"He sprung from the cabin window, as he said this, upon the ice-raft which lay close to the vessel. He was soon borne away by the waves, and lost in darkness and distance." - 166
So he's probably offed himself by now, yeah? That's no good. I have decided to re-tell the story in such a way as to make myself feel giddy in spite of all the everybody's-dead-now-ness.
Once upon a time, there was this guy who met a guy who made a guy. And when the guy made the guy, he was like, "I immediately regret this decision."
Then, the guy the guy made was like, "But daaaaad, I can't help it I look different from everybody else!" But nobody listened to him, so he got reeeeal bitter.
All of the guys had a bad case of Seasonal Affective Disorder. When he was feeling particularly cold and lonely, the monster-guy realized that all he wanted was somebody like him.
So he went back to his dad, and he said, "Make me one of thooooooose, or I'll follow you forever and ruin your liiiiiiife!"
^not exactly
So obviously, the dad-type agrees, but then he changes his mind, and everybody gets sad and mad and dead.
"The course of the Rhine below Mayence becomes much more picturesque. The river descends rapidly, and winds between hills, not high, but steep, and of beautiful forms. We saw many ruined castles standing on the edges of precipices, surrounded by black woods, high and inaccessible. This part of the Rhine, indeed, presents a singularly variegated landscape. In one spot you view rugged hills, ruined castles overlooking tremendous precipices, with the dark Rhine rushing beneath; and, on the sudden turn of a promontory, flourishing vineyards with green sloping banks and a meandering river and populous towns occupy the scene." - p. 112
Looook aaaaat myyyy bloooog piiiictuuuuuuure! That's a vineyard along the Rhine! I've never been more delighted at recognizing scenery before. I was there last year on the spring break trip to Germany, and this was my favorite part =D. There were lots of castles that looked like Hogwarts.
The reason there are so many castles is that after the Crusades, knights just sorta plopped down and built them, then made a living by charging tolls.
Also,
"'I have seen,' he said, 'the most beautiful scenes of my own country; I have visited the lakes of Lucerne and Uri, where the snowy mountains descend almost perpendicularly to the water....'" - p. 113
The Alps! We went up a crazy lift to the top of those. A Nice Man told us not to get off when we were halfway up because the lifts don't stop. Also, there is a very frightening/steep/abrupt drop on the way down--I guess because "the snowy mountains descend almost perpendicularly to the water," eh?
I look downright absurd in this picture, but it doesn't matter because I'm in the Alps. Side note: I totally could have gotten lost in Switzerland. I got left behind whilst souvenir shopping. But it's okay because there was a chaperone from another group still in there, and I hung out with her, but it caused quite a stir, apparently.
"During my youthful days discontent never visited my mind; and if I was ever overcome by ennui, the sight of what is beautiful in nature, or the study of what is excellent and sublime in the productions of man, could always interest my heart, and communicate elasticity to my spirits. But I am a blasted tree; the bolt has entered my soul; and I felt then that I should survive to exhibit what I shall soon cease to be--a miserable spectacle of wrecked humanity, pitiable to others, and intolerable to myself." - p. 116-117
Well, I guess that's a metaphor, right? There's no "like" or "as." I can't say I really get it. Do bolts enter the souls of blasted trees often? Is that some sort of crucifixion reference, or do I just think that because tomorrow's Good Friday? Maybe he's saying that he's not "what is beautiful in nature" because he's too discontented. Ergo, he's a "blasted"tree instead of a beautiful, thriving one.
"Oh! stars and clouds and winds, ye are all about to mock me: if ye really pity me, crush sensation and memory; let me become as nought; but if not, depart, depart, and leave me in darkness." - p. 107
I have lots to say about that sentence. Primarily, I can't decide if the talking to the stars and clouds and winds is more personification or an apostrophe or both. Also, I don't like the loosey-goosey grammar rules of the seventeen hundreds that made it okay not to capitalize the words after the interjections. Also also, I am not sure about the colon usage; I feel like they should really both just be semi-colons. (SeewhatIdidthere?!) I guess I can't talk, though, having just written an essay with an incomplete sentence as the first word of the introduction. (I neverever DO that! I just don't. I am thoroughly embarrassed.)
In any case, it's personification because Victor's telling the stars and clouds and winds that they're going to be mocking him any second now, which is simply not normal atmospheric behavior. It still seems kind of like an apostrophe or an invocation, though, because the stars and clouds and winds can't hear his aimless chattering.
"Sweet and beloved Elizabeth!" I read and re-read her letter, and some softened feelings stole into my heart, and dared to whisper paradisiacal dreams of love and joy; but the apple was already eaten, and the angel's arm bared to drive me from all hope." - p. 139
I thought it was interesting how focused the story has been on Adam and Eve parallels. The orange phrase is an allusive way of saying, "...but the deed was done." Mario recognized himself as having been created in a way similar to Adam's creation in Paradise Lost, which I've never read, and then he realized what he was missing--his Eve, apparently. He also made the same mistake of wanting knowledge, wanting to learn the ways and affections of humans, and he started wanting things that society wasn't prepared to provide for him, even if they were due him.
It's unfortunate for Mario because, unlike Adam and Eve, he didn't eat any forbidden apples, at first. It was the problem of Frankenstein having played God when he wasn't prepared to love his creation. That's what prompted Mario's vulnerability to the rest of the terrified and confused world.
P.S. I think Frankenstein's monster is in my house. (Note that I am referring to him as monster again. I don't care how sorry he is. Pooms-pachacha.)
But seriously, my nephew was over, and he was like, "But who eated the Goldfish cwackers?" And I was like, "It wasn't me! I promise! I don't even like them!" And then he was like, "Was it a monster?" and I looked down at the book in my hand and let my mom pick up the answer.
"A new light seemed to dawn upon my mind, and, bounding with joy, I communicated my discovery to my father. My father looked carelessly at the title-page of my book and said, 'Ah! Cornelius Agrippa! My dear Victor, do not waste your time upon this; it is sad trash.'" - p. 20
Agrippa is the famous wizard Ron Weasley most wants to see on a Chocolate Frog Card; he's got about six of Dumbledore already.
Also, "Under the guidance of my new preceptors, I entered with the greatest diligence into the search of the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life; but the latter soon obtained my undivided attention." - p. 21
Checkitout.
On a more academic note, I've noticed that Shelley was very into giving her characters a healthy appreciation of nature. In particular, our dear nameless monster has mentioned the moon at least twice in his account of his life thus far, which seems significant.
"Soon a gentle light stole over the heavens, and gave me a sensation of pleasure. I started up and beheld a radiant form rise from among the trees.*" - p. 71
*The moon [author's footnote].
"By great application, however, and after having remained during the space of several revolutions of the moon in my hovel, I discovered the names that were given to some of the most familiar objects of discourse; I learned and applied the words, 'fire,' 'milk,' 'bread,' and 'wood.'" - p. 78
He first noticed the moon when he was in that particularly overwhelmed-by-conscious-existence state, and I think he's grown sort of attached to it. He now uses it to tell time. I like this guy.
"'Thus I relieve thee, my creator,' he said, and placed his hated hands before my eyes, which I flung from me with violence; 'thus I take from thee a sight which you abhor.'" - p. 70
The monster can talk? I know, Jacob, I was surprised, too. He actually has quite the vocabulary, considering he was just created a few months prior to this scene. I have to wonder what kind of people he's encountered up to this point to acquire such knowledge of language.
Also, I would like to express my sympathy for the monster at this point. He's so scary-looking; I had a Frankenstein bookmark that I made in Kindergarten once, and it made me afraid to go out at night, but Victor ought to know better than that. He created the... fellow. He's right in thinking he has certain duties to him. Babies generally look kinda crazy when they arrive, too, but their parents get over it. This "daemon" hasn't gotten the chance due him. It's not his fault his eyes are yellow. It's Frankenstein's.
P.S. One time, in first grade, I was in the lunch line, and I guess I said something, and the girl behind me went, "You can talk?!" I nodded at her.
It rather annoys me to think that anyone would deliberately place such massive quantities of alliteration/assonance/consonance/what-have-you in a letter closing. Just... who... does that? Yes, yes, very impressive, Mr. Frankenstein. I'm sure your son is very impressed with your skills.
I assume that his purpose was not to annoy me, and I think that's a pretty safe assumption, as he is fictional, and also he is the brainchild of a lady who lived a long time ago who never had any reason to suspect I would exist. In poetry, I suppose it sounds nice, but in a letter closing, it just makes my reading brain-voice feel scared and confused, like my reading voice-voice would have stumbled there, and my brain-voice lucked out.
"People reading tongue twisters silently actually take longer to read tongue twisters than non-tongue-twisting sentences." - Hank Green
So was Shelley just trying to make me take my time? I doubt that she put that much thought into it, really. She was busy coming up with "a" and "f" sounds to put really close together.
"We returned to our college on a Sunday afternoon: the peasants were dancing, and everyone we met appeared gay and happy. My own spirits were high, and I bounded along with feelings of unbridled joy and hilarity." - p. 46
And then... there is a chapter break.
That isn't suspense, precisely. That's more of a "little did he know" situation.
That's not the precise clip I wanted; there's one where Harold Crick's literary professor/consultant flips out on him because he mentions that his narrator voice said, "Little did he know...."
Actually, he says this: "Little did he know. That means there's something he doesn't know, which means there's something you don't know, did you know that? "
What Victor doesn't know at this point is that his happy-skippy times are about to be disrupted. The reader can tell, though, from the placement of the chapter break. It's almost like dramatic irony, except that the audience doesn't actually know something bad is coming. Victor could continue to lead a perfectly content life from that point onward. That would make for some seriously dull reading, though.
I'm going to see John Green in Plainfield tomorrow. *happyskip* Therefore, this happens now.
"No human being could have passed a happier childhood than myself." - p. 19
Oh, Victor... we all know you're hyperbolizing. It's simply not possible that our dear Frankenstein knows all human beings personally. Even with his fancy-schmancy science knowledge, he isn't that advanced. Also, eeeeverybody knows they didn't invent the Thought Police until... well, sometime in the 1900s, presumably, and Frankenstein takes place in the illustrious year of 17__. Good year, that. Anyway, somebody out there probably had a better childhood than Victor Frankenstein did. He clearly doesn't know it, but if he stopped and thought about what he was thinking, he might realize how preposterous such a statement that was, if taken literally. Of course, I suppose happiness is probably a pretty difficult thing to measure, so it'd be pretty hard to prove somebody else had it better. ...But still.
"He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother." - p. 370
I presume this is dramatic irony. It's sort of the kicker, though. Here's why:
The audience senses that Winston's love of Big Brother is not, in fact, a "victory." They have grown to know Winston's character and to identify with his hatred of Big Brother. No one wants him to fall into that terrible conformity. Everybody loves a rebel.
But we just don't know for certain. It's a liiiittle bit ambiguous. If you chose to take as such, you could argue that perhaps Winston loves Big Brother because Big Brother is worthy of Winston's love. More likely, it's a social commentary on the importance of questioning and whatnot.
It's kinda like Inception. Nobody's really sure what's real. Does Winston--the Winston we know to be the true Winston--really love Big Brother? Did Oceania really conquer the whole of Africa? Does the top ever stop turning? Does it even matter?
"He had worked more than ninety hours in five days." - 256
That's eighteen a day, in case you were curious.
"It was only an 'opeless fancy,
It passed like an Ipril dye,
But a look an' a word an' the dreams they stirred
They 'ave stolen my 'eart awye!" - p. 293
...translates to....
"It was only a hopeless fantasy,
It passed like an April day,
But a look and a word and the dreams they stirred
They have stolen my heart away!"
I was never completely clear on the purpose of that lady, except that she made me not like Julia because she insulted her when she was clearly a nice lady (because I guess I trust Winston's judgment of character, which is foolish, as he severely miscalculated with O'Brien).
"'Why,' she added sentimentally, 'I might be your mother!'"
"She might, thought Winston, be his mother." - p. 305
This is followed by a brief calculation of what he remembers of his mother, and then he just forgets about it. It's like he really doesn't care. I just thought it was surprising.
"Perhaps that lunatic dislocation in the mind could really happen: that was the thought that defeated him." - p. 323
The uncertainty of everything pinpointed in that thought was unsettling.
"When you delude yourself into thinking that you see something, you assume that everyone else sees the same thing as you." - p. 325
That reminded me of the theory I have had for a long time that the reason people have different opinions of things is that they don't perceive everything the same way. For instance, what I perceive as purple, maybe another person perceives as what I have come to believe is red. But as long as we agree that the name of the color is purple, we can never know.
"You do not exist." - p. 334
and then
"I think I exist." - p. 335
I wrote, "I think; therefore, I am." I don't know who said that, and I'm running out of time, so I'm simply not going to look it up.
"The earth is the center of the universe. The sun and the stars go round it." - p. 340
We did formerly accept this as fact. It was called the geocentric/Ptolemaic system. We now know we have a heliocentric system.
I always boxed the phrase "Thought Police" because I find that concept highly disturbing and never really grew to understand how exactly they operated.
"If he thinks he floats off the floor, and if I simultaneously think I see him do it, then the thing happens." - p. 352
and then
"It doesn't really happen. We imagine it. It is a hallucination."
This reminded me of an argument I once heard people who don't believe Jesus resurrected promote. They think the apostles suffered a group hallucination when He appeared to them. Also, they probably think oral tradition messes with stories.
"One day--but 'one day' was not the right expression; just as probably it was in the middle of the night: once--he fell into a strange, blissful reverie." - p. 353
That's the craziest sentence structure I've ever seen. Also it reminds me of Happy Gilmore's "happy place," but there's no space for more characters in my pop culture references blog post.
That video is less appropriate than I remembered.
"You must love Big Brother. It is not enough to obey him; you must love him." - p. 357
...but it doesn't matter which, because, as they say, "All happenings are in the mind. Whatever happens in all minds, truly happens." - p. 352
"Most of the time they screamed abuse at him and threatened at every hesitation to deliver him over to the guards again; but sometimes they would suddenly change their tune, call him comrade, appeal to him in the name of Ingsoc and Big Brother, and ask him sorrowfully whether even now he had not enough loyalty to the Party left to make him wish to undo the evil he had done." - p. 318
This is the way my mind works, I'm afraid.
"Is there somewhere or other a place, a world of solid objects, where the past is still happening?" - p. 324
Not anymore-- all the Time Turners got smashed in the Ministry of Magic in 1995.
"How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?" -p. 325 (and approximately eighty-seven other times)
Apparently, that's a very deep question in literary circles.
"He knew in advance what O'Brien would say: ... That the Party was the eternal guardian of the weak, a dedicated sect doing evil that good might come, sacrificing its own happiness to that of others." - p. 337
I don't have a video clip for this yet because it'll be in Deathly Hallows: Part Two. *stifled excitement spasm* But Grindelwald, the dark wizard from the first Wizarding World War-- the one prior to Voldemort that coincided with World War II-- had a slogan, and it was "For the Greater Good." The point is that he was a very evil wizard, but he persuaded himself and those who loved him that what he was doing was morally acceptable. That's also the definition of the principle of double effect again.
"We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness; only power, pure power." - p. 338
"There is no good and evil--only power and those too weak to seek it."
"We shall conquer [Eurasia and Eastasia] when it suits us. And if we did not, what difference would it make? We can shut them out of existence. Oceania is the world."
**Spoilers for The Hunger Games ahead**
The movie installment of The Hunger Games is still in the early stages, but in it, the world as we know it has essentially ended, and North America was divided into thirteen districts overseen but the infamous Capital. The thirteenth district was said to have rebelled and then promptly destroyed, and afterward, The Hunger Games were established as a punishment/entertainment for the remaining districts throughout the ages. However, somewhere down the line in the trilogy, Katniss realizes that District Thirteen does still sustain life, but it's being hushed up by the Capital because they don't want the other districts believing they can get away with rebellion.
"Do you understand that you are alone?" -p. 344
"Well if I were You-Know-Who, I'd want you to feel cut off from everyone else; because if it's just you alone, you're not as much of a threat." -Luna Lovegood, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Voldemort's plan is the same as O'Brien's, I think. Winston wasn't really alone.
"He was not bored; he had no desire for conversation or distraction. Merely to be alone, not to be beaten or questioned, to have enough to eat, and to be clean all over, was completely satisfying." - p. 349/350
That reminded me of Siddhartha, in which Siddhartha embarks on a quest for nirvana, which is the absence of desire, if I'm not mistaken. Winston sounds eerily as though he found it in that cell, which brings up an old quandary of mine. Is nirvana really a desirable state? I'm not questioning it with skepticism as my overriding feeling. In the state of nirvana, I'm given to believe that there is no real suffering and no real joy--just pure contentment. The reason we can feel joy is because we know that it's the opposite of suffering and vice versa.
On a similar note, what exactly is the difference between joy and suffering? It's nothing tangible. I'm just curious. I mean I know, in the vague sense that everyone can feel it, but... it baffles me a little that they can coexist, and we recognize the difference. I guess it's just a human thing. I don't know. If someone has an insight here, please share.
"They dono 'ow to treat a lady, do they?" She paused, patted her breast, and belched. "Pardon," she said, "I ain't meself, quite." - p. 305
She reminds me of this lady:
...from Wallace and Gromit.
"Inconceivable, inconceivable that one blow could cause such pain!" - p. 316
"He released Winston with a little push toward the guards. 'Room 101,' he said." -p. 356
That right there creates suspense. Earlier in the book, O'Brien's liiike, "You know what's in that room. Everyone does." That was a frustrating moment because I thought, "What about meeee, though? I don't know what's in there =|!" As it turns out, he tells us later, and then it's rats, which is dreadfully anticlimactic. (I know it's different for everybody, but still. Even the foreshadowing of that was weak.) Ah, but I digress. My point was that O'Brien finally said he was going to show us Room 101, and the reader's been wondering for a goodly many pages, now, what is in there, and then there's a section break, which is a structural technique of sorts. I don't know why authors do this. I suppose they intend for it to build suspense, but really.... We just have to turn the page. Actually, I just have to move my eyes approximately an inch-and-a-half further down the page. I did feel a little jolt of suspense, there, I guess, but I felt annoyed with myself about it afterward.
It's not like it's a new chapter of fanfiction, and you have to wait another who-knows-how-long to find out what happens next. That's called a cliffhanger, everyone, and I think they more or less died with Charles Dickens in terms of works of literary merit .
My title is dedicated to Bryan Cary and also Tito's mom. Shhhh....
"O'Brien was looking down at him speculatively. More than ever he had the air of a teacher taking pains with a wayward but promising child." -p. 324 (in my bojankity version)
That's a Homeric epithet! That is, it's a "compound adjective" (wayward but promising) "used with a person or thing" (child/Winston). P.S. I keep forgetting Winston's name, which shouldn't happen after that many pages.
Homeric epithets are used for characterization purposes. Orwell may use lots of physical descriptions in his work, but he also likes to give his audience a sense of the demeanor of various characters.
Thinking about Homeric epithets makes me think about The Iliad, which makes me think about Achilles, which makes me think about hurty tendons. Ergo, Homeric epithets hurt in an entirely imaginary but nonetheless uncomfortable way.
