Month: June 2013

In this essay I am going to be exploring the way in which monstrosity Is presented within the two books ‘The Tempest’ by William Shakespeare and ‘Frankenstein’ by Mary Shelley. Monstrosity is a thing that is outrageously evil or wrong. In The Tempest monstrosity is mainly explored through a character called Prospero (Ex Duke of Milan). Instead Prospero went to focus on magic and studied his books. Antonio (Prospero’s younger brother) steals the title of Duke of Milan from him and now Prospero is seeking revenge on him using his two slaves, Ariel and Caliban. Frankenstein is about a doctor called Victor Frankenstein and his search for power. After witnessing the power of lightning obliterate a tree, Victor had a spark of inspiration. This leads to Victor searching for power and trying to create life. He does this by obtaining body parts from dead people and attaching the body parts together. Eventually due to his knowledge of science he was able to reach his goal and bring the body to life. But he soon regrets this as he soon realises that he created a monster. Victor Frankenstein abandons the monster fearing what he created. The monster felt abandoned and decided to take his revenge by killing all of Victor’s loved ones.

Monstrosity is a thing which is outrageously evil or wrong. Revenge is the action of hurting or harming someone in return for an injury or wrong suffered at their hands. Both of these texts are very different but they are also similar as they explore the same theme of revenge even though they was influenced by different things. Frankenstein was influenced by multiple things, these include the time Mary Shelley went to spend at Lake Geneva in Switzerland, the reading of a collection of ghost stories, a vision, etc. But I believe that that the thing that inspired Mary Shelley the most to write Frankenstein was the romantic period.The Romantic period was an artistic movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, it emphasized intense emotion such as apprehension, horror, terror and awe. It was displayed in visual arts, music and literature. The tempest was written by William Shakespeare and influenced an English fleet crashing into an island due to a tempest. At the time everybody knew about this and it was the root of conversation. Shakespeare was majorly influenced by this and wrote the play.

In chapter 2 of Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein is a spectator to the injurious power of nature itself. He witnesses the wrath of the monstrosity lightning take down a tree during a dreadful storm. Victor Frankenstein was astonished by the power of lightening and wanted to harness it. “The thunder burst at once with frightful loudness from various quarters of heavens. I remained, while the storm lasted, watching its progress with curiosity and delight”, this experience inspired Victor in his thirst for knowledge. He was then inspired to use the monstrous power of electricity to create life instead of destroying life. “To an eager to learn…possessed attraction for me”. Victor Frankenstein now set his goal on creating life and to disobey the laws of nature. He wants to be able to defy the laws of physics and play God by creating life. “The mysterious soul of man that occupied me”. Victor believes that a “mysterious soul” had power over him because he did not know why Mary Shelley suggests that Victor wants power over nature. He wants to be able to control the link between life and death which is naturally evil and morally wrong. At this time, Shelley may have been influenced to write about electricity creating life. The Aldini experiment is when a doctor called Giovanni Aldini managed to get hold of a dead body and uses electricity to make certain parts of the dead body move. To do this he used galvanism, he made muscles move with electric currents. Shelley heard about this and decided to use that idea to bring Frankenstein to life (using electric currents).  

Dear Ms Samantha Taylor,

I have read your view on teenagers and their interactions in the digital world however I strongly disagree. As a teenager myself I believe we don’t all depend on social media as you say we do. In your article your two main points were how teenagers are unable to socialise face to face and how teenagers leave themselves prone to attack over social networking. Although I believe this to some extent I am writing this letter in response to your article and hopefully you will be able to see things from my point of view.

“All those countless hours glued to Facebook has turned teenagers into screen – enslaved social inadequates”. I believe that this description of us is cruel and harsh because even though we might text a lot on our mobile phones or spend hours on social media, we are still able to have physical relationships with others around us. This view is supported by Shira Lee Katz who stated that “Teenagers feel that social media has a more positive than negative impact on their social and emotional lives. It helps their friendships, makes them more outgoing and boosts their confidence.” A research study consisting of more than 1000 teenagers (13-17 year olds) showed that 28% believed that’s social networking made them feel more outgoing vs the 5% who made them feel less so. It also showed that 29% believed that it made them feel less shy vs the 3% who believed it made them feel more introverted. When it comes to relationships with friends, more than half (52%) of teens said social media has made them better versus just 4% who said it has negatively affected those relationships. However I do agree with the fact that us teenagers use social networking religiously; that can be seen as a positive as well as a negative because it will mean that we would be able to meet new people and expand our friendship groups. If anything I believe that teenagers spending a lot of time enables them to strengthen their more important relationships instead of weakening them as they will be able to keep in touch and speak even when they aren’t together.

In your article you mentioned that social media was creating a “uniquely shallow and trivial culture”. Shallow is defined as being superficial and not capable of serious thoughts. Trivial is defined as being of little value or importance. From these definitions it can be seen that you perceived teenagers relationships to not be deep and meaningful also that the relationships that social media is creating is of little value. I disagree with this because if you are far away from someone social media helps you stay connected with them meaning your relationship won’t weaken.and this is supported by a research that was conducted with teens whereby nearly 9/10 teens say social networking helps them keep in touch with friends they can’t see regularly. About half of all teens believe that it helps them stay more connected with  family and friends. 57% of teens have said that it has connected them with new people with whom they share a common interest or hobby. On a whole although it can be seen that teenagers can spend an endless amount of time on social media, the overall impact of social networking outweighs the negatives impacts.

Empathy is the capacity to share or recognise emotions experienced by another person or fictional being. In your article you said some parents fear that giving their teenagers mobile phones would stop them from developing empathy. Others believe that giving teenagers mobile phones could lead to the raising of a hedonistic generation who live only in the thrill of the computer generated moment and are in distinct danger of detaching themselves from what the rest of the world would consider the real world. By this I mean that teenagers who enjoy the thrill created on social media would

I believe that these statements are incorrect as social networking is part of the real world and in fact it actually benefits the real world majorly also social networking actually improves empathy to some extent as u can tell the way someone is feeling by the way they text or by the emoticon they send. But equally you can say that a teenager wouldn’t be able to tell how someone is feeling by their facial expression but I believe that’s not true as this is a skill you grow up with and won’t be able to lose no matter how much you text.

“Digital communication is not just prevalent in teenagers lives but it is teenagers lives”, “Social networking sites are changing teenagers brains”.

As you know already there are negatives to social networking such as cyber bullying and the underdevelopment of relationships, however research has shown that there are many positives such as teens being able to stay  touch with relatives e.g. cousins or siblings in a different country or friends who have changed school also it has allowed teens to meet with people who have the same interests as them which builds on their confidence.In my opinion I believe the pros outweigh the cons and i hope you can see this too.

Yours Sincerely,

David Ndanema