Sappy Do You Remember What The Bad Take About Frankenstein And Mary Shelley Was Please Spill

ok but walton if you look at the letters in the beginning, while i wouldnt go so far as to say he's a neglected child (we dont get nearly enough insight into his background to make those kind of assumptions) his parents were definitely, at the very least, not very present in walton's life or influential to him growing up. from my memory his mother is literally never mentioned, and the sole mentions of his father are fleeting. simply: 1) he didnt support waltons childhood dreams and interests in sailing and expeditions/discovery 2) he died, leaving walton an orphan to be raised by his older sister margaret 3) his fathers literal dying wish was for walton to never be a mariner. so while i am in no way suggesting his childhood was near as bad as the creature's, or even victor's, i think its incorrect to suggest that walton was completely blind and ignorant to neglect and parental conflict

"victor's creature would kinda be justified in not feeling bad" but he DID feel bad and therein, to me, is where his fault lies. i feel as if the creature would have felt no empathy, no care at all for victor or those lives he was taking, then i would actually blame him for his actions less -- because what creature did was murder innocent people, and destroy victors life, all while understanding and FEELING that it was bad. he did it anyways, while actively going against his own morality

creature "doesnt really like humans and kills them" is incorrect, his reason for killing them was NEVER because he didnt like them, its because he chose to murder for revenge while simultaneously wishing he could be part of the humanity he was destroying, which is why he was so distraught and upset when he was ostracized and met with their fear and hatred every time. because he LIKED THEM, he in his sort of parasocial way LOVED them and wanted to be loved and accepted by them

and walton sees this! which is what his whole speech and their interaction at the end is about! he sees the creatures humanity, he knows creatures life stories and feels for his misfortunes and is moved by his words and expressions of sadness, and even sympathizes with him in a way literally no one else in the book does, yet he also recognizes that creature actively chose to turn away from his innate humanity and goodness and consciously choose violence and revenge instead, while knowing and feeling what he was doing was wrong, and That is why walton condemns creature

"do you think he had enough for a conscience for morality when he was neglected by his own fucking creator???" this line is just funny to me. Because thats. Thats the point of the whole book. That he had a conscience for morality despite his horrific situation

im not going to get into the whole victor-abandoned-creature and the bride-situation because ive talked about it a Lot in the past and this post is already too long. sorry for dumping this all on you months after you made this post its all for the sake of literary analysis and walton is my babygirl i had to jump to his defense 🙏 🙏

walton = big dumb stupid head

it is so weird to me that despite hearing the same tale from victor that we have, when walton hears of victor's creature wailing over victor's death he's basically like:

"erm actually maybe if you listened to your concisnece nothing would have happened l + ratio + bozo!!"

like c'monnNn walton,, do you think he had enough for a conscience for morality when he was neglected by his own fucking creator??? and even then tbh victor's creature would kinda be justified in not feeling bad since again victor ran immediately and has been very against giving his creation a second chance, permanently at least with his bride and all.

and its like gee maybe the guy who lived on his own forever and who humans treated HORRIBLY doesn't really like humans and kills them? :0 woaaa walton crazy shit right there. Idk i just-like i like victor and all but c'mon man you don't neglect ur kid but if u do don't be surprised at the consequences and walton, walton just shut the fuck up

Another twitter meme

Og

it's so funny that Frankenstein's Adam is a committed and full vegetarian. like, yes, here is one of the most famous Halloween monsters. What does he eat? Blood? Brains? Flesh? Children? No. Nuts and berries.

victor “i'm not mad i'm not a madman please believe me" frankenstein and his constant assertions that he’s not insane throughout the whole novel only to become the foundation for the mad scientist trope. puts head in hands

creature 4 big booms 💥💥💥💥

i dont headcanon anything i simply know the truth the characters told me

Feeling some kind of way about these passages from one of the books I've been consulting for my project on melancholia, which was written by Johann Freitag, who lived from 1587-1654.

In it, Freitag (who was a doctor) talks about how difficult it is to cure melancholy, and how patients often grow depressed, suspicious, and angry over the fact that their symptoms persist for months, years, or even their whole lives. He also describes melancholy as an "insolent guest, who doesn't obey the guest-rules" -- a description I absolutely love, in part because it sounds an awful lot like the way my friends and I talk about our own mental illnesses today.

The whole section just feels so true to my own experiences with mental illness (particularly fairly treatment-resistant mental illness), hundreds of years later. It's exactly why I chose this topic for my research project, and really incredible to me.

characters in frankenstein commonly to refer to each other as “dear” or “my dear” throughout the novel, but victor and henry are the only ones who mutually address eachother as “my dearest”

desperately need a dude i can nickname “sweet elf,” who hasn’t slept in 3 days, is vegetarian, translates plato for fun, got kicked out of oxford at the age of 18 for penning the first pro-atheism work in the english language and mailing it to every bishop in england, distributes political pamphlets in handmade hot air balloons, hallucinates from stress, plays with paper boats and rocks while declaring these to be serious forms of scientific experimentation, hangs out with lord byron, casually writes some of the greatest poetry in the english language but then threatens to quit constantly because he’s not famous yet, is convinced he is dying of consumption despite no proof, blows things up with gunpowder unprovoked, and is addicted to sailing as fast as possible while refusing to learn how to swim.

incest in frankenstein is not always literal but often manifests through the merging of roles--for example, caroline makes elizabeth into an extension of herself, shaping her into a replacement maternal figure who then becomes victor's bride. caroline's actions suggest a deferred form of incestuous desire (particularly when considering victor's nightmare where elizabeth turns into caroline and he kisses her)--she does not act on it herself but instead uses elizabeth as an intermediary, crafting her in her own image and ensuring she remains within the family unit as both daughter, sister and wife. in doing so, elizabeth not only fulfills the role of wife to victor but also the role of wife to alphonse, as she becomes his quote "more than daughter." given this history, victor's act of creation becomes more than just a scientific endeavor--it is, in a sense, an unconscious repetition of the generational cycle of misplaced desire. victor talks about his creature during the creation process in ways that strongly resemble euphemisms for sexual transgression (as much as people who favor the creature-as-son interpretation don’t like to acknowledge this): he describes a night of feverish anticipation, bodily toil, and an act of creation or "birth" conducted in solitude, followed by overwhelming regret and self-loathing the moment he sees what hes done. there is, too, the same blurring of boundaries between victor and the creature that is a running theme within the rest of the frankensteins: creator and created, parent and child, self and other. victor's disgust at his creature, then, is twofold: he is repulsed by its monstrous form, yes, but he is also repulsed by what it represents--his own participation in perpetuating an ongoing legacy of psuedo-incest. when the creature demands a mate, this dynamic becomes more pronounced. the creature essentially asks victor to complete the incestuous cycle by providing him with a bride, a second creature formed in the same manner, what would technically be the creature's sister; victor's destruction of the female creature suggests an almost violent reaction to his own subconscious recognition of the pattern he is repeating. it is significant then that he chooses, though without realizing it, to break this cycle of abuse by refusing to comply to a marriage between siblings like his mother did to him and elizabeth.