1) Over the course of this week, please read Frankenstein by Mary Shelley - Chapters IX - XV (Pages 61-97).
2) Please complete a detailed, comprehensive, blog response, by selecting TWO of the questions below AND direct evidence from the text in your responses. You need not attend to every nuance in each question, but create a response that covers the reading selection and be thinking about what is meaningful about these plot points.
Study Questions:
Ch. IX-XII
1. What does the creature ask of Victor? What does the creature say to Victor? Does his language remind you of another literary work? How good is Victor at performing the role of creator for his creature?
2. Why has the creature caused the deaths of William and Justine? Is he as inherently evil and bloodthirsty as Victor has assumed? What will cause the creature to change? Keep in mind his statement "I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous". What sort of psychological understanding is Shelley showing here?
3. What happens during his first encounters with people? What does he learn about the people who live in the cottage? How does he feel toward them? How does the creature continue to learn about the family he is watching? How might a modern anthropologist or sociologist respond to the creature's methods? What is the condition of the family? How does the creature manage to help them?
4. What things bother the creature when he thinks of discovering himself to the family? How does he respond to his own appearance when he sees it? How does the creature hope to win over the family? How does he respond to the coming of spring?
Chs. XIII-XV
5. What book does Felix use to teach Safie? What does the creature learn from this book? How much of a monster can someone be who can say "but when I heard details of vice and bloodshed, my wonder ceased, and I turned away with disgust and loathing”?
6. What happens when the creature begins to think about himself? How does he compare with the humans described in the book? What questions does he ask himself? How does his knowledge make him feel?
7. What does he learn about human relationships, and how does this make him feel? How did the De Lacey family come to be living in the cottage? How did Safie come to find and join them? What does the creature hope will happen when he talks to De Lacey? What actually happens?
