Today’s Blogger:
(Who is typing today?)
Today’s Facilitator:
(Who is leading the discussion today?)
Focus Questions:
(Discuss the questions below. Record your discussion for all three of the following questions.)
1. Ellis believes that "both Justine and Elizabeth have learned well the lessons of submissiveness and devotion to others that Caroline Beaufort epitomized for them. Their model behavior similarly lowers their resistance to the forces that kill them" (6). What do you think Ellis means by this? Do you agree or disagree? What does this say about society? About gender roles?
2. Ellis asserts that "[The De Laceys] are the only family that perpetuates itself into the next generation, largely because no one in it is striving for the kind of personal immortality that propels Victor and Walton out of their respective domestic Edens" (9). What does Ellis mean? Compare the De Lacey family to the Frankenstein family and the Walton family.
3. Discuss your annotations about the article. Record your discussion for at least one major point in which you agree/disagree, make connections, ask questions, etc.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Todays Blogger: Liesel Reussner
Todays Facilitator: Patrick Carttar
Focus Questions:
1. We agree with Ellis because Elizabeth and Justine are so weak that they cannot defend themselves in the face of their death. This is saying that society is making women have a lower status so they cannot stand up for themselves. Women are not as strong or important as men.
2. Ellis means that the De Laceys are the only family that keeps their children close to home and cared for. The Frankenstein family lets Victor travel away to be on his own. The Walton family also respects their son go on a voyage on his own. These families are different from the De Laceys because the other families do not care as much, and just go with the normal.
3. In the article, the author was either very sexist or saying that Mary Shelley was. The author also said that "Frankenstein" was not exactly a family oriented book. The article was a little hard to follow, and it was very long with much information, which also made it hard to read. Overall, we agree with some points and disagree with many others.
Blogger: Nate
Facilitator: Elijah
Focus questions:
1. If you love someone you will lower your resistance and end up getting hurt. Elizabeth and Justine were both submissive and devoted to the ones that they loved, which lowered their resistance, and they both ended up dead. Agree. Society expects women to be put everyone above themselves and some times that affects the women, and oppress them into submission. Women run the house but the men are in charge.
2. Curiosty killed the cat. Its like Prometheus stealing the fire and creating humans and Victor creating the monster both of which are against "God's will." The De Laceys are not striving to be unique, they are just doing nothing to set them apart.
3. Ellis discusses the importance of gender roles in Frankenstein. And she comments on the indignity of society's repression of women, giving the so much responsibility, it sets them up for self-destruction.
Today’s Blogger:
Nolan “Fancypants” Frank
Today’s Facilitator:
Jeff “Funkystuff” Ahle
Focus Questions:
1. Ellis believes that "both Justine and Elizabeth have learned well the lessons of submissiveness and devotion to others that Caroline Beaufort epitomized for them. Their model behavior similarly lowers their resistance to the forces that kill them" (6). What do you think Ellis means by this? Do you agree or disagree? What does this say about society? About gender roles?
They found out what happens if you’re simply subjective. They didn’t really think for themselves. They both ended up dead doing what Victor told them to do, bringing into question again the true guilt for the murders, Frankenstein himself, or the monster. Yes, our group does agree, and it shows the sexism that previously existed in society, the “damsel in distress” stereotype.
2. Ellis asserts that "[The De Laceys] are the only family that perpetuates itself into the next generation, largely because no one in it is striving for the kind of personal immortality that propels Victor and Walton out of their respective domestic Edens" (9). What does Ellis mean? Compare the De Lacey family to the Frankenstein family and the Walton family.
The De Laceys are a more down to earth kind of family with more realistic goals. They see life not in a quantitative way, or measured by your number of achievements, but in a qualitative way, believing that the way you live your life is what makes a difference. This mindset is what separates the De Laceys from the Frankenstein family and the Walton family.
3. Discuss you annotations about the article. Record you discussion for at least one major point in which you agree/disagree, make connections, ask questions, etc.
We thought this article was written in an interesting style, some of the lines requiring a second read to comprehend its meaning. For the most part, we agreed with what Ellis was saying about the characters and their comparisons and ties to other characters.
Typer: Amy
1. Ellis means that they were too sheltered by love and care to know of the evils coming to condemn them. Everyone in the group agrees with this. This shows society as overprotective, making people unprepared for the bad situations that they have to face later on in life. In the time period of the book, the male sex is prepared for any tragedies coming to them, while women are surprised and usually face more dangerous consequences.
2. This means that the De Laceys are the only people who will have another generation, while the other two families do not have spouses to carry on their families. In the Walton family, there is no known mother, Walton’s sister raised him, and he has no friends. The only one that is continuing the family is the sister. The De Lacey family is more supportive of each other than any of the other families. When one of the children of the blind man forces them into poverty, the family follows, involuntary, but also because they are family and want to help each other. The Walton family is the most protective of all the families. The mother sheltered her children from the evils of the world, making it impossible for them to learn from mistakes. If she had let them learn openly, Victor would have been more ethical and had not created the monster. Many negative events could have been avoided.
3. We had a problem with how the term bourgeois was used in the article. The writer used the term to describe all of the families in Frankenstein. Sure the De Lacey family was in poverty, and they fit the definition of the bourgeois, but if you look at the families of Walton’s and Victor’s, they were not poor. Walton received a great sum of inheritance, while Victor’s family was rich, since his father was involved with the Geneva’s government. We were thoroughly annoyed with how this term was used.
Facilitator: Annie Libeer
Blogger: Will Libeer
Questions
1. Ellis means that the women are “weaker” and used to being submissive to men. We agree that Justine and Elizabeth’s lessons of submissiveness lower their resistance to the forces that kill them. In the story Justine lets herself be executed because she thinks it will be easier if she does not try to stand up for herself. Elizabeth is killed easily by the monster because she does not put up much of a fight. Ellis tries to show that women are perceived to play a less active role than men in society.
2. The De Laceys live because they lead boring lives in their forest. They do not strive to achieve anything epic or because they want to change the world. After they were banished they just accepted their lower style of life. Victor and Walton both are trying to make an imprint in history and they take risks to do something no one has ever done before. In the De Lacey family everything is fair between the males and females. In the Frankenstein family the women don’t seem to have as much power or say as the males do.
3. We don’t think that sexual discrimination plays quite as important of a role in the story as Ellis does. The story focuses on Frankenstein and his monster with people dying due to the consequences of Victor’s actions. The women don’t die because they are women and are submissive. They die because the monster kills them, and anyone would have died in their position.
Post a Comment