The Ending

I wasn't expecting this ending. I did nto think that this many people would end up dying. I thought there would be some big epic battle between Frankenstein and his monster or there would be a giant uproar in the town and they would riot against the monster until he died. BUt in the end, the monster is one of the few to actually survive the story. It was a very good and interesting ending but I was just expecting something a lot different because of my preconceived notions coming into the novel. I really liked how it tied the beginning letters which allowed the story to catch up to the point in which it started and progress from there. As a whole, I really enjoyed the novel.

Dr. Frankenstein=The Monster

Dr. Frankenstein and the monster share severals parallels. They both lead very lonely lives, and every attempt to fix this results in more apin and suffering. They are both searching for some sort of knowledge. Franksenstein is seeking knowledge of the natural world, while the monster is seeking knowledge of the human society. When Frankenstein ruins the monster's chances of finding a compatible mate, he destroys Dr. Frankenstein's chances by killing Elizabeth. They always have to even out theplaying field, so that neither will maintain a more happy life. In the end, they both either die or leave as a sad and lonely man without any family and success.

Before and After

My vision of what Frankenstein was has drastically changed after reading this novel. Through movies and television, I have a vision of the monster as a tall green square-headed monster that waddles and moans with its arms held out in front of him. The Frankenstein depicted in SHelley's novel does not walk in this way and is very educated and speak fluently. This surprised me while reading the novel because I thought I had a good idea of who the monster was coming in. I have never seen a version of Frankenstein that had that big of a vocabulary. The media changed this image in order to make a more entertaining and scary version of the monster. A monster who uses big words and reads Paradise Lost is just not as scary as a silent monster chasing you throught the street.

Sad and Lonely

I cannot help but feel bad for the monster. He tries so desperatly to fit into regular human society but fails each time. He learns the language, studies behavioral movements, and even contributes his own labor to help the family in the cottage. But everytime he shows his face in public people are shocked and scared and try to fight him off. The monster is a very simple minded person who just wants to be accepted, but is constantly rejected. He then goes on to live a very sad and lonely life where he regrets even being created because even the one who made him fears his appearance.

Not a Scientist

Even after writing a novel about a scientist with many imprtant themes of knowledge and science, Mary Shelley is not very well educated in this field. A reader paying close attention can find several holes in her scientific argument. One of which is how can a dead body of one man have become a eight foot man with super strength. The fact that this is a fantasy novel should allow the reader to suspend belief in order to get wwhat the suthor is truly trying to say in its themes. THe science does not have to be 100% correct in order for the reader to recognize the themes in the novel. This book has several lessons about prejudgment and how our actrions affect others. Mary Shelley may not have been a scientist but she could articulate a good moral story.

Natural Vs. Unnatural

Dr. Frankenstein is facinated with the natural world. He made it his life goal to study the works of the natural, an dis in awe when he loooks out at the beauty of nature. He studied natural philosophy and has a basic understanding of what the natural world is. So why then did he create the unnatural being of the monster. He created him because the monster symbolized the unknown to him and an eagerness to learn. However when he realized that the monster was not natural it scared him and caused regret and panic.

Theme

There seem to themes of fate and how events are inevitable and unchangable. Frankenstein is faced with the death of several members of his family. He takes responsibility because he blames the creation of the monster as the source. However, he knows that he is unable to change these events and that whatever is supposed to happen will end up happening. He accepts his fate even though it is hard. He works to prevent future destruction but knows that in the end it is not up to him to decide.

Impending Doom

The entire novel so far, including the letters, have had a sense of a forthcoming doom. Not only the fact that this is a monster book, but also the way she writes gives the reader a sense of more bad things about to happen. For example, the character of Frankenstein immediatly regrets his creation of the monster and goes into a state of shock. If his own creator expressed regret, then that must mean that more bad things are soon to follow. The novel has a feel of death like the amount of death around them and the use f dead bodies to create the novel give it a creepy feel.

Lightning

Victor Frankenstein's discovery of powers of lighting in the second chapter forshadow future events. Eventually, Frankenstein will use lightning to create his monster. I think it is interesting that it gives this back story on how he learned his information and how his facination started. Without these crucial details in plot, the reader would be left confused as to how and why Frankenstein decided to create his monster.

Frame Story

The novel begins with a series of letters detailing a man's journey and his relationship with the man they found. The man promises to tell his story which sets up the main story dealing with Frankenstein. This is an interesting plot device because it provides a differnt angle to telling the story. At the beginning, I expected the story to begin with the regular story that everyone knows. I was surprised to see that the novel takes a different approach in order to tell the story.

Sane or Insane?

It is a topic of great debate among literary critics but in my opinion Billy Pilgrim went insane due to his involvement in the war. Since this is an anti-war book, Vonnegut would want to show some of the negative effects war has on its soldiers. The major reason I think that it is all in his head is that the books that Billy was reading by Kilgore Trout had the same storylines of the events that Billy was supposedly taking part in. THe majority of his family also believed him to be insane because he lost so much in the war and his wife once he got home. Vonegut uses the characters insanity to show war's effect on the mind.

The Children's Crusade

The novel has a subtitle of The Children's Crusade A Duty-Dance with Death. Vonnegut had promised Mary O'Hare that he would show that the people fighting in these wars were children who were not yet old enough to truly understand the destruction and pain of war. They still had a sense of innocence and Vonnegut tried to portray that for Mary through his character of Billy Pilgrim. Billy had a sense of childlike attitude to everything in the war. It did not seem as if the war had any effect on him until he finally gave up and cried.

Poo-tee-weet?

Before the story started, Vonnegut warned the reader that his novel would begin with "Listen: Billy Pilgrim has become unstuck in time" and end with "poo-tee-weet?" In the introduction chapter, Vonnegut said that after such destruction like Dresden the only thing that can be said is by the birds. The end of the novel shows Billy and his war friends finally leaving the destruction of war and Dresden behind. It ends by saying that he could hear the birds saying poo-tee-weet. This is the authors way of leaving the antiwar ideals to the reader to decide. He described the situation and all that could be said was poo-tee-weet.

God grant me the serenity...

This famous prayer reoccurs throughout the novel. This is yet another argument for the novel's major theme of fate. The prayer asks God to give the person the ability to "accept the things [they] cannot change." Vonnegut brings up religion in the book by lessening the effect of Jesus and religion by discussing the views of those on Tralfamadore. He disagrees with the Church's interpreatation of Jesus. Vonnegut uses the ideas of religion to reiterate his ideas on fate.

*****

Vonnegut uses the plot to explain some of his own literary techniques. He groups an idea consisting of a few paragraphs between to sets of stars. The people of Tralfamadore said that they read by looking at main ideas in clusters. I found it interesting that he would connect his own writing style directly with the plot of the book. This further proves the author's support of the Tralfamadore's lifestyle. To the author Tralfamadore seemed to be a Utopia compared to Earth.

Favorite Quote

One of my favorite quotes so far in the novel is "take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I've said before, bugs in amber." This quote speaks a lot to me because it says how we must live each moment of our lives to the very fullest. We are unable to change the unfortunate things that happen, but we can learn how to deal with them with a positive attitude. We are bugs in amber because the only thing that matters is that present situation. If one focuses too much on either the past or the future, then they lose track of how to live a happy life in the present. By focusing on pains or even successes in the past, one loses sight of how they should be living thir life in the present.

Fate Vs. Free Will

One of the major themes of the novel is the argument between fate and free will. The novel argues strongly in the side of destiny. The aliens of Tralfamadore said that the "moment simply is... here we are... trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why." Destiny leads people to the present location without reason or explanation. This is the struggle of Billy Pilgrim. He is going on the journey of his life over and over again to maybe see or relearn something of importance from his past, present, and future. He cannot change his situation, so he must learn how to deal with the hand he is dealt by destiny. Vonnegut is illustrating this idea of destiny with these visions of Billy's flashes through time.

Adam and Eve

On page 95, Vonnegut makes a biblical allusion to Adam and Eve. He is describing how he wished that war movies would be played backwards. He showed how this would erase all of the death, sadness, and pain caused by war. This reversal would eventually lead to the creation of two perfect people of Adam and Eve. He hoped for a second chance where humanity would learn from its mistakes and try and avoid war in the future. However, I think he alluded to Adam and Eve to demonstrate the natural human flaws every person shares. Humans by nature share in the inevitability of pain and suffering.