Frankenstein notes

The novel Frankenstein could be seen as;

a discussion of 'good' and 'evil'
a discussion of the Nature/Nurture debate
a criticism of social attitudes (showing the dangers of ostracising people on unreasonable, prejudiced grounds)
a statement of the need to respect the Creator and Creation
a criticism of (male) Prometheanism
a warning of what happens when we teach our children that property, wealth and high status are important, but available only to a few
a birth anxiety narrative
a criticism of Percy Shelley as an absentee father
a statement of the need for family and friendship
a condemnation of man's rejection of 'normal' (socially sanctioned) sexuality
an exploration of the idea of the noble savage

Frankenstein can be seen as ,,, A warning to man not to mess with God

The amounts of deaths the creation has caused – chain reaction
- God’s punishment
- ‘Destiny was too potent and her immutable laws had decreed my utter and terrible destruction’

Does he create the monsters bride or not? – Already went against God once
- Where does he stop?
- Already worked it out once and would be easy to do again

Belittling God’s powers- God’s powers are unique

God created man, therefore man should be allowed to be intelligent – He created man in his image and if He is capable of creation, why can’t man?
- Under minding religion

The evolution of science – science goes against religion
- Much of this reflects the context of Industrial Revolution, and the simultaneous excitement and threat of new technology

Failed science – experiment going wrong

Subtitled ‘The Modern Prometheus’ à CONTEXT!

‘Great God’ – almost ironic because Victor is currently opposing God’s talent
-blasphemy

if Victor had stood by the monster would he have done what he did

The Bloody Chamber Key Ideas

The key ideas with in the short stories in The Bloody Chamber are as followed;

• virginity/purity this is a key focus through out The Bloody Chamber ( the young girl's loss of virginity could be a symbol of her corruption., The Lady of the House of Love ( the sodiers virginity over powers the countess and intrigues her) and The Snow Child ( created from all pure objects around her. 'White snow' she is initially pure and innocent.
• solitude seen in 'Wolf-Alice' (the duke and alice are both not fully human and therefore cannot connect with society) and in The Lady of the Hosue of Love ( she is lonely because she is a vampiress and can never love)
• fairytales the fairytales the stories used are; bluebeard, beauty and the beast, snow white, sleeping beauty and little red riding hood.
• betrayal
• death
• feminism & women women are seen to act in a certain way. women are usually seen as sexually deviant, an old wench or have no place in society.
• nature
• animals
• love
• deformity & transformation & anthropomorphism
• sexuality & violence The Bloody Chamber shows sexuala violence along with the Snow Child. The Bloody Chamber we see the Marquis is sexually deviant and has sexual books in his study which show violence during sex. Snow Child we see the child getting raped and necrophillia is also present.
• mirrors The Bloody Chamber story shows the use of mirrors because the main male character has mirrors all around the bedroom which gives the feeling that he is always watching, it also makes him feel that he has more then the one wife as her reflection is in every mirror.
• flowers (roses) Roses are used to with in the Snow Child (the rose kills the young girl at the end) and also in The Lady of the House of Love ( the rose survives)

'Drawing upon at least two stories from The Bloody Chamber explores the ways in which Carter might be considered to re-interpret gothic conventions'.

In this essay I will be discussing the ways in which author Angela Carter could be considered to re-interpret gothic conventions within her horror stories from The Bloody Chamber.

Firstly, Carter isn’t the usual typical gothic author as her book The Bloody Chamber stories are based around fairy tales. Her twist on the modern fairytales is very shocking as she doesn’t leave them with a happy ending but she focuses on the gritty parts of a story. She includes pornographic images, necrophilia, entrapment and the shock factor.

Also within her stories she has many gothic elements which actually make these ‘adult’ fairytales gothic literature.

In the story, ‘The Lady of the House of Love’, which is based on the fairytale Sleeping Beauty, we see a Vampiress who is unhappy with her life as she has to get her old house keeper to lure unexpecting men to her house for her survival.
Within this novel we see very subtle gothic elements:
Angela Carter has set her story in an old house. We see a castle/old house as a gothic element because they give an eerie feel to a story as they are linked to abandonment and hidden passageways etc. This links into how she has made the Vampiress as a lonely character who longs for commitment.
A second gothic element in this story is that of an ancient prophecy. Within this short story we see that the Vampiress’ prophecy is to kill to survive (this could also be seen as a curse as she doesn’t actually like to do this she has to). This links in with other gothic literature such as Macbeth; whose prophecy is to become King and goes about making this prophecy a reality.
An unexpecting gothic element in this story is that it contains a woman in distress. It is unexpecting because the Vampiress isn’t the typical damsel in distress as you would expect, the distress that she endures is psychological as she doesn’t want to be who she is.

In the story of ‘The Snow Child’ Carter uses death and necrophilia to make a reinterpretation of the fairy tale Snow White. Carter uses these as it gives the very simple and straight story a gothic twist. She doesn’t do it in a in your face way as she doesn’t set the story in a dingy ancient castle or a dark dank woods but in a beautiful setting with freshly laid snow which then leads to the subtle way in which she shocks the reader. The subtle twist of the Count raping the young girls dead body after eh had created her, gives the story the dark twist.

Angela Carters story of ‘The Bloody Chamber’ focuses on the sexuality and desire. The story talks about a young naïve girl who marries a wealthy Count who has several past wives which have disappeared.
The story is set in a huge house on the sea which the girl has full reign of but is forbidden to go into the Counts chamber which gives an atmosphere of mystery and suspense. The girl goes against his wishes and enters the chamber where she comes across a gruesome sight of all his past wives who he had murdered in cold blood.


In her descriptions of the main protagonist in ‘‘Wolf Alice’ she uses words which make the protagonist animalistic. For example howls, trots, gallops and paws. All of these words are used to describe the way in which animals move or what animals own. This makes the character almost inhuman.

In conclusion, Angela Carter can be seen as a gothic writer as she uses many of the different elements are required to make a text gothic literature.

The Snow Child

I thought that The Snow Child was a very strange and to the point story, which i enjoyed. I liked the fact that Angela Carter got the point across very quickly without having to go into too much unrelevant detail. I thought the shock factor was very well done as it left alot to the imagination as the sex scene was described in very little detail. I wasnt expected necrophilia at all through out the story so the shock factor really affected me which i enjoyed. Another thing i liked was that the moral of the story was 'Be careful what you wish for' I think this because the thing the count wanted most was this perfect young girl, with no flaws in her appearance, eventhough he had a wife; Angela Carter has left it to the readers imagination of what the Countess looks like. I think that this young girl could have been what the Countess looked like when she was younger and the Count wanted to bring that spark back when he conjured her. I

Blog Essay Summary Chapter 16

To what extent do you sympathsis with Frankensteins monster?

Talk about how the creature is feeling and his human emotions. Is his thought evil or are they the way that any normal human being would feel when they have experienced the same amount of regection as him.

"I could with pleasure destroyed the cottage"
"unable to injure anything human, I turned my fury to inanimate objects"

This shows his human qualities which are no where near evil which everyone has tarnished him with.

Talk about his large range of emotions;

• anger
• tiredness
• upset
• fury
• calmness
• revenge
• frightened
• pity
• lonliness

When he killed, talk about the reasons behind it. He feels guilty but also has a sense of satisfaction with it.

He only wanted the young child to be his companion as he is lonely. He thinks that the child isnt someone who will look down on him. He thinks he can teach the child to be a friend.

"the little creature was unprejudice"

He also wants Victor to make him a companion so he doesnt have to go on living alone. He wants a companion who is the same as him so they can sympathsis with each other.

" My companion must be of the same species and have the same defects. This being you mist create"

Talk about how he wants to be free and free will. (links with him being human like)

Link it to the way that society looks at people who are different and have a 'disability'

Reading Journal 2

Act 2.1

In this scene there is;

• Banquo
• Fleance
• Macbeth

At the beginning of the scene we see Banquo and Fleance talking in the hallway as Banquo cant sleep due to a cursed sleep. Whilst in the hall Macbeth makes turns up and Banquo is surprised to see him. Banquo then informs Macbeth that the King is asleep and that he has been drreaming of the witches the ( three weird sisters) and how that there has been truth in their phophecy for Macbeth. Macbeth then replies with a denial about thinking about the witches but then they agree to talk about the witches phophecies at a later time.

Banquo and Fleance leave and then Macbeth sees a vision of a dagger. He then ponders wether it is real of a creration of his mind. The dagger then has blood appear on it, Macbeth then decides its a vision as he isnt sure about killing Duncan. A bell tolls in the background signalling that the guards are asleep .

Macbeth then goes to Duncans room.

Act 2,2

In this scene there is;

• Macbeth
• Lady Macbeth

Lady Macbeth is thinking that as she is speaking Macbeth is brutally killing the king, she then talks about how she would have done it herself if he didnt remind her of her father. ( Had he not resembled My father as he slept, I had done't )

This shows that not only is it Macbeth that is acting out of character and losing his mind but also how Lady Macbeth is, this shows that she is also willing to do anything to make the witches prophecy of Macbeth becoming King a reality as soon as possible.

Macbeth is startled by the guards and he thought he heard the guards shout out. ( 'Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep - innocent sleep) Lady Macbeth then tries to comfort him but then she gets angry when she notices that he has kept the daggers on the guards.

After Lady Macbeth has gone and put the daggers on the guards, she then ges back to Macbeth and says that they should then clean up and become watchers of Duncans death. (Retire we to our chamber. A little water clears us of this deed;) and (Get on your nightgown, lest occasion call us And show us to be watchers.)

This shows how relentless Lady Macbeth is. It shows that she is so callous and cruel as she doesnt care and worry about how Macbeth is feeling after committing murder, all she cares about is the prophecy. She talks about a little water is all that is needed for Macbeth to forget the murder as that is all that is needed to get rid of the blood. She then thinks that she can go on as usual.

Act 2,3

In this scene there is;

• Porter
• Macduff
• Lennox
• Macbeth
• Lady Macbeth
• Banquo
• Donalbain
• Malcolm

At the beginning of the scene the porter compares himself to a porter at the gates of hell and talks makes reference to the devil. (If a man were porter of hell-gate he should have old turning the key. Knock, knock, knock! Who's there i'the name of Belzebub?) and (Who's there in the other devil's name?) This is yet another reference to the gothic genre as it is refers to Macbeths home as hell and brings in the devil.

Macduff and the Porter then go on to talk about the nights events before, they go on to talk about about what the effects of their drinking caused and how it has left everyone feeling the next day. (Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine. Lechery, sir, it provokes and unprovokes: ir provokes the desire nt it takes away the performance.) and (I have almost slipped the hour.)

The conversation then moves on to the weather of last night being stormy. (between Macbeth and Lennox) ( The night has been unruly. Where we lay, Our chimneys were blown,) This links back to the references of nature and how it has been changing lately, how unexplainable events are happening.

In this scene Macduff finds the King murdered in his chamber. (Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope The Lord's anointed temple and stole thence The life o'the building.) This is the first time we hear about Duncans murder.