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I am normally a huge fan of Kenneth Branagh’s work, but “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein,” Branagh ventured quite far from the plot of the novel. Knowing his Shakespeare renditions, I was shocked at how Hollywood he let this movie become. The changes from the novel to the movie severely changed the tone of the movie from that of the book. The movie made Victor seem like a complete madman and the creature a violent, bloodthirsty monster. The action of the novel, however, conveyed some very different messages.

The tone of the movie is different from the moment the movie is turned on. The first character we see is Walton, the overambitious explorer. He seems like a man with no concerns of anyone else, only in bettering his career and science. Walton in the novel was also overly ambitious and wanted to continue to greatness, but he also admitted to feelings of loneliness and want of the friendship and companionship of others. When the Walton in the novel meets Victor, he finds him to be a great companion, but in the movie, Walton views Victor as a madman. The death of Victor’s mother in the novel has her dying of scarlet fever, knowing far in advance that death was imminent. The movie dramatizes a death in a lightning storm in which Victor’s father, the doctor, tries his best to save his wife during a bloody childbirth. This brings an early look at the way this movie is melodramatic throughout.

The scene in which “Steve” is created in the movie is extensive, showing a great amount of machinery and power used to electrify the creature to life. The novel leaves most of the creation up to the imagination; making the reader create whatever scary scheme they can thing of to create this terrible monster. Fear of this unknown really adds to the horror of the novel in comparison to that of the movie. I was also very disturbed by the way all of the creature’s murders took place. The murder of the little boy seemed fairly close to the representation in the book, but the town in a craze murdered Justine without a trial. Instead, in the novel she received a trial in which she was unanimously found guilty and forced to confess her sins.

After this, the movie took an entirely different spin on the murders to come. The creature claimed her wanted a female creature of his own to marry, not just to have as a companion as in the novel. Steve watched Frankenstein have his wedding, then it was implied that Steve finished off Frankenstein’s dieing father. Then he rips out of the heart of Elizabeth on Victor’s wedding night. The novel has Victor dieing of a broken heart after hearing of Elizabeth’s death by strangling. One of the most freakish divergences in the movie occurred when Victor desperately tries to revive Elizabeth by taking her head off and placing it on Justine’s body. The Elizabeth creature he created is torn between the love and companionship of Steve and Victor, and ends up killing herself. The novel has Victor dispose of his woman creature’s body parts in disgust before Elizabeth dies. This movie represents Victor as a true madman who has still to discover the limits of science and “playing God.” Also, the movie leaves out Victor’s time in a mental institution after suspicion that he killed his best friend Clerval. I suppose Branagh felt Victor’s recreation of Elizabeth would better represent the madness of Victor, but this did take Victor’s progress in the novel. In the novel he had learned that his science was not helping society and was absolutely disgusted by it, but in the movie he brashly turns back to his science. Victor remains a true madman throughout the movie, without true character development as in the novel, and Steve is a creature you want to sympathize with until you see his murders.

I wish Branagh had stayed closer to the novel so that when he claimed it was “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein,” it honestly was. However, the movie was so far off of the basis of the novel that the focus was taken off of nature versus nurture and turned to ambition versus reserve. The differences in the film and novel create too great of a difference in tone and theme for the film to claim is comes directly from the novel.

We are all composers in our world. Maya Angelou stressed the importance of the impact we can all make on our society. Each individual makes a resounding difference in the world, despite the enormity of it. We may seem overwhelmed by the 6 billion people that live on earth, but it is not just the president or a singer that can make a huge impact on society. Instead it tends to be the people around us directly who can truly have a great affect on our lives. Maya encourages us to change the world be simply making our actions positive.

Maya spoke of her crippled Uncle Willy whom she and her brother lived with. Uncle Willy had a paralyzed left side and was too embarrassed to leave his small town. Yet Uncle Willy was a passionate man of learning, who ensured Maya and her brother had a great want for knowledge. But when an unknown man came to Uncle Willy’s funeral, stating that the loss of Willy was a great lose to the world, Maya was somewhat shocked. Uncle Willy was a great man, but how had his impact spread? The visited turned out to be one of the first African-American mayors, the mayor of Little Rock, Arkansas. Just like with Maya and her brother, Uncle Willy had the chance to train this boy as a worker in his store. He made the boy have a thirst for learning, and the mayor attributed much of his great success to Willy. Maya described this moment as a true moment of awakening. She now realized how wonderfully just one person can change the world. Uncle Willy had many people at his funeral, all affected by the love and support of one man.

We are all composers in each other’s lives. Maya challenges us to be positive composers. She described a point when she broke up a fight. She spoke with one of the men about how he is loved and supported. She told him that he was the best we had and we have to be happy to be here and be alive. This speech greatly affected the man. He began crying and stopped fighting. Soon after, Maya found out she had broke up a fight and talked to Tupac Shakur, not that she knew him at the time. Her incredible strength to make it through her struggles and become a huge inspiration to others really struck me. She apologized for her generation. She said that they had left the world still full of hatred and murders, just as her generation had entered it. Maya exclaimed that she wished she had been able to do more sooner. We must follow her example now. We have to be the generation that changes the world.

Gandhi famously said, “We must be the change we wish to see in the world.” Maya Angelou truly exhibited a person who has done just this in her life. We can all make a difference in the world. Our everyday life composes lives of others, just as other composers affect our lives. If we all affect each other in a positive way, the ripple effect would be outstanding. Right now we have all the possibilities of the world in front of us. What great things will we compose as a generation? How will we change the world?

I have watched my fair share of Frankenstein renditions, my favorite being Young Frankenstein, but I had no idea how entirely different the book was from movies and shows that portray this “monster.” Mary Shelley’s commentary on the science of the time proved to be classic, as her work is revisited, but I found the way she expressed her view in the book more interesting than any interpretation of it. Our discussion in class made me realize what a visionary she was by practically creating a new genre within fiction, science fiction. She was one of the first to fully explore the effects science going wrong or too far in novel form.
Mary Shelley introduces two avid scientists with an intense drive to explore new areas. The first is Captain Walton, a ship captain determined to reach the North Pole. He is looking for fame and to be a man in the history books. His men die along the way, but he shows no signs of stopping because his ambition has blinded him from the reality of the danger. Not unlike Walton, Victor Frankenstein is a young man who longed to create a human being. He was on the path to be a doctor like his father, but with much more suspicious aspirations. Victor studied the ancient medical related magical arts, looking up to these medical developments that he should be skeptical of instead of embracing. But ambitions also blind him to the dangers of his invention. Shelley portrays men that would be great men if they did not let their aspirations lead them into imminent peril.
On another interesting note, both these men came from loving families, who continued writing despite distance, physically and mentally, from these men. We see Walton, a captain far away from home writing to his sister about his mission showing no signs of giving up. Walton writes, “success shall crown my endeavors,” despite the deaths that were resulting due to the journey. Even though he was desperately focused on being successful, he also wrote his sister of the complete loneliness he felt; that was until the arrival of Victor. Victor was a man very much like him, educated and ambitious, who at that point had seen his ambitions fail. Shelley explores the lonely scientist as she describes a young Victor, full of life and love, whose work completely took over his life. Victor loses contact with his family and friends and stays up all hours to work on his creation. This extreme need to succeed is driven by Victor’s hubris, which just like many other tragic heroes, is his downfall. His flaw of extreme ambition left him lonely and guilt-ridden. Shelley shows these men as examples of great, loving men who, because of taking science too far, end up ruining their own lives and the lives of people they love.
Science is a great tool; one that Shelley mentions helps save lives with Victor’s father, a doctor, as an example. But science must also have its limits. Victor’s father cannot save his mother in childbirth because of human limitation. When men try to go beyond their limit, as Victor and Walton do, death seems to follow. Shelley writes this novel as a great warning to knowing when science or other such things are going too far.

Thomas Hill’s quote, “Mathematics and Poetry are… the utterance of the same power of imagination, only that in the one case it is addressed to the head, in the other, to the heart,” is a quote I feel I can relate to. There is a great amount of imagination needed to be leader in any field, be it art, music, psychology, science, or even math. When I sit down to work on my math homework though, I feel as though the logical side of my brain aids most of my mathematical work and by using that knowledge I will eventually be able to sort out the answer. However, when I approach artistic endeavor, I find it very difficult to separate the logical and artistic knowledge. Now do not get me wrong, logic is still an important element to art, but my writing comes out unimaginative, dry, and in my opinion, uninteresting. The times I put a great effort into utilizing my creative side, with great strain and effort, I feel my writing is substantially more interesting. But to bring out the creative side, Hill refers to relying on your heart instead of your head. This is where my problem comes because as a logical thinker, I believe in finding a logic way through any problem, and letting go to listen to my heart takes a great deal of effort, and yet the more effort I put in the harder it is. It is a vicious cycle. The poetry that P.B. Shelley writes of describes the beauty of the world through a wonderful expression of thought. He also describes how a person cannot one day sit down and decide to be a writer. Writing, in my experience, tends to be something you let flow through you versus a job that you can sort through on a day-to-day basis. The stroke of imagination writers experience tends not to come through vigorous thought because while a poet is thinking constantly of how to be imaginative, he may miss the leap of the heart or moment of beauty that gives him true inspiration. Using the power of feelings instead of pure logic tends to create the most brilliant poetry, but the logically side of the brain, with a little assistance from the creative side in needed to solve a difficult math problem.

So this was one of those weeks where I realized how important humor is in our lives. This made Don Juan a great read for me because Lord Byron's intention was to make his readers laugh. I remember watching Don Juan de Marco just last year during my Johnny Depp fascination, but when I saw the movie, I definitely did not realize it was based on a work of Byron's. Now that I am reading Byron I can understand the appeal of the strange, and also burlesque story to an actor like Depp. Depp is known for his unconventional choices when it comes what movies he acts in, and Don Juan de Marco is no exception.
Don Juan starts out as a young, attractive boy who does not have a father figure. His mother tries to bring him up well, and seeing him as needing spiritual guidance, hires a fairly young, very beautiful, devout woman to tutor him. This happens to be a huge mistake. Ironically Don Juan falls in love with his spiritual tutor, Donna Julia, and his tutor tries to resist her feelings for him. She is married, but unhappily, to an older man who is almost never around. Don Juan is able to seduce her, even though she claims that she “will never consent” the entire time. She is torn between the feelings in her heart and doing what she is taught is moral and faithful. Donna Julia gives into Don Juan’s temptation and follows her heart. For quite some time they are together, but Don Alfonso, her husband, comes home in a jealous rage after hearing about her extramarital relations. Don Juan is hidden away in a tiny cabinet that Alfonso happens not to check despite checking through every nook of the room. When he is finally discovered, he flees for his life, knowing he will probably ever see his love Donna Julia again. Little does he realize he will meet many more women who he feels throw themselves at him, almost as if he is the victim. It is very ironic when he is in fact the male who happily has relations with many women.
Lord Byron delves into the story of a man who may share many traits with himself. Byron was notorious for his own extramarital relationships, and perhaps this story was a humorous approach to some of the events in his own life. His witty, and somewhat inappropriate attacks lighten up the seriousness of life, and also make a point. Maybe the greater point Byron was trying to get at with this story was that no matter what happens in life, you will be able to get through it if you step back and laugh at your own mistakes.

After hearing about the reviews of Pandaemonium, I really would like to get a chance to watch it. Does anyone in our class know where the copy is? Also as a prelude, I am in a terrible mood after our awful embarrassment against Clemson.

It’s difficult to imagine a time when the definition of addition was not clear-cut. Coleridge was a brilliant man, but he did not understand the true dangers of the drug he began using laudanum (the popular form of opium of that time) to ease his rheumatic pains. When he was addicted, he did not think to wonder why his body yearned for more of the drug, but thought he was simply weak willed and could not resist it psychologically. From his poems, though, we can witness the terrible effects the drug had on him.

‘Frost at Midnight’ represents a poem with a complete thought, unlike many of his poems. This poem is Coleridge speaking to his son, speaking of the wonderful childhood his son shall have. In a more Wordsworth style poem, Coleridge describes the sublime nature that his son will get to experience, unlike his own childhood in the city. He speaks of how this sublime nature will teach his son about God because of the miraculous environment with “mountain crags” and the “sky and stars.” Coleridge is able to complete this poem and within it express his belief in the sublime and its deeper meaning.

‘Kubla Khan,’ however, is a jumble of information that I found incredibly hard to follow. When writing this poem, there is speculation that Coleridge was on an opium high, or at least writing in that mindset. This jumble of ideas does not end, and is difficult to truly discern where it begins. Each line must be read over slowly several times to even begin to decide its meaning, of which there are multiple speculations on. For example I never would have thought of his writing coming our like a fountain with “Huge fragments” without our discussion in class. Coleridge uses a great deal of ambiguous metaphors in his high state, which leaves a mysterious air to this poetry.

In ‘The Pains of Sleep,’ Coleridge opens up about his addiction and the effect it has on him, both physically and psychologically. He experiences a period of weakness where he feels unable to do anything. Although he knows that he is strong and wise, but the drug has taken his abilities away from him. His uncontrolled thoughts and actions give him “life-stifling fear, [and] soul-stifling shame.” The drugs not only make him see images, think and act uncontrollably, and interrupt his sleep, but also leave him full of shame, doubt, and fear.

Although Coleridge suffered a great deal for his drug use, I wonder if poetry would be different without ‘Kubla Khan’ or the ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner.’ These poems were written as fragments with a great deal of metaphor that could be interpreted multiple ways. These works were very different from his, at one point, friend, Wordsworth, who wrote with more direct symbols and published only polished works. Coleridge loosened the definition of a publishable poem and expanded our interpretations of his poetry.

The 'Rime of the Ancient Mariner' may be a work that Coleridge claimed did not have spiritual connotations, but the comparison between the bible and Coleridge's poem cannot be overlooked. The mariner is a man who has done so much wrong that instead of being killed and going to hell, he is doomed to walk on the earth for eternity, only feeling a burden come off of his back when he shares his story. Some people claim they would love to live forever, but this man shows us why we would never want to do that. On his ship, the albatross was a benevolent bird that the crew believed gave them good luck. In a sense, this bird would represent Jesus as he was seen as a benevolent leader to many. The ancient mariner, for no clear reason decides to shoot the bird and hang the symbolic bird around his neck. This relates to the story of the wandering Jew, a man who did not believe in what Jesus said and did not help his cause. In both cases, the men were sentenced to an endless life, full of pain, in which they would constantly want to die, but never could. Why would Coleridge be trying to convey this message of living righteously? Coleridge liked to talk about the supernatural, so he might be trying to convey the supernatural powers of a higher being. This higher being has the ability to both save and punish people, just as Christianity views God and his power.