Welcome to the first ever ESA Virtual Book Club!

Hello, Peeps!

If you're reading this, you are either a Brit Lit Scholar, a Landy, or a friend of The Landys. Welcome! I'm so glad that you have chosen to participate in our group reading of Shelley's Frankenstein. For each of the assigned readings, you will see discussion questions to which you are encouraged to respond. Feel free to pose follow-up questions for the group, offer critical or philosophical commentary, or just write what you feel about the text.

Thanks again for logging on. You rock!

Truly,

Kathleen Landy

5.17.2007

Reading Assignment #2 - Discussion Question A

Chapters 4 & 5 are due on Monday.
In your own words, what did Frankenstein want to accomplish and why?

Reading Assignment #2 - Discussion Question B

Chapters 4 & 5 are due on Monday.
Consider the following statements by Victor

I paused, examining and analyzing all the minutiae of causation, as exemplified in the change from life to death and death to life until from the midst of this darkness a sudden light broke in upon me - a light so brilliant and wondrous, yet so simple, that while I bedcame dizzy with the immensity of the prospect it illustrated, I was surprised that among so many men of genius, who had directed their inquiries toward the same science, that I alone should be reserved to discover so astonishing a secret.
Remember, I am not recording the vision of a madman. ... Some miracle might have produced it, yet the stages of the discovery were distinct and probable. After days and nights of incredible labor and fatigue, I succeeded in discovering the cause of generation and life; nay, more, I became myself capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter.

In your own words, what did Mary Shelley seem to think about Frankenstein's ambitions?

Reading Assignment #2 - Discussion Question C

Chapters 4-5 are due Monday.
In your opionion, what public figure (celebrity, politician, etc...) is bold enough to wish upon the world a second version of him- or herself?

5.16.2007

Reading Assignment #1 - Discussion Question A

Chapters 1-3 are due Thursday.
Based on what you have read thus far, to what extent do you feel Elizabeth fits the role of a typical female in a Gothic novel?

Reading Assignment #1 - Discussion Question B

Chapters 1-3 due Thursday.
Consider the following statement by Victor.

I had a contempt for the uses of modern natural philosophy. It was very different when the masters of the science sought immortality and power; such views, although futile, were grand: but now the scene was changed. The ambition of the inquirer (scientist) seemed to limit itself to the annihilation of those visions on which my interest in science was chiefly founded. I was required to exchange chimeras (mental illusions) of boundless grandeur for realities of little worth.

Does this statement render Victor more or less sympathetic? What does this quote reveal about Victor's pesonality?

Reading Assignment #1 - Discussion Question C

Chapters 1-3 are due on Thursday.
Consider the following statement by M. Waldman (made in Chapter 3, during a conversation with Victor)

The labours of men of genius, however erroneously misguided, scarcely ever fail in ultimately turning to the solid advantage of mankind.

Do we agree with this statement? Support your answer, if possible, with an example of a particular scientific achievement and an explanation of how mankind did or did not benefit from the inquiry/application.

5.15.2007

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