literally like humans just in different ways that are portrayed as scary. I’ll use what he said about Frankenstein having daddy issues and that's the reason he acts the way he does. For example, constantly trying to find someone and never being satisfied with things. I connect that with people in real life who don’t have one of their parents in their life. As much as I want to say it doesn’t affect people, I have to agree that it does. The people I see that don't have one of their parents present usually have some type of issue with loving someone the right way or connecting with someone on a romantic or even sometimes a friendship level. They feel neglected and abandoned and I feel like Frankenstein can definitely connect with that. In both Frankenstein and real people they lack that trust and love from the parent who isn’t present & they lack the teaching the need from that parent that isn't present that the present parent can’t give.

torine torines

2/6/2025 09:31:51 pm

chapter 3- I think that we love monsters so much because people like to see characters deal with issues bigger than their own in real life and root for the character the way that they hope people would root for them. My favorite types of monster are zombies. I like seeing how different writers interpret them and how the characters in the story deal with them and survive. I think that zombies can represent my fear of lacking individuality. I believe that there is not a single interpretation of zombies where they do anything in a few numbers. The whole reason they are scary is because they are mindless flesh-eating hoards of hundreds of monsters that overpower people, I think that people fear that in their everyday life they are moving mindlessly and following wherever the crowd goes.

2/9/2025 04:27:51 pm

Chapter Two-I Bid My Hideous Progeny Go Forth and Prosper
Literature being turned into TV/Film frequently occurs because by producing the literature in a visual aspect it typically grows much more attention and can help the work be understood in a different light through things being played out for viewers.

Positives -
- Being able to see the work visually can lead to a deeper understanding for a more broad audience because many people will watch films regardless of if they have read the book or not
- It can increase popularity which can bring more people's attention allowing for the message of the work to be spread wider, with more people watching and understanding the authors theme gets to more people
- By having a visual representation you can add more emotions and introduce ideas in a different sense.

Negatives -
- There are many complex literary devices that can be used and interpreted in ways that a film cannot provide viewers with so the films may lack some of the depth
- Like in frankenstein sometimes the story can be altered and meanings can be lost because films are attracted to a different audience
- There is more thinking that comes with books because of the fact that some things are left for you to interpret whereas in a film everything is displayed to you

2/9/2025 09:15:12 pm

Chapter 5 - Frankenstein In the 21st century

The influences that Frankenstein had on Lavalle’s work was to show how the political; aspect in Frankenstein were still apparent in today’s culture, with how a mother would do anything to bring her son back, and the rage of wanting to hurt those who caused her son to die in the first place, similar to how the monster feels towards the challenges and issues he faces in the novel towards his creator and those around him. Although Mary Shelly may have not been writing Frankenstein for the exact issues we may see today, there are connections between the two, with how women still face issues today, racial issues in today's worlds, and even political issues with elections and how much power and decisions those elected can do and get away with. An event from Frankenstein that we could connect to a current event would be how when a tyranny loses their power, the people under them don’t just die or fall with them, they experience freedom of their own and explore what they want. This can be compared to how the monster doesn’t die when his creator dies but instead is left with the notion that he goes out to tell his story to others who may care to listen to him and live out his life the way he wants to, not the way his creator may have wanted him to live his life.

AP Literature and Composition Blog

Lecture Notes #1 - "Frankenstein: Our Dark Mirror"

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