Frankenstein by Mary Shelley 1818 Written for HPHS Spring 2015 Highland Park High School English Department Text Rationale for Rationale (including age/ability appropriateness and how text fits into the course s philosophy and enduring understanding): Text proposed for continued use in the English IV and English IV AP and AP TAG courses. For English IV: This unit addresses the nature of tragedy as an integral part of human experience. Literature has overwhelmingly concluded that the reason we suffer is due to our unceasing efforts to acquire knowledge. The effort to understand the world around us is held to be an inherently transgressive act because it separates us from the natural world: to be human is to be apart from nature. While the history of literature shows that tragedy is inevitable, it also seeks to understand why tragedy is part and parcel of what it means to be human. For English IV AP and AP TAG This work is representative of nineteenth century prose with elevated language and thought provoking ideas, adheres to the quality and complexity of works recommended by the College Board for AP Literature. Nineteenth century Western societies were a time of great change, inventions, and promise with the growing interest and experimentation in science and technology. Summary: This Gothic novel, written by Mary Shelley at the age of 18, is often thought to be the original science fiction writing. The text grapples with the emerging debate in Shelley s contemporary time of the reconciliation between science and religion. The story is told through a frame narrative of Captain Walton s letters with his sister. Set in the North Pole, the frame narrative recounts Dr. Frankenstein s tale as told to the captain as a warning regarding his over-ambitious behavior. Victor Frankenstein s narrative tells the story of his childhood, born into a wealthy family and his obsession with science. His natural inclination for chemistry and science propels him to create the Monster by combining parts of the human body. However, because of the difficulty of this task, the monster must be hugely tall and hideous in appearace. Victor rejects his creation and the monster disappears, and Victor makes strides to return to health and his normal life. The innermost frame of the narrative features the creature telling his story to Victor. They meet on Mont Blanc as Victor tries to find solace from recent tragedies: the murder of his young brother and the subsequent execution of a family friend, hanged for the murder. Admitting to Victor that he is the one responsible for the crime, the creature recounts to Victor the story of his awakening, his education, the belovedvdelacey family by whom he was rejected, and the revulsion and violence that all other humans show him. The creature demands a mate from Victor so that we will not have to live the rest of his existence in painful solitude. Victor fears that if he were to go through with the creation of a female, the daemons may reproduce and populate the earth. Stalked by the creature and frightend by the threat of violence, Victor relents and begins the process of creating another monster, but then changes his mind, and in a fit of passion, rips the body apart before the eyes of the creature. Enraged by Victor s destruction of his female companion, the creature systematically kills off everyone Victor loves: his friend Henry, his new wife Elizaebth, and by extension, Victor s father, who dies from greif. Utterly bereft and alone, the chase is reversed: Victor now pursue the creature, looking for revenge. This leads to the North Pole, where the story began. An ill Victor succumbs to death, and Walton witnesses the creature standing over his dead creator, weeping. Contrite, the creature explains the depths of his lonliness and his great regrets, and then jumps off the ship, plunging to his own death.
Merit Awards and Recognition : Frankenstein is routinely included in books listed as part of the canon. Novels for Students explains that because of the complexity of the intellectual and emotional responses of Victor Frankenstein and his creature to their world, the novel still endures despite changing times. The storyline resonates with the philosophical and moral ramifications: themes of nurture versus nature, good versus evil, and ambition versus social responsibility ( Frankenstein 180-181). In George V. Griffith s literary criticism, he notes that the novel typifies the most important ideas of the Romantic era, among them the primacy of feelings, the dangers of intellect, dismay over the human capacity to corrupt our natural goodness, the agony of questing, solitary hero, and the awesome power of the sublime (194). Susan J. Wolfson and Ronald Levao explain in their article Why Frankenstein is the Greatest Horror Novel Ever that Frankenstein arrests us by force of its astonishing fantasy and its range of implication: the definition of monster, judgments that derive virtue or villainy from class origins and accidents of physical appearance; the responsibility of creators to and for their creations; the responsibility of society for the anger of those to whom it refuses care, compassion or just decent regard; the relationships of parents and children--and all this arrayed with an eerie, brilliant intuition, a century before Freud, about the psychological dynamics of repression, transference, condensation, dream-work, and alter egos. Their modern day implications assert that Frankenstein has multiplied in force to name any disturbing development in science and technology, as well as in history and politics, sports and fashion, and just about everything else--with various and sometimes overlapping senses of amusement, alarm, awe, and admonition. Benefit to Students: Students will explore the following issues: The Risk of Knowing - Some key ideas in all three: Doppelgänger, the journey, the quest, science vs. aesthetics, the power of obsession and influence, the pursuit of perfection, the pursuit of knowledge, the consequences of obsession, among others Students will grapple with the guiding questions: When does science interfere with ethics? Should man try to "fix" nature? Which has more influence--nature or nurture? The authors below addressed this pursuit to understand the physical world in interesting ways that raise questions: How much knowledge is too much? Can man reach perfection? What are the consequences when moral standards are set aside for a greater good? Themes Addressed: Man's inquisitive nature can both help and harm. Unintended, detrimental outcomes can emerge from a desire to help others. Man is driven to yearn for companionship and meaning. Man is not a static creature; therefore, he will never be satisfied. Man s insatiable curiosity is not always beneficial. Gothic literature explores the dark side of the Romantic concepts of the individual, isolation, and the inherent nature of man. Science and spirituality often conflict. Brief description of proposed classroom activities generated by text: Gothic ROR Choice English IV AP and AP TAG and English IV Literature Circle discussions Analytical writing assessment
List of the TEKS/STAAR/HPISD curricular objectives the proposed text supports TEKS: 2) Reading/Comprehension of Literary Text/Theme and Genre. Students analyze, make inferences and draw conclusions about theme and genre in different cultural, historical, and contemporary contexts and provide evidence from text to support understanding. Students are expected to: A) compare and contrast works of literature that express a universal theme; (5) Reading/Comprehension of Literary Text/Fiction. Students understand, make inferences and draw conclusions about structure and elements of fiction and provide evidence from text to support understanding. Students are expected to: (A) analyze how complex plot structures (e.g., subplots) and devices (e.g., foreshadowing, flashbacks, suspense) function and advance the action in a work of fiction; (B) analyze moral dilemmas and quandaries presented in works of fiction as revealed by underlying motivations and behaviors of characters; (7) Reading/Comprehension of Literary Text/Sensory Language. Students understand, make inferences and draw conclusions about how an author's sensory language creates imagery in literary text and provide evidence from text to support understanding. Students are expected to analyze how the author's patterns of imagery, literary allusions, and conceits reveal theme, set (2) Reading/Comprehension of Literary Text/Theme and Genre. Students analyze, make inferences and draw conclusions about theme and genre in different cultural, historical, and contemporary contexts and provide evidence from text to support understanding. Students are expected to: (A) compare and contrast works of literature that express a universal theme; (5) Reading/Comprehension of Literary Text/Fiction. Students understand, make inferences and draw conclusions about structure and elements of fiction and provide evidence from text to support understanding. Students are expected to: (A) analyze how complex plot structures (e.g., subplots) and devices (e.g., foreshadowing, flashbacks, suspense) function and advance action in a work of fiction; (B) analyze the moral dilemmas and quandaries presented in works of fiction as revealed by underlying motivations and behaviors of characters; (7) Reading/Comprehension of Literary Text/Sensory Language. Students understand, make inferences and draw conclusions about how an author's sensory language creates imagery in literary text and provide evidence from text to support understanding. Students are expected to analyze how the author's patterns of imagery, perspectives while anticipating and refuting counter-arguments; (D) uses a style manual (e.g., Modern Language Association, Chicago Manual of Style) to document sources and format written materials; and (E) is of sufficient length and complexity to address the topic. (25) Listening and Speaking/Speaking. Students speak clearly and to the point, using conventions of language. Students will continue to apply earlier standards with greater complexity. Students are expected to formulate sound arguments by using elements of classical speeches (e.g., introduction, first and second transitions, body, and conclusion), the art of persuasion, rhetorical devices, eye contact, speaking rate (e.g., pauses for effect), volume, enunciation, purposeful gestures, and conventions of language to communicate ideas effectively tone, and create meaning in metaphors, passages, and literary works (8) Reading/Comprehension of Informational Text/Culture and History. Students analyze, make inferences and draw conclusions about the author's purpose in cultural, historical, and contemporary contexts and provide evidence from text to support (understanding. Students are expected to analyze consistency and clarity of expression of the controlling idea and ways in which organizational and rhetorical patterns of text support or confound the author's meaning or purpose. (12) Reading/Media Literacy. Students use comprehension skills to analyze how words, images, graphics, and sounds work together in various forms to impact meaning. Students will continue to apply earlier standards with greater depth in increasingly more complex texts. Students are expected to: (C) evaluate how one issue or event is represented across various media to understand notions of bias, audience, and purpose; (13) Writing/Writing Process. Students use elements of the writing process (planning, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing) to compose text. Students are expected to: (A) plan a first draft by
selecting correct genre for conveying intended meaning to multiple audiences, determining appropriate topics through a range of strategies (e.g., discussion, background reading, personal interests, interviews), and developing a thesis or controlling idea; (B) structure ideas in a sustained and persuasive way (e.g., using outlines, note taking, graphic organizers, lists) and develop drafts in timed and open-ended situations that include transitions and the rhetorical devices to convey meaning; (C) revise drafts to clarify meaning and achieve specific rhetorical purposes, consistency of tone, and logical organization by rearranging words, sentences, and paragraphs to employ tropes (e.g., metaphors, similes, analogies, hyperbole, understatement, rhetorical questions, irony), schemes (e.g., parallelism, antithesis, inverted word order, repetition, reversed structures), and by adding transitional words and phrases; literary allusions, and conceits reveal theme, set tone, and create meaning in metaphors, passages, and literary works (8) Reading/Comprehension of Informational Text/Culture and History. Students analyze, make inferences and draw conclusions about the author's purpose in cultural, historical, and contemporary contexts and provide evidence from text to support understanding. Students are expected to analyze the consistency and clarity of expression of the controlling idea and ways in which organizational and rhetorical patterns of text support or confound the author's meaning or purpose. (12) Reading/Media Literacy. Students use comprehension skills to analyze how words, images, graphics, and sounds work together in various forms to impact meaning. Students will continue to apply earlier standards with greater depth in increasingly more complex texts. Students are expected to: (C) evaluate how one issue or event is represented across various media to understand notions of bias, audience, and purpose; (13) Writing/Writing Process. Students use elements of the writing process (planning, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing) to compose text. Students are expected to: (A) plan a first draft by selecting correct genre for conveying intended meaning to multiple audiences, determining appropriate topics through a range of strategies (e.g., discussion, background reading, personal interests, interviews), and developing a thesis or controlling idea; (B) structure ideas in a sustained and persuasive way (e.g., using outlines, note taking, graphic organizers, lists) and develop drafts in timed and open-ended situations that include transitions and rhetorical devices to convey meaning; (C) revise drafts to clarify meaning and achieve specific rhetorical purposes, consistency of tone, and logical organization by rearranging words, sentences, and paragraphs to employ tropes (e.g., metaphors, similes, analogies, hyperbole, understatement, rhetorical questions, irony), schemes (e.g., parallelism, antithesis, inverted word order, repetition, reversed structures), and by adding transitional words and phrases; (D) edit drafts for grammar, mechanics, and spelling; and (E) revise final draft in response to feedback from peers and teacher and publish written work for appropriate audiences. (14) Writing/Literary Texts. Students write literary texts to express their ideas and feelings about real or imagined people, events, and ideas. Students are responsible for at least two forms of literary writing. Students are expected to: (A) write an engaging story with a welldeveloped conflict and resolution, a clear theme, complex and non-stereotypical characters, a range of literary strategies (e.g., dialogue, suspense), devices to enhance the plot, and sensory details that define the mood or tone; (B) write a poem that reflects an awareness of (D) edit drafts for grammar, mechanics, and spelling; and (E) revise final draft in response to feedback from peers and teacher and publish written work for appropriate audiences poetic conventions and traditions within different forms (e.g., sonnets, ballads, free verse); and (C) write a script with an explicit or implicit theme, using a variety of literary techniques. (15) Writing/Expository and Procedural Texts. Students write expository and procedural or workrelated texts to communicate ideas and information to specific audiences for specific purposes. Students are expected to: (A) write an analytical essay of sufficient length that includes: (i) effective introductory and concluding paragraphs and a variety of sentence structures; (ii) rhetorical devices, and transitions between paragraphs; (iii) a clear thesis statement or controlling idea; (iv) a clear organizational schema for conveying ideas; (v) relevant and substantial evidence and wellchosen details; (vi) information on all relevant perspectives and consideration of validity, reliability, and relevance of primary and secondary sources; and (vii) an analysis of views and information that
contradict the thesis statement and the evidence presented for it; (C) write an interpretation of an expository or a literary text that: (i) advances a clear thesis statement; (ii) addresses the writing skills for an analytical essay including references to and commentary on quotations from the text; (iii) analyzes the aesthetic effects of an author's use of stylistic or rhetorical devices; Clarification of any potentially controversial segments and why the text remains a suitable choice, despite being potentially controversial Three murders, including one of a child; a man who robs graves; an execution; suicide Similar Works: Dracula by Bram Stoker Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde References: "Frankenstein." Novels for Students. Ed. Diane Telgen. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale, 1997. 180-202. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 7 Apr. 2015. Wolfson, Susan J. and Ronald Levao. Why Frankenstein is the Greatest Horror Novel Ever. Publishers Weekly. 26 October 2012. Web. 7 April 2015.