Monday, December 19, 2011

Paper topics

Dysfunctional Parent-Child Relationships
·         Fannie’s father—alcoholic
·         Fannie’s mother—favoritism for youngest daughter
·         Fannie’s surrogate father—Sir Thomas
·         Fannie’s surrogate mothers (2)
·         Wordsworth’s “Lucy Gray”
·         Victor Frankenstein & father
·         Waltons & parents
·         Frankenstein & monster
Substance abuse, favoritism, neglect, verbal/emotional abuse, idleness,  enforced servitude, 


Most Used Words in Multiple Languages

Postpartum depression for Dr. Frankenstein?

Frankenstein: relationship/incompatibility of pursuit of knowledge and responsibility

 How do you think the reader was supposed to see the monster?
  • creature NOT monster -- product of environment and bad/lack of nurturing
    • NO NAME!!
  • has become monster in pop culture:
    • rendered silent (power to speak in novel brings logic, but also pre-meditated crimes & reasonable cause/motivation, gives the ability to lie)
    • recipient of letters remains silent. Elizabeth (mother of Dr. F) is silence
What does it mean to be human?
  • monster is nearly equivalent to child soldier
  • education's role (Walton V. Victor V. monster...structured differently if at all?)
  • "eloquent liars and justifiers"
Disillusionment with Religion & Rise of Pantheism
  • Rejection of Religion (Frankenstein)
  • "Holy Thursday", "The Lamb", "Garden of Love", "The Shepherd" -- critical of organized religion
  • "Mont Blanc", "Tintern Abbey", "Kubla Khan" -- Nature IS religion
  • "Intimations Ode" -- mourns loss of connection to divinity over time. Hints of return to Christianity
    • Examine link to Plato's Phaedrus (two horses metaphor)
Romantic Lit foreshadows. Suggests that we support Green causes & respect Nature.
  • Industrialism detrimental to nature
  • Industrialism harms parent-child relationship
  • Church and government go against nature, organizing/privatizing property
  • Society's influence on parenting (Science is not always good for mankind -- Frankenstein)
Rime of the Ancient Mariner VS The Black Freighter

    Look (back) at these topics

    • Stanley Milgram's Experiements on Obedience
    • "Group Minds" by Doris Lessing
    • Summary / Review / Criticism (distinguish between)
    • Walter van Tilburg Clark's "The Portable Phonograph"
    • Edgar Allan Poe
    • H.P. Lovecraft
    • F. Scott Fitzgerald
    • FDR
    • Winston Churchill
    • Galileo
    • Saddam Hussein
    • College Thinking: How to Get the Best out of College by Jack W. Meiland
    • Sinclair Lewis
    • Trauma narratives from 20th c World Lit
    • "Notes on Trauma and Community" by Kai Erikson
    • The Flawed Angel (biography of Byron)
    • "A Defence of Poetry" by Shelley
    • Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
    •  "The Defense of Lady Byron" by Harriet Beecher Stowe
    • The Anxiety of Influence
    • Marilyn Butler